The modest interview with the newly-elected president of Israel’ in an obscure Ultra-orthodox monthly on 11 August, would have normally passed completely unnoticed. But the equally obscure Likud hack Moshe Katsav is no longer a faceless figure. For almost a month he has been sitting put at the Presidential Residence in Jerusalem, attended by obedient aides and assuming a new mantle of the Father of the nation. Katsav promised to the Knesset, that he would retire from active politics, and cease taking partisan positions over controversial issues. Some naive Israelis tended to believe him, especially when he wore his usual self-affacing, extremely humble expression. But seasoned experts knew from the very beginning, that his humility is phoney. “He has neither charm nor elequance to put across”, said less tham kind journalists, “so he has to resort to contrived and even dishonest modesty. Kasav is a professional
Politician. Self-seeking, tough, and manipulative. If he feels that he can get away with rendering political support to the Right, he will do it with a special glee”.
And indeed, the Katsav interview made his intentions crystal clear. The new president urged secular MKs to respect religious Jews in general and observant scholars in particular, and claimed that a strict observance of the religious way of life is superior (as a means to preserve the Jewish People) to secular Zionism. This statement irked several secular MKs, and one of them, Yossef Paritzki of Shinui, even called for Katsav’s immediate removal from his presidancy. It is very typical that secular nationalists like Paritzki, took a very strong exception to Katsav’s advocasy of the Jewish religion as an instrument for survival (which is, historically speaking, quite correct), but ignored the President’s radical defence of the fascist settlers inside the Palestinian city of Hebron, on 9 August. Too many so-called liberal Zionists are ready to cut throats out of their harted of religious Jews, but are callous and indifferent when the Palestinains are attacked on behalf of the settlers. Politicians like Paritzki are hostile to religious settlers, and espouse the cause of secular settlers. This double-faced position is taken for granted here, and many rank and file voters of Labour and even Meretz, regard Paritzki and his political friends as legitimate partners on numerous issues
Katsav’s election as president in the Knesset (a 63 to 47 majority) shocked great many Israelis, despite the negligible importance of this office in Israel. The upset was too much for the pro-Labour media, both electronic and written, because of the national and international standing of the Labour candidate, Shimon Peres. The veteran Labour leader was admittedly ideal for the job, and only cynics actually held this undesputable fact against him. Most fair minded hacks felt, that despite Peres' many grave errors and even crimes (Qafar kana, Vanunu) he was superior to Katsav in every conceivable and meaninful department. But the Katsav supporters succeeded in erecting a solid coalition, based on ideology rather than mere expediency, and astounded Israel and the world by inflicting a deadly blow on Peres and the Israeli semi-liberal public.
Ironically and predictably, foreign journalists failed to understand the new political phenomenon, and some of the reports, let alone the analyses, were truly risible. Is it too much to expect from correspondents to count heads, before they announce the victory of the Oriental MKs against their Ashkenazi counterparts? Apparently, yes. All the observers, without fail, did not realise that as many as 37 MKs out of Katsav’s 63 were Ashkenazi! They were equally blind to the fact, that more than a half of Peres’ support in the Knesset came from Oriental Jews and Israeli Arabs, the most deprived sectors, culturally and economically, in our society. If you get your facts wrong, your analysis is bound to be completely misleading. Katsav’s victory heralds the advent of a triumphant radical right-wing, and the emergent coalition is going to dominate the Israeli political arena for many years of inplacable
conflicts, both internal and external.
The Katsav coalition comprised almost exclusively the entire spectrum of right-wing MKs, or the infamous "minorities coalition", orchestrated by a Russian member of the Knesset, Avigdor Lieberman, a former aide of Binyamin Netanyahu, and arguably to most radical Arab-basher in Israel, since the death of Rabbi Meir Kahhane. Lieberman is a settler, self-declared secularist who attends football matches (Beitar Jerusalem) on the Sabbath, but is married to an ultra-orthodox spouse. He is the real architect of the notion of creating an anti-elitist political alliance, comprising the Zionist and the non-Zionist religious parties, the representatives of the third generation Sephardi Jews, the Russian immigrants and the settlers. This grouping deliberately excludes the Israeli Arabs, despite their social and political deprivation, and therefore can be defined as racist.
The dangerous combination of Lieberman’s anti-liberal and anti-socialist ideology, his open threat to deport "impudent" Israeli Arabs, and his hostile attitude to the rule of law, are truly fascist. This does not mean, of course, that all the 63 MKs that went along with Lieberman to crown Katsav are also fascists, but the general trend of the political potential galvanised by Lieberman is really scarry. Lieberman and his master behind the scene Netanyahu are extreme right-wingers on social issues, and yet they attract the support of most of the dependent upon the welfare state they seek to destroy. Labour's desersion of most of the basic premises of social democracy, actually channels the masses into the hands of Netenyahu. Lieberman despises his former friend Bibi for his softness and avariciousness, and regards him, not without justification, as a middle class hedonist. But he also understands, that his heavily accented Hebrew and his dubious personality have no electoral appeal beyond some sections of the Russian immigrants. Lieberman aspires to be the gray eminence behind Netanyahu, and his prospects of achieving this aim are excellent.
It is true, of course, that many Sephardi Jews in Israel’s development towns and poor neighbourhoods in the major cities, celebrated Katsav’s victory. Peres, on the otherhand, has compounded his reputation as a loser. The jokes about Peres are rife, including the story about a race in which he was the sole participant, but still managed to come second. But Peres’s tragedy, and even Ehud Barak’s failure to prevent a Likud Mk from being elected, are only sideshows in this highly interesting political development. The fact that a third-rate candidate beat a first class one against all odds illustrates the tremendous resilience of the radical right in Israel, and the narrow base of the liberal doves. The ideentity of Israel's president is perhaps of very little significance, but the victory of the Lieberman coalition is indeed crucial. This is not a chance victory based on political expediency, but a calculated move to create a permanent majority against peace. Its success is portentous, and the lessons, even inside Israel, have yet to be fully grasped.
ירושלמי אדום 