Look for a last-minute Netanyahu-Haredi bargain
For decades Likud has provided the insular non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox parties with patronage and enabled their coercive religious demands to shape Israeli society
Binyamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners are threatening to bring down his government tomorrow, Wednesday, June 7.
If the process that ultimately brings down Netanyahu’s benighted government does begin tomorrow, it will not be because — under his leadership — Israel was convulsed by a devastating surprise attack by Hamas. It won’t be because he has allowed a war that has taken the lives of 1,188 Israelis to drag on for 613 days. It won’t be because of his cynical treatment of the hostages’ families. Nor will it be over Netanyahu’s bizarre, inexplicable connections with Qatar — just today, Maariv revealed that he has approved the sale of advanced weapons technology to Hamas’s Islamist patrons.
It certainly will not be because of his indictments for graft and a drawn-out, unseemly criminal trial. And it surely will not be because of his limitless, cringeworthy mendaciousness. Nor will it be because he has lost the support of his base — last Thursday, tens of thousands of his supporters demonstrated on his behalf outside the Supreme Court in favor of populist, intolerant Hungarian-style “democracy.”
No. If anything dislodges Netanyahu from power, it will be his inability to deliver the goods to the politically rapacious Haredi parties. Netanyahu has a 68-seat coalition (recall that he suborned Gideon Sa’ar to return to the Likud fold in return for the Foreign Ministry portfolio). Only if UTJ and Shas quit the coalition will Netanyahu’s government fall.
Tal Law
Some background.
In 2002, Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon submitted to Haredi pressure and pushed the “Tal Law” through the Knesset, which exempted grown men “whose occupation is the study of Torah” from IDF service. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional. Likud governments have exhausted years of delaying strategies aimed at protecting the non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox from the Court and Israel’s mainstream.
Tomorrow, Likud must persuade the Haredim that it can pass a new enlistment-avoidance law, or at least make a plausible case that such a law is around the corner, or insinuate that Israel is on the cusp of war with Iran, and appeal to the better angels of Haredi nature. To that end, Netanyahu has prevailed on US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to lobby the Haredim to stay in the coalition.
If none of this happens, if the Haredim walk, the government will have to implement the existing law that sanctions individuals and institutions that flout the draft.
Begin Folds
Some further back background.
The elections for Israel’s 9th Knesset held on May 17, 1977, marked a seismic realignment. Menachem Begin’s Likud, which had been the major opposition party since the establishment of the state in 1948, won. All previous Israeli governments had been Labor-led.
Two Orthodox parties competed in the 1977 elections — the Zionist National Religious Party and the non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel Party. The National Religious Party (or NRP, also known as Mizrachi, now defunct as a political party) was long affiliated with Labor — but by this stage, it was evolving into a single-issue settlement-oriented party happy to join with Begin.
Agudat’s anti-Zionist Origins
Agudat Israel had been formed in 1912 as an anti-Zionist and anti-liberal Hassidic-Mitnagdic front. After 1948, it begrudgingly became reconciled to Zionism. The state’s founders and Agudat rabbis (in a move subsequently backed by the Orthodox Zionists of NRP) informally agreed that “one whose Torah is his profession” would be exempt from serving in the IDF.
Back in his day, David Ben-Gurion had, as a matter of Defence Ministry administrative policy, allowed young women to decline IDF service on religious grounds. Under Begin, the Knesset would pass legislation that formally exempted women from any form of national service.
The Haredi world is far from monolithic. In 1988, the Mitnagdic or Lithuanian or non-Hassidic component of Agudat, led by Rabbi Elazar Shach, broke away, for the sake of Heaven, from Agudat Israel to found Degel HaTorah. These days, Degel and Aguda run on a united haredi ticket called UTJ or Gimmel but otherwise operate independently. In 1984, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef founded the Shas Party in reaction to the condescending treatment of Sephardim by the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox.
