A step too far

In the past week PM Sharon's political machinations have borne fruit. Most
importantly, he had the 2005 budget passed by the Knesset with a comfortable
majority of 58 to 36. He staved off the referendum bill on the
disengagement plan, that was defeated by a similar majority, and before that
he had the actual disengagement authorization bill passed, that allows the
Government to pay for the costs of evacuating the settlements, including
reparations to the settlers, and redeployment of the IDF. Given the
complexities of the situation and the strong opposition of a well organized
settler movement and part of his own right wing Likud Party, this is no mean
feat.
But, at the very end, a day after the budget vote, Sharon made one step too
many. He had the cabinet vote for the appointment of 3 new Ministers and 5
new Deputy Ministers. This caused a strong political reaction on all sides
of the Knesset, since they had just passed an austerity budget,
significantly cutting all social programs, and here Sharon was asking them
to approve the costs that go with these appointments, including offices,
secretaries, cars and drivers, etc. etc. coming to hundreds of thousands of
shekels. And these appointments could not be disguised as anything but
payoffs for those (mainly Likud) members who supported his programs. This
was the most stark of political payoffs, in which some of the appointees are
new members of the Knesset with no experience, and would result in the
largest Cabinet in Israeli history. The appointments of the Ministers (two
Likud, one Labor) were immediately rejected by the Knesset, although the
Deputy Ministers do not need Knesset approval. The feeling was that Sharon
had taken one step too far, and exceeded even his big appetite.
Nevertheless, Sharon has bought himself a final year in office, that will
see the Gaza disengagement plan proceed starting in July.
Although no-one managed to defeat Sharon, Finance Minister Netanyahu mounted
a belated opposition to the disengagement plan, not strong enough to defeat
it, but enough to let the right wing of the Likud Party know that he is
still there and is their future champion. This was seen as a naked attempt
to start his campaign as the natural successor to Sharon, as a means to
appeal to the rank and file of the Likud Party.
The settler and right wing opponents to disengagement are split between
those who reluctantly accept that the Plan will go ahead and that they will
have to cooperate with the IDF and the Govt. and those that still intend to
fight the Plan and some of whom are prepared to use force. This will
certainly be one of the severest tests of Israeli statehood. It has been
reported that some right wing extremists have been moving into the Gaza
settlements, and there is a proposal to take away the Gaza settler's guns in
order to avoid shooting incidents, but that would be a very dangerous task,
and they are not likely to agree voluntarily.
Meanwhile Israel drew again with France in soccer, with a 1:1 score, and
once again the Israeli goal was scored late in the game by an Israel Arab,
Walid Badier. The success of the Israeli Arabs in the Israeli national
soccer team should be a source of pride, not only because of their
abilities, but because they are so apparently well integrated into the team.
Their positive statements after the matches leaves great hope that the two
peoples can indeed co-exist and work together. They represent the far end
of the spectrum of Arab culture from the terrorists that we have all been
forced to focus on in the past few years.