T. Belman. This the point I was making yesterday. The religious parties have become an albatross around the neck of Likud. The majority of Israeli Jews want a new social contract. I really hope that it is acheived.
As secular voters complain of ‘overboard’ religious coercion, it appears Netanyahu’s iron-clad alliance with ultra-Orthodox parties has cost him politically
Ultra Orthodox Jews attend an election campaign rally for the United Torah Judaism party in central Jerusalem on September 15 2019. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
AP — Yamit Dulberg considers herself a traditional Israeli woman with right-wing views who would usually vote for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. But this week the 37-year-old mother of two cast her ballot for his main rival, in part because she’s sick of his ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies and their disproportionate power over daily life.
“Something has changed in recent years, the coercion has gone overboard,” said Dulberg, who runs a small family-run jewelry business. “We are a Jewish state, but not a religious state.”
In Israel’s secular heartland, religion played a central role in this week’s deadlocked election. For many, a vote for the opposition was driven by a desire to keep rabbis out of their schools, businesses and love lives.
With the Palestinian issue almost completely off the agenda, and a general consensus about security challenges, matters of religion and state took center stage.
Veteran firebrand Avigdor Liberman positioned himself as the primary power broker by making these matters his signature cause and defecting from Netanyahu’s camp over what he called its capitulation to the ultra-Orthodox. He now insists on a secular unity government to end their outsized influence, and neither Netanyahu nor former military chief Benny Gantz, whose centrist Blue and White party appears to have won the most seats, seems capable of forming a coalition government without him.
Ultra-Orthodox parties only represent about a tenth of the population, but larger parties have historically relied on them to assemble majority coalitions. That means the ultra-Orthodox are often in position to bring down the government if their demands are not met.
They use their political clout to sustain a segregated lifestyle centered on study and prayer, and raising large families on taxpayer-funded handouts. They also run a network of schools that often teach little math or English, and have blocked legislation to require their community to serve in the military, like most other Jewish citizens.
The ultra-Orthodox insist their young men serve the nation through prayer and study, thus preserving Jewish learning and heritage, and by maintaining a pious way of life that has kept the Jewish faith alive through centuries of persecution. They say they are unfairly targeted by the secular majority.
Aryeh Deri, whose ultra-Orthodox Shas party grew in power, accused Liberman and others of inciting against his community.
“You’ll tell us what to teach in our schools?” he told the Ynet news site. “I wish upon his voters that they get some of our education and learn a little courtesy.”
Experts say the cloistered communities of the ultra-Orthodox are being left behind by modern society, creating a culture of poverty that threatens the future well-being of the entire country.
Dulberg said she was particularly troubled that Israelis could not have civil marriages and that gay couples have such difficulty marrying and raising children.
“This country is split down the middle and no one should force anything on the other,” she said. “Just like I wouldn’t drive a car through their neighborhood on the Sabbath and park in front of their synagogue, they should stay out of my life.”
She said her husband, who was a leftist, even considered voting for the nationalist Liberman because of the ultra-Orthodox. But eventually they both settled on Gantz’s Blue and White party, which has also promised to advocate for the secular.
“My opinions are right-wing, but that’s not the issue anymore,” she said, seated outside City Hall in Kfar Saba, a midsized city northeast of Tel Aviv. “The world has changed but religion hasn’t. That’s a problem.”
Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Jewish People Policy Institute in Israel, said Liberman’s rise showed that many right-wing Israelis are tired of their elected officials being so tightly bound to the ultra-religious.
“There is a large group of regular Israelis in the middle,” he wrote in the Maariv daily. “This is what they said for the second consecutive time: we want normalcy.”
In Kfar Saba, municipal elections have centered on issues such as budgets for religious authorities, whether shops should stay open on the Sabbath and how much faith should be discussed in schools.
On Tuesday, Blue and White earned 46% of the city’s vote — 20% more than its national figure and twice as much as Likud. They were followed by the left-wing Labor and Democratic Union parties — both of which fared far worse nationally — and then Liberman, according the figures released by the Central Election Committee.
“The ultra-Orthodox use religion for their own purposes,” said 77-year-old retiree Eli Casspi, who voted Labor. “They can live their lives and let me live mine. But they don’t. They force it on me.”
Yohanan Plesner, president of the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute think tank, said Netanyahu’s iron-clad alliance with the ultra-Orthodox was starting to cost him politically.
“This time the agenda was different,” he said. “Israelis voted more on religion and state as a result of the political growth and appetite of the ultra-Orthodox parties.”
