Secular party strikes a chord among Israelis By Sharmila Devi
Disenchantment with Israel's political establishment and corruption scandals surrounding Ariel Sharon's Likud party have thrown the spotlight on a protest party that has shot up in opinion polls and could be in a position to determine who will be in the next coalition government.
Shinui, a staunchly secular party, has struck a chord with Israelis who resent the hold of the religious authorities over civic life and baulk at the high cost of supporting a large ultra-Orthodox sector that is exempt from military service and widely dependent on welfare payments.
Opinion polls indicate Shinui has overtaken its arch-rival, Shas, and is even competing with Labour to take second place behind Likud in elections on January 28.
Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party that represents Sephardi Jews, has used its own kingmaker role for more than a decade to extract concessions from both the main parties.
The clash between Shinui and Shas - the Sephardi Torah Guardians party - is forcing into the open the debate over the nature of the Israeli state and the religious-secular divide.
Heading Shinui is Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a charismatic former television journalist renowned for his tough rhetoric against the ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arabs. His appeal is pitched at the middle class of European descent, the Ashkenazim. Shas's constituency is principally among Jews from North Africa and the Middle East who follow the traditions of their rabbinical leadership.
The rivalry is heated and mutual charges of racism and discrimination abound. Many Israelis despair of any resolution to the Palestinian conflict in the near future and have turned their attention to the internal, sectarian schism.
Mr Lapid believes Israel needs to fight against a "corrupt, lazy, backward Middle East environment". He told the Ha'aretz daily newspaper: "If our westernism erodes, we won't have a chance. If we let the east European ghetto and the north African ghetto take over, we will have nothing to float on. We will blend into the semitic region and be lost within a terrible Levantine dunghill."
The rhetoric from Shas is equally vehement. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the party's spiritual leader, said of Shinui and Meretz, a leftwing party: "These are evil ones. They cannot abide our Torah. Let there be a thistle in their eyes, let them go deaf, that they may not hear."
Shas and other traditional Jews view with horror Shinui's policies, which include cutting welfare payments to the ultra-Orthodox and forcing them to serve in the army. The party also wants to remove from religious control many aspects of civil life, such as marriage or the ban on public transport and other commercial activities on the Sabbath.
Opinion polls show Shinui could win as many as 17 seats in the 120-member Knesset, up from six. Likud is still on course to become the largest party with around 30 seats but Mr Sharon would have to make a deal with the runners-up to secure a majority for a new coalition.
Shinui, which means change, has ruled out serving in a coalition with religious parties. "The main reason for our credibility is we stood by what we promised and we did not sit with religious parties in the last government," said Adir Benyamini, who is number 18 on the party's parliamentary list and is hoping to scrape through and win a Knesset seat. "We stand for the separation between church and state and we position ourselves to the left of Sharon and the right of [Labour leader Amram] Mitzna."
The rise of Shinui has caused panic within Shas, which continues to lay claim as the standard bearer of Sephardi Jewish life.
Its advertising campaign warns that a further influx of non-Jewish immigrants and workers would put a church on every street corner and erode the Jewish nature of the state. It dismisses opinion polls that show it would see its seats slashed from 17 to around 10.
"Shinui exists only because we do. They are the antithesis to our party. They have no positive principles," said Itzik Sudri, a Shas spokesman. "In the last elections, we had 430,000 supporters [out of a population of 6.6m] and only 120,000 of these were religious. All the rest were traditional who want to see the Jewish character retained and they will come out again."
Commentators says Shinui's success can be attributed to the shifting tribal nature of Israel, which has drawn its population from all over the world and encompasses myriad positions, and that Likud and Labour would work hard to absorb such disaffection.
"This is an election without issues and Shinui fills the vacuum," said Joel Peters, political analyst at Ben-Gurion university. "Many middle class Israelis feel sympathy for this anti-religious platform, especially at a time of economic downturn. The people's distrust of politicians has hit rock bottom."
Labour hopes vow to spurn Likud will boost its appeal
Israel's opposition Labour party yesterday pledged it would not join a government headed by the Likud leader, gambling that the offer of a clear-cut alternative to Ariel Sharon will help pull it out of the political doldrums, Harvey Morris reports from Jerusalem.
"It is either us or him," said Amram Mitzna, Labour leader, rejecting a coalition partnership with the prime minister, who has said he would seek to establish a new national unity government after elections on January 28.
Mr Mitzna indirectly referred to corruption scandals swirling around Likud and the Sharon family when he said: "Voters must choose either the rule of law and equality before the law for everyone from the prime minister down, or a brazen disregard for it."
Likud appears to have halted a slide in its opinion poll ratings, which saw support fall by up to 25 percentage points because of the corruption scandals.
Labour, meanwhile, has failed to pick up significant gains and predictions of its representation in the 120-seat Knesset have stalled at about 20. Party strategists think the pledge to shun Mr Sharon could give it an extra four seats, although at the expense of leftwing and Arab parties and the centrist Shinui.
Mr Sharon, who has focused his campaign on centrist voters, said a unity government was more important than ever. "I won't put myself in the hands of any radical parties, neither of the left nor of the right," he told the New York Times. "I need the centre, because we have to take painful steps."
Even if Likud obtained a predicted 30-plus seats to make it the largest party, it would still need to build a coalition of at least 61 to govern. If Labour keeps to its pledge not to join a Sharon-led government, the Likud leader would have to rely on ultra-nationalist and religious parties.