1977 Coalition Deal
But let’s return to June 14, 1977, when there were just the two Orthodox parties, Zionist NRP and non-Zionist Agudat Israel. Agudat’s political operatives obtained permission from its Council of Torah Sages to join Begin’s Israeli government.
There was a hitch. By 1977, Agudat Israel had become glatt kosher (a 20th-century phenomenon). It refused to sit in the Cabinet on the grounds that it did not want ministerial responsibility for Sabbath violations necessitated in the operation of a modern nation-state. Before they went glatt, Agudat Israel had held the welfare portfolio in the provisional, first, second, third, and fifth governments of Israel.
Criminalize abortion
In any case, to entice Agudat Israel, Begin promised to pass legislation that would amend the Law of Return to meet ultra-Orthodox criteria for “who is a Jew” (something bitterly opposed in the Diaspora); formally exempt young women from doing army or national service; and tighten the criteria that allowed doctors to carry out autopsies. He even vowed to criminalize abortion — that, thankfully, never came to pass.
Begin felt compelled to bend his knee to the Haredim because he could not quickly enough bring the new centrist-liberal Democratic Movement for a Change, led by Yigael Yadin, with its 15 Knesset seats, into his Likud-led coalition. Moreover, though a classical liberal, Begin had a soft spot for the ultra-Orthodox.
And so it was that on June 20, 1977, with a 61-seat coalition in the 120-seat Knesset, Begin presented his Cabinet to the Knesset.
Yes, Minister
Between 1952 and 1977, ultra-Orthodox ministers had refused to sit in the Cabinet on the grounds that they did not want to be tainted with responsibility for Sabbath desecrations. Instead, Begin gave Agudat Israel the chairmanship of two powerful Knesset committees: Finance, and Labor. In 1984, Agudat’s Menachem Porush deigned to take over the Labor and Welfare ministry, though the party insisted he be designated “deputy minister.” Only in 2015, under pressure from the (hated) Supreme Court, did Agudat Israel’s Yaakov Litzman take on the portfolio of Minister of Health.
Coercive concessions
While any genuine Haredi lifestyle champions insularity, non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox politicians actively seek to impose their narrow-minded way of life on non-Haredi Jews. There is no such thing in the UTJ or Shas vocabulary as “live and let live.” In 1978, during that first Begin Cabinet, faced by the threat of an international Haredi boycott and Haredi political party pressure, El Al (then partly government-owned) was forced to stop operating on Shabbat.
Also, during the Begin era, other legislation gave the Orthodox parties comprehensive control over the chief rabbinate. In 1981, he granted Agudat Israel vast sums for its non-Zionist school systems even as the overall education budget was cut. The party was also promised special privileges for Orthodox Jews with regard to the Law of Return and conversions to Judaism. This means that, in practice, only candidates who promise to lead a Haredi lifestyle are eligible for conversion.
Conscription-avoidance
Above all, Agudat demanded — and Begin capitulated — to broaden the criteria of those for “whom Torah is his profession” to encompass any adult male who identifies as a yeshiva student. Thus, an informal deferment that covered perhaps several thousand genuine scholars in 1949 under Ben-Gurion came to shield, under Begin, tens of thousands of able-bodied ultra-Orthodox men. And it rewarded them financially for their non-service.
When Liberals Squabble
Remember Yigael Yadin’s Democratic Movement for Change Party? By the time it belatedly reached a coalition deal with Likud and joined the Begin government on October 25, 1977, the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox parties had achieved their main coercive demands.
Now to tomorrow. If the non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox parties carry through with their threat to leave the Netanyahu-led coalition, it will only be in the hope that they will have stronger cards and enhanced credibility to resume the fight another day — and thereby preserve what they have convinced themselves is the “Torah way of life.” And if Netanyahu achieves a plurality in the next elections and is able to form yet another Likud-led coalition — a real prospect, in my view — expect him to double down in appeasing Haredi interests. (*)
(*) Polls show that only Naftali Bennett offers a viable center-right alternative to Netanyahu.
Excellent....so well written