Note: The translations of articles from the Hebrew press
are prepared by the Government Press Office
as a service to foreign journalists in Israel.
They express the views of the authors.
Won the Battle, but Lost the War
(Commentary by Asher Cohen, "Yediot Ahronot", May 18, 1999 p. A12)
After the rejoicing of the first night, Shas will awake to a problematic
morning.
In point of fact, Shas defeated Meretz in the battle for third party
status, and by a particularly large margin. The "public trial," the
reprisal to the Deri conviction, vindicated the Shas inclination also to
rely on non- religious supporters. The assertion that "the more we are
persecuted, the larger we will grow" was decisively validated.
Shas continued to pick the fruits of its activity as a socio- religious
movement. While others awoke only just before elections, Shas has been at
work all year, building welfare, cultural and educational institutions --
while their rivals concentrated on collecting votes. Shas can boast of
tens of thousands of loyal supporters, not of a normal party structure.
That is the secret of its success.
But the success of its Knesset slate is deceiving. A number of failures
are also evident: Firstly, Shas is primarily responsible for releasing the
militant, secular genie from the bottle, and for bringing the secular
tribe out of its closet. Secondly, the manifest insensitivity of the
Interior Ministry spurred the immigrants to join the secular wing of
Israeli society, accelerating the development of their representatives as
militants. Thirdly, the tight Shas-Netanyahu bond was an important factor
in Netanyahu's failure, and he was abandoned by immigrants and by veteran
Israelis who grew sick of watching the law being trampled. Fourthly, the
rehabilitation of the Likud as the opposition leadership will require the
Likud to go to battle against Shas. The Likud cannot ignore the fact that
Shas has been a decisive factor in its continuing disintegration.
Shas is largely responsible for creating a political landscape that offers
Ehud Barak a choice between a variety of secular-heavy coalitions. Shas
will face these new conditions without Aryeh Deri, who can no longer roar
like a lion and will even find it difficult to pull its strings from afar
-- under the watchful eye of the Movement for Quality Government, the
Reform Jews, Meretz, Yisrael B'Aliyah, Shinui and others. The new reality
will not bode well for Shas, whose actions will now be closely monitored
by an untiring Lapid.
Over double its original size, but without control, Shas will miss the
time it had only six powerful Knesset seats.