: Chain reaction : Barak has shown there is no politician or party which can command a : stable enough : majority in the Knesset to move forward on the West Asian peace front. : Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's coalition, on the verge of : collapse after less than a year in office, was rescued last week when : his "natural" partner, the left-wing, secular Meretz party resigned : its ministries while remaining in the government. This curious : manoeuvre preserved the coalition's 68-seat majority in the 120-member : Knesset because the departure of the ministers from Meretz, which has : 10 seats, enabled the Oriental or Sephardi Ultra-Orthodox religious : party, Shas, with 17 seats to remain in the coalition. To paraphrase : the old adage, "he had his cake and ate it, too", Barak kept Shas and : disenfranchised Meretz. : Shas ministers tendered their resignations because of a long-standing : civilisational dispute with with the Meretz chief, former Education : Minister Yossi Sarid, regarded by the religious camp as its : arch-enemy. While Sarid is generally considered the best man for the : education portfolio because of his determination to expand and upgrade : the Israeli school system, he adopted an aggressively confrontational : attitude toward Shas, which relies on the network of schools it : operates to cultivate the support of deprived elements in the Sephardi : community. Unfortunately Shas schools are substandard and badly : administered, allowing for misappropriation of funds. Sarid demanded : that Shas reform the system before its debt of 7.5-8 million dollars : could be paid by his ministry. : But once most reforms were in place, Sarid continued to refuse funds : to Shas. Shas and its conservative religious supporters celebrated : Sarid's resignation as a victory over the very devil while militantly : secular Israelis saw his withdrawal as a triumph for the forces of : darkness and superstition. : Israeli society is fractured by fault lines into basic, bitterly : antagonistic groupings: Western (Ashkenazi) and Eastern (Sephardi), : secular and religious, left and right, prosperous and poor. These : groups overlap, producing the political parties and alignments : battling for advantage and power. : The Ashkenazi half, made up of white immigrants from Russia, Eastern : Europe and the US, is largely secular and more prosperous than the : Sephardi half. The majority of Ashkenazim adopt a Euro-American life : style and mode of thinking. But the group is split politically. : The left-wing and centrist sectors believe in democracy, advocate : liberty for individuals and support the peace process; right-wingers, : who call themselves the "nationalist camp", favour strong-one man or : one party rule, adherence to Zionist ideology and oppose the exchange : of land for peace. As soon as he fended off the Shas-Sarid threat to : his Cabinet, Barak faced another threat of resignation from the : rightist Russian immigrant faction, Israel B'Aliya. : Also, amongst the Askenazim are increasingly influential minority : factions of religious Israelis belonging to Orthodox and : Ultra-Orthodox groups which are determined to hold onto all the land : Israel conquered, impose a "Jewish" style of life on all Israel's : Jewish citizens and transform the Jewish state into a theocracy : dominated by the rabbis. : The Sephardi half, comprising brown immigrants from Arab countries, : India, Turkey and Ethiopia, feels let down by democracy and deeply : resents Ashkenazi domination of the ruling elite and state : institutions. Before Yossi Sarid became the target of Sephardi hatred, : Russian immigrants were the focus of their dislike. : The dissolution of the Soviet Union produced a flood of a million : Russian immigrants, boosting the number of Askhenazim and enabling : them to overtake the Sephardim whose numbers had risen to slightly : more than half the population. : The Russians were given benefits not accorded to Sephardi immigrants : and were quickly integrated into Israeli society while earlier : Sephardi arrivals were still living in absorption centres. : The Sephardim are, by and large, religiously observant, conservative : and right-wing in political alignment. Until the leading Sephardi : rabbi, Ovadia Josef, withdrew from the National Religious Party (NRP) : in the mid-80s and formed Shas, most Sephardim supported the : right-wing Ashkenazi Likud party, a small Sephardi ethnic party or the : NRP. Shas won over the bulk of the Sephardim by promising to secure : their rightful place in Israeli society, jobs and benefits. Shas : provides schooling through its educational network and gives welfare : assistance to the most needy. Rabbi Josef, a charismatic figure who is : the spiritual mentor of Shas, has supported the secular left and : centre in the peace process so that no more Israeli lives should be : lost defending the lands Israel occupied in 1967. While it is not : certain that a majority or even a large percentage of Shas voters : would back the hand-over of the occupied Palestinian and Syrian : territories to their owners, Shas members of the Knesset can be : expected to obey the diktat of the party's Council of Sages ruled by : Josef who has, in recent years, been persuaded to take a more : "nationalist" line on the territories by hard-right Ashkenazi : Ultra-Orthodox rabbis. When Shas ministers decided to remain in the : Barak government, they made no commitment to support its peace : policies. : The combination of secular, right-wing nationalists, Sephardim and : conservative rabbis has pushed the Israeli body politic to the right : over the past two decades, making it all the more difficult for a left : or centrist Israeli government to take the "hard decisions" necessary : to achieve peace with the Arabs, whose price for a regional settlement : is the return of the territories seized in 1967. : Barak's centrist "One Israel" faction has three "natural" partners: : Meretz, the newly formed Centre Party, the militantly secular Shinui : and the tiny One Nation workers party. But these factions cannot rule : on their own because they have only 50 seats in the Knesset and need : at least 61. Barak could not even reach this essential minimal : majority, as did his exemplar, the slain Yitzak Rabin, by enlisting : the support of the Arab parties (which have 10 seats in the current : Knesset). This is why Barak established a broad coalition, embracing : three religious factions, from which Shinui excluded itself and Meretz : has now withdrawn its ministers. : Barak was also obliged to form such a coalition because he sought to : bring in all sectors of the fractured society. But this did not work : because of intra-coalition disputes and rivalries, like that between : Sarid and Shas. : Virulent factionalism and contestations among right-wing factions also : make it impossible for the Likud, the largest party on the right, to : govern effectively. The previous coalition under Premier Binyamin : Netanyahu was even more crisis-ridden than the government of Barak. : Despairing Israeli commentators say that Israeli democracy is not : working and warn that their society has become ungovernable. They : could be right. : This could mean that the prospects for West Asian peace are bleak. : For, Barak, elected as a peacemaker 13 months ago, has shown there is : no politician or party which can command a stable enough majority in : the Knesset to move forward on the peace front. : Michael Jansen in Nicosia <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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