Ophra
08-18-2004, 10:18 AM
Making an impression
Lapid is right. It is better to do without two mandates than to sit in opposition and be irrelevant.
Yael Paz-Melamed
Approximately two years ago, two parties set out on a journey. Shinui with 15 mandates joined the coalition and received important portfolios including Interior, Justice and National Infrastructure Ministries. Meretz, with six mandates, remained in opposition and that’s it. It has more or less disappeared from the national agenda.
Since the platforms of the two parties, as least as they relate to issues of religion and state and religious coercion, are quite similar, this situation provides an opportunity to analyze the advantages of being in the government as opposed to the opposition and thereby understand how important it is that Lapid and his 14 colleagues remain in the government and not leave the field open for Shas and United Torah Judaism.
In the last elections, I never considered voting for Shinui. I did not consider Yossef Lapid a serious leader. I was not acquainted with other members of his list. Like many others, I had the convenient option of voting for Meretz, which promised the same things that Lapid promised his voters, perhaps without Shinui’s concern for the middle class. On substantive issues including releasing the nation from the heavy burden of ultra-Orthodox rule and their dangerous battle for the an ever larger share of the pie, I trusted Meretz more than Shinui. On the diplomatic front, Meretz was, and remains, much more committed than Shinui to peace, including returning territories and evacuating settlements. The choice seemed easy, almost automatic.
Fortunately, many others thought otherwise. Two years later, everything I wanted from Meretz, I received from Shinui. There is one reason for this. Meretz is in opposition. Shinui is in the government. True, the number of Knesset members is also important but if Shinui were in opposition, its 15 MKs would not have been adequate to close the Ministry of Religious Affairs and disband the Religious Councils, for example.
Even a convincing media appearance by Lapid would have been useless for changing the law to allow civil marriages for those who cannot or do not what to marry in the rabbinate. If Shinui were not in the government, disengagement would have a chance, even though it is the most important process for the Israel today.
If Shinui were not in the government, Effie Eitam would still be Construction Minister and directing budgets to settlements. No one would be there to stop him. Most important, Shas would continue to use our money to build itself as an Jewish law alternative to the democratic rule of law. The great power that Shinui and its leader, Yossef Lapid, have derives from the promises that they made to their voters (yes, despite the compromise on UTJ) but, even more so, because from their decision to position themselves at the junction where they can influence the decision making process.
It is very sad to discover that in the politics of 2004, being in opposition is like being on ice. It is cold, wet and does not bring any benefit. When politics that are managed through the media and on prime-time news at 8:00 pm, a member of the opposition do not have a chance to be heard on substantive issues. At most, he might get a minute to read the spokesman’s response to something a minister said earlier.
The opposition has no influence and a politician without influence gets to vote in the Knesset but not much more. There is more than a little hypocrisy in the idea that the politicians in opposition are more honest because they are playing the game for principles, not for the chair. Anyone who wants to implement his principles needs to be in the place where things get done, in the government. Someone who wants to make an impression needs tough, strong hands to press the die. This is not a game for gentle souls.
Former minister Eitam will feel it soon. As long as he sat at the rectangular table with the pastry and juice, he had the power to push for his principles. The moment that a national unity government is sworn in, the National Religious Party will no longer be able to influence the prime minister. It will become irrelevant. From his perspective, he may be right. He may have principles but he doesn’t political wisdom. Fortunately for secular people in the center and on the left, Yossef Lapid decided that it is preferable for him to forgo two mandates in the surveys than to join the opposition and have extra time to play chess, which he loves.
http://www.maarivenglish.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=10583
Lapid is right. It is better to do without two mandates than to sit in opposition and be irrelevant.
Yael Paz-Melamed
Approximately two years ago, two parties set out on a journey. Shinui with 15 mandates joined the coalition and received important portfolios including Interior, Justice and National Infrastructure Ministries. Meretz, with six mandates, remained in opposition and that’s it. It has more or less disappeared from the national agenda.
Since the platforms of the two parties, as least as they relate to issues of religion and state and religious coercion, are quite similar, this situation provides an opportunity to analyze the advantages of being in the government as opposed to the opposition and thereby understand how important it is that Lapid and his 14 colleagues remain in the government and not leave the field open for Shas and United Torah Judaism.
In the last elections, I never considered voting for Shinui. I did not consider Yossef Lapid a serious leader. I was not acquainted with other members of his list. Like many others, I had the convenient option of voting for Meretz, which promised the same things that Lapid promised his voters, perhaps without Shinui’s concern for the middle class. On substantive issues including releasing the nation from the heavy burden of ultra-Orthodox rule and their dangerous battle for the an ever larger share of the pie, I trusted Meretz more than Shinui. On the diplomatic front, Meretz was, and remains, much more committed than Shinui to peace, including returning territories and evacuating settlements. The choice seemed easy, almost automatic.
Fortunately, many others thought otherwise. Two years later, everything I wanted from Meretz, I received from Shinui. There is one reason for this. Meretz is in opposition. Shinui is in the government. True, the number of Knesset members is also important but if Shinui were in opposition, its 15 MKs would not have been adequate to close the Ministry of Religious Affairs and disband the Religious Councils, for example.
Even a convincing media appearance by Lapid would have been useless for changing the law to allow civil marriages for those who cannot or do not what to marry in the rabbinate. If Shinui were not in the government, disengagement would have a chance, even though it is the most important process for the Israel today.
If Shinui were not in the government, Effie Eitam would still be Construction Minister and directing budgets to settlements. No one would be there to stop him. Most important, Shas would continue to use our money to build itself as an Jewish law alternative to the democratic rule of law. The great power that Shinui and its leader, Yossef Lapid, have derives from the promises that they made to their voters (yes, despite the compromise on UTJ) but, even more so, because from their decision to position themselves at the junction where they can influence the decision making process.
It is very sad to discover that in the politics of 2004, being in opposition is like being on ice. It is cold, wet and does not bring any benefit. When politics that are managed through the media and on prime-time news at 8:00 pm, a member of the opposition do not have a chance to be heard on substantive issues. At most, he might get a minute to read the spokesman’s response to something a minister said earlier.
The opposition has no influence and a politician without influence gets to vote in the Knesset but not much more. There is more than a little hypocrisy in the idea that the politicians in opposition are more honest because they are playing the game for principles, not for the chair. Anyone who wants to implement his principles needs to be in the place where things get done, in the government. Someone who wants to make an impression needs tough, strong hands to press the die. This is not a game for gentle souls.
Former minister Eitam will feel it soon. As long as he sat at the rectangular table with the pastry and juice, he had the power to push for his principles. The moment that a national unity government is sworn in, the National Religious Party will no longer be able to influence the prime minister. It will become irrelevant. From his perspective, he may be right. He may have principles but he doesn’t political wisdom. Fortunately for secular people in the center and on the left, Yossef Lapid decided that it is preferable for him to forgo two mandates in the surveys than to join the opposition and have extra time to play chess, which he loves.
http://www.maarivenglish.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=10583