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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Focus Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Calling Barak's bluff
By Graham UsherLast week, the world was pondering the significance of Hafez Al-Assad's death for peace in the Middle East. This week the first knell tolled for a death of almost equally grave consequence for the region, that of Ehud Barak's ruling coalition in Israel.
On Tuesday, four ministers belonging to the Sephardi Orthodox movement Shas tendered their resignations in protest at the government's failure to fund Shas's education network, Ma'ayan Hahinuch Hatorani. Barak now has until Thursday to keep Shas in the coalition or, in a single stroke, see his government cut in the 120-member Knesset from a majority of 68 seats to a minority of 51.
With the Israeli leader alerting all that the "moment of truth" is fast approaching in the negotiations with the Palestinians, Shas's bolt could scarcely come at a worst moment. Even more so as Barak has always viewed Israel's largest Sephardi movement as an indispensable element in the "Jewish majority" he hopes to marshal for any future peace agreements with the Palestinians and, perhaps, Syria.
With Shas out of the government that majority would lie in tatters. Supported from the outside by the ten Members of Knesset from Israel's Arab parties, Barak's 51-member coalition would perhaps be large enough to squeeze any deal through the Knesset. But it almost certainly would not be strong enough to win an endorsement in the national referendum he has promised his people on any peace treaties he signs with the Arabs. Shas would surely mobilise its 450,000-strong electorate to oppose the deal, if not to end the prospect of peace, then to bury Barak once and for all.
Beyond these electoral calculations, the crisis with Shas has raised real questions about Ehud Barak as a political leader, including, quietly, from within his own One Israel party. For the dispute boils down to a miserly 25 million shekels or $8 million Shas says it needs to haul its education network out of the red. Israel's education minister and leader of the avowedly secularist Meretz faction, Yossi Sarid, has long conditioned the transfer of this money on Shas implementing a package of financial and administrative reforms in its schools. Shas views these stipulations as discriminatory, born less out of concern for probity than out of Meretz's "hatred for the Sephardi and religious public."
Whether Shas's accusations are accurate is now largely beside the point (and none but Sarid's most ardent defenders would say he is innocent of all the charges levelled against him). What is to the point is that Barak has let the dispute fester for nearly 11 months without resolving it one way or the other. Two weeks ago, and with an utter lack of conviction, Barak threatened to fire the Shas ministers for voting for a bill in favour of early elections. Shas's predictable riposte to this show of political machismo came on Tuesday, its ministers "fired" themselves.
And it is at this level of political judgement that the ongoing crisis with Shas will have resonance beyond the Byzantine politics of Israel's coalition. Earlier this year Barak conducted negotiations with Syria in the arrogant belief that he would succeed where all previous Israeli prime ministers had failed. He would persuade Syria's Hafez Al-Assad to accept a full peace with Israel short of a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights. In what turned out to be the last act of his political life, Assad told the Israeli leader, via President Bill Clinton in Geneva, "no deal." He called Barak's bluff. On Tuesday, Shas did the same.