The ultra-Orthodox interpretations of piety have also created a rift with the Jewish Diaspora, alienating many who belong to the more liberal Reform and Conservative streams, which account for the majority of American Jews. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have repeatedly questioned their faith and scuttled plans to upgrade a mixed-gender prayer area at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
Julietta Tolchinsky, a 47-year-old mother of three who emigrated from Argentina, said she feared religious influence creeping into the school curriculum.
“In the Diaspora, I felt Jewish. Here I feel Israeli, not Jewish, because they’ve taken Judaism for themselves,” she said. “In Israel being Jewish means being religious. To me, being Jewish means being open-minded, progressive and tolerant.”
@ Sebastien Zorn:Your analysis has one flaw.
You are making the assumption that Liberman is first about the good of the country and not about power.
The good of the country first would demand the things you are writing about.
Politics is war without the bullets. Liberman would have won the last battle if the Haredi had given in just the draft law he had written with the IDF in the last elections. The Haredi refused to give in and Bibi did not twist their arms. Hence the second election.
Liberman realized that his points or proposed laws getting the Haredi off the rest of the Israelis backs is popular and he can exploit it for more political power. If he backs off now he loses the battle and is done for politically.
For your last point separately that it would be better to go to elections a third time. Not sure about that for several reasons. One the country is being ripped apart by all the negative political activity. People are really sick of it. Also in the short run Yamina has separated again and Rabbi Peretz and his wife want the power of the top and are trying throw shade on Shaked. Others say the party would not have made it past the thresh hold given all the obstacles it faced in the election without Shaked. Also Smotrich is popular with a narrow group of voters but to most he seems like he is out of control and radical (e.g. talking about running the country like during Biblical days).
Also the Likud might get punished even worse by the voters if there is a third election. The certainly will be a mass blame game showing up in any further elections. What will happen with Bibi’s cases if he gets charged that will hurt. If his lawyer’s find new evidence that kills the cases or delays significantly maybe that helps.
Bye the way Liberman could care less about Yamina. He gets along Bennett and Shaked but not all of the others because some are as religious as the Haredim. In actuality there are religious Zionists that are Haredim. They are called the Hardal and more strict in religious practices than the regular Modern Orthodox who are the knitted kippa wearers, Religious Zionists.
I sympathize with LIeberman on secularization, in the long run, but is now the time to resolve these issues which date from the founding of the state? Aren’t the most important things that need to be done to enable Shaked to finish reversing Aharon Barak’s legal revolution, restoring the court to it’s proper place, and to begin applying Israeli civil law to the Jewish communities of Yesha, at a minimum? Haven’t Ganz and Lapid proven themselves to be much worse than Bibi in every way? Wouldn’t it be preferable for it to go for a third round of elections and to hope that Yamina gets more votes?
A-G TO RIVLIN: NETANYAHU CAN FORM GOVERNMENT DESPITE LEGAL SITUATION
On hearing that the Joint List has backed B&W, Netanyahu said,
Yaalon says during meeting with Rivlin all Zionist Parties would be welcome in the government. Meaning exclusion of Arab parties.
Smotrich hit the nail on the head in this comment in Arutz Sheva:
@ Adam Dalgliesh:I agree that UTJ & Shas will NOT agree to Liberman’s demands as listed. I have said so at least twice. Including in the comment right above yours.
You are correct also that virtually no one agrees with you that the Joint List will sit in the government. Actually Smotrich is voicing this for effect he does not believe it either. Bibi says it also for effect. He says it is me or the Arabs. I actually think it will be neither probably and not Haredim either.
@ Bear Klein: There is no way that the haredi parties will agree to Leiberman’s demands, because he has demanded that they repudiate all of the values, power and priveleges that they hold sacred. For example, he demands that they accept civil marriage, which would eliminate their main source of power, and agree to abolish all draft deferments for religious students.Leiberman has committed himself too completely to his anti religious, secularist agenda to back down on these demands. The religious parties may agree to serve in a Gantz government if it excludes Leiberman and does not make any demands on them. But Lapid agrees with Leiberman about some of these demands, and in any case Gantz is too indebted to Leiberman to deny him a place in his government.
However, all this is a side issue compared to the inclusion of PLO-Hamas representives in the government. That will destroy Israel. No one other than myself and Smotrich seems to grasp this.
@ Ted Belman:I am saying that UTJ & Shas will NOT agree to all of Liberman’s demands. They WILL NOT agree to Shabbat desecration such infrastructure projects on Shabbat. They will NOT agree to expand transportation on Shabbat. They will not agree to Civil Marriage.
