Uri Avnery:
15.7.00
The Suicide of the Knesset
Experts on wildlife report the odd behavior of the lemmings, who commit collective suicide.When on the march, they do not stop at the edge of the sea but march straight on into the water anddrown. Lately, many members of the Knesset behave similarly.
A new political system is coming to life in Israel: a “plebiscital presidency” like the onecreated by de Gaulle in France of the late 50s. The president decides and executes. Theministers are his personal assistants. His decisions are approved by popular referendum.Parliament becomes a nuisance.
In France this happened because everybody was fed up with a parliament that was obviouslyincapable of satisfying the general demand for an end to the war in Algeria. Power wastransferred to a general who despised politicians. He instituted a system of government byplebiscite. Parliament became unimportant.
Ehud Barak has not yet proven that he has the stature of a de Gaulle. After all, the Frenchgeneral had with one stroke put an end to the occupation, liberated Algerian up to the lastmillimeter and sent home a million French settlers, whose families had lived in Algerian for ahundred years. Has Barak that kind of courage?
But as far as domestic politics are concerned, Barak’s situation resembles de Gaulle’s. It’snot his fault, really. One can criticize his arrogance, insensitivity to others and faultyhuman relations. But that’s a secondary problem. The main fault lies with the Knesset itself:It is simply not capable of governing at a critical time. Its irresponsibility has reachedcriminal proportions.
The Knesset has become a ship of fools.
If a future historian will trouble himself to look at the TV cassette of the Knesset session onthe day of Barak’s departure for Camp David, he will not believe his eyes and ears. At one of thedefining moments in the history of Israel, when the Prime Minister was going to abroad to try toput an end to the 120-years long conflict, the Knesset resembled a nest of wasps.
Most members and their factions were motivated by personal and party interests that shrinkinto insignificance compared to the historic decision on the agenda: peace or war forgenerations. In other words: They considered this decision unimportant, not to saynegligible, compared to personal insults, electoral calculations or personalidiosyncracies.
Let’s starts with a person who was not there: Ovadia Josef. For years we were told that he is atowering spiritual guide. A dozen years ago, Arie Der’I told me that the rabbi (like himself)was an extreme dove who understands the Arab world and is capable to make peace. And indeed, therabbi issued a religious judgement stating that the halakha (Jewish religious law) demandsthe giving up of territory in order to prevent killing. And now the rabbi reappears as themainstay of the extreme right, the primary obstacle to peace.
Why? Has the halakha changed? Or is the rabbi “great in the Torah” but very small as apolitician? Perhaps, instead of leading, he is being led? Perhaps he is not really interestedin pikuach nefesh (the saving of lives), but rather in the saving of his party, in the face of thedanger that his voters will return to the Likud?
As for Der’I, what a disappointment! At the crucial moment he is unable to transcend hispersonal troubles with the law. He is ready to sacrifice the fate of the state on the altar of hispersonal revenge, while rolling his eyes to high heaven.
His successor, Eli Yishai, is incomprehensible, not only because he slurs his words but alsobecause they don’t make sense.
True, Barak has made many mistake in his treatment of Shass. He was disdainful, overbearingand remote. But faced with such a historic decision, should this have mattered?
Because of Shass, the Prime Minister had to embark on his journey to the summit after a majorityvote in the Knesset against him, a truly shameful situation. And, how strange, the blame forthat falls jointly on rabbi Ovadia Josef and orthodox-baiter Tommy Lapid.
Lapid’s pretext for abstaining is his demand for the draft of religious youngsters. In otherwords, the service of the Yeshiva-students in the next war is more important to him than theprevention of the war itself. Those who maintain that Lapid is basically a right-wing personmay be right; perhaps, just like Der’i, he will sabotage peace at every moment of truth.
The behavior of Asmi Bishara, who abstained and later tried unsuccessfully to change hisvote, was, to say the least, odd.
Even worse was the behavior of Itzik Mordechai, who did trouble to cast his vote at all, butneither resigned his seat. His sex-life now determines the fate of the state. This, truly, isthe epitome of irresponsibility.
Still worse is the behavior of David Levy, this pompous zero, an eternally insulted nobody. Heostensibly voted for Barak, and on the morrow stuck a knife in his back. He resembles the knighton the chessboard, hopping around all over the place, looking for a safe place on somebody’selection list. An inflated ego hovering above everything, above peace, above war, abovegraveyards.
But all these are nothing compared to Sharansky, the real enigma of the Knesset and the wholestate.
Anatoliy Schcharansky, the international hero, the indomitable fighter for human rights,the man who dared to pit himself alone against the huge terror-machine of the KGB. On the morrowof his arriving in Israel we saw a completely different person. Anatoliy became Nathan, and itlooked as if he had changed his personality together with his name. The giant has turned into adwarf, an ordinary party-hack, indifferent to human rights, a chauvinist vis-a-vis thePalestinians, a racist at the head of the interior ministry. As if he had put on the clothes ofhis Soviet tormentors.
There may be a solution of the riddle: In the Gulag, the original Anatoliy Shcharansky wasmurdered and, in order to cover the crime, the Soviets have taken some fellow from the marketwho resembles him physically and sent him to Israel. This is now our Sharansky. The caricatureof a fighter.
Some believe that his shameful behavior stems from the fear that his voters will desert him forthe crowd of Avigdor Liberman, an undisguised ultra-rightist. If so, this is another case of aleader running after his followers instead of leading them.
More than enough has been said about the bottomless Chutzpah of the four Ashkenazi orthodoxmembers, who demand to free their followers from military service but do not vote for peace.They are ready to send us to the inevitable war.
All these characters took part in the absurd play in the Knesset. The harm done isirreversible. The respect of the public for the Knesst, which was nearing zero even before,has fallen into a abyss.
If the peace negotiations with the Palestinians explode, the ship of fools can sail on,because in the following bloodshed nobody will remember them. But if Barak will return fromthe summit with an agreement, the fate of parliamentary democracy will be bound up with thefate of peace. If the Knesset will interpose itself between the people and peace, it willcommit suicide. The public will demand to change the system from the bottom up.
Remember de Gaulle.