The heads of the Charedi parties (especially Deri and Liztman) have been going around and proclaiming that they are done with the Likud and Netanyahu and that they will be working to make Yitzchak Herzog, the head of the Labor party the next Prime Minister of Israel.
However, lets take a look at some of the positions of Labor and Herzog:
1. Draft of Charedim - Labor and Herzog are in favor, in fact, Herzog said that he would have voted in favor of the current draft bill that includes criminal sanctions.
2. Women's right - Labor and Herzog were in the forefront against הדרת נשים and are opposed to mehadrin buses.
3. Reform Rabbis - Labor and Herzog support the state recognizing Reform Rabbis and ending the Orthodoc monopoly on Judaism.
4. The "Peace Process" - Labor and Herzog have always pushed for the "peace process" and a Palestinian state and they have no problem with dividing Jerusalem.
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On other words, it is clear that Labor not only does not support the Charedim on their big issues, but in fact, Labors positions on these issues are probably worse for the Charedim then the Likud. If so, why are the Charedi MKs pushing Herzog? The answer would seem to be petty revenge. They are very upset with Netanyahu and believe that he betrayed them so they want to take revenge on him. The problem is that they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
5 comments:
Rav Avi Gisser in Makor Rishon last week pointed out that the official line of the Haredi spokesmen has become more ane more aligned with the views of Satmar and Neturei Karta. If this indeed reflects the views of the Haredi leadership (but not necessarily the rank-and-file), then one could say that the Haredi parties are indeed now closer ideologically to the Left in Israel than they are to the "nationalist" Right. After all, the Left, including the Arabs, are more and more distancing themselves from Zionism and military service is increasingly being avoided by young people who identify with the Left. More and more young Leftist Israelis are calling themselves "concientous objectors" (a category not reconginzed in Israel) and say they support the Haredi refusal to serve in the IDF. In addition the Left supports larger social welfare payments than the Right, so the Haredim would feel more comfortable with that.
In fact, I recall hearing R. Gafni of Degel HaTorah say that the reason his party traditionally aligned with the Likud was because of public opinion among his constituents even though he strongly opposed Likud policies. Thus, it will be interesting to see if UTJ and SHAS really formally align themselves with the Left and how their voters would react to this.
Remember that both the Chareidim and Labour can swap interests.
In exchange for unilateral surrenders to the Arabs the Chareidim will expect the draft issue to be dropped. And if Israel under Labour is serious about committing national suicide they won't need those extra soldiers anyway!
At this point the Charedim have nothing to lose anymore by joining forces with Labor or even making a Chareidi/Arab alliance.But the Likud and all the settlers who voted for Bayis Hayhudi will learn a lesson. Particularly if Labor is willing to make compromises to from a coalition rather then the "no Charedim" precondition that exists now.
On a personal note now that the government has voted for criminal sanctions against
Lomdey Torah I will publicly admit that I was wrong in opposing Kaniom all the years.Their assessment of secular Zionists and Mizrachi was indeed correct.And if/when the IDF starts making aktzias in Yeshivos it will be morally correct to fight back using violence against the Zionist regime.
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