So if that means they are in the opposition that is what will do as much as they do not want to be. When all they had to agree to what was the draft law they should have done it. It was weak anyway and they thought Liberman would cave but instead now he has a long tist of demands. I am not sure they would agree to the Supermarkets Law Liberman wants in which local mayors’s would decide if Supermarkets can be open Shabbat plus local transportation on Shabbat.
He has other demands also.
@ Bear Klein:
Are you saying that UTJ and Shas would get a better deal from B&W or would prefer to be in opposition. rather than to cut a deal with Liberman and Likud?
Julietta Tolchinsky, a 47-year-old mother of three who emigrated from Argentina, said she feared religious influence creeping into the school curriculum.
“In the Diaspora, I felt Jewish. Here I feel Israeli, not Jewish, because they’ve taken Judaism for themselves,” she said. “In Israel being Jewish means being religious. To me, being Jewish means being open-minded, progressive and tolerant.”
This is the essence of assimilation. Julietta ‘s grandchildren will not be Jewish.
Bibi could have behaved as though the number 1 problem was the Palestinians and the public would have voted on that. Instead by solving the Palestinian problem (though not really solved until the annexation is finished and E1 is Israel) the public went on to their next agenda item. No good deed goes unpunished…
Except the Haredi parties would never agree to civil marriages, nor would some of the people in Yamina.
Which is why Bibi’s electioneering was all wrong. Instead of trying to cull votes from his allies, the Yamina party, he should have taken a major step to the left and tried to keep the votes that were leaving him and heading to Blue and White as well as stealing a few of their mandates. Instead of promising to annex parts of the territories he should have promised civil marriages and more rights for the gay population. If he had to drop these two in order to form a coalition no one would have held him to them. But by then he would have 35 seats with Yamina getting 20 mandates. The Haredi parties would have pushed him past the finish line with room to spare.
Ted said
It needs to happen I concur with you Ted.
Since the UTJ/Shas will not agree to the demands Liberman is making which by the way is more or less the same things’ Lapid is championing there is a way out for the Likud.
Bibi only survives if UTJ/Shas cave in to Liberman’s demands (which very likely they will NOT) and he has to have his whole block unite with an another party. So if Bibi is tasked to form a coalition he will very likely fail.
If Gantz of the Blue/White gets’ tasked by Rivlin to form a coalition and they insist the Likud replace Bibi and the Likud refuses it will fail likely.
Option 3: President Rivlin in lieu of calling for elections after two tries for coalition formation has the legal right to task any MK to try and form a coalition.
He then calls on Gideon Saar to be Prime Minister who creates a coalition unity coalition with the: Blue/White, Likud, Liberman, 3 New Right Members (Shaked, Bennett, + one more) = equals a possible coalition of 75. So even if a few Likud Members decide not to go along this there will be a large Zionist unity government. This is even without taking Labor (Peretz and Orly Levy).
Legislation to the effect Liberman and more than half the population want would get enacted. Yes, many loyal voters of Netenyahu would not be in favor but most probably would go along because a third election would not be needed.
Saar would be Prime Minister and not Gantz.
David Melech’s type of remark is juvenile. Any number of Jews keep kashrut and say prayers but find the Haredi gouging of public funds to avoid military service, work and taxes to be utterly reprehensible.
The French Monarchy fell on a debt of a mere 60% of GDP because the nobility would not pay taxes. If the Haredi continue in their privilege which is neither holy nor democratic nor religious they will create a situation in which everybody who can find a job abroad might well go. Israel will then perish out of fundamentalism before Arab Moslem fundamentalists who will then perish too as the World needs petroleum less and less.
The haredim may be a nuisance, but the Arab “Israeli Palestinians” are a mortal threat to Israel’s survival. Israelis seem to thick-headed to grasp this. Gantz and Lapid have decided to bring these anti-Jewish, anti-Israel parties into the government–either officially or on some sort of informal basis, relying on their votes to stay in power, for which the Arab MKs will demand a heavy price.
When the “second intifada” started with the murder of at least two Jews in 2000, the Knesset members didn’t even bother to interrupt their summer vacations. When it comes to issues of national defense and survival, Israelis are incredibly stupid and tslow on the uptake. But they will find out soon enough what they have let themselves in for.
No doubt mrs Dulberg etal will breakfast on yom Kippur with bacon, eggs and a milky coffee thanks to tsar liberman.