{"id":10619,"date":"2023-05-21T17:40:51","date_gmt":"2023-05-21T14:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=10619"},"modified":"2023-06-05T12:14:48","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T09:14:48","slug":"no-peace-no-shtreimel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/no-peace-no-shtreimel\/","title":{"rendered":"No peace, no shtreimel"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a diplomatic process was on the table, Haredi parties were kingmakers \u2013 today they have nothing to offer<\/h3>\n

Many spokespeople, among them the Haredi commentator Sari Roth, have raised the point that if Benny Gantz were to form a government, he would give the Haredim arrangements and budgets similar to those they received from the present government.<\/p>\n

This argument ignores the structural change underway in Israeli politics. The issue of peace \u2013 as in, peace agreements with the Arab countries and with the Palestinians \u2013 the issue that defined Israeli politics for a generation \u2013 has lost its relevance. There is currently no avenue for the pursuit of peace in Israeli politics. The possibility of a peace agreement with the Palestinians is what gave the Haredim their bargaining power, made them the kingmakers. As Shulamit Aloni famously put it, \u201cFor peace I\u2019m even willing to wear a shtreimel.\u201d Although the demands of the Haredim contradicted the civic and liberal views of the Israeli center-left and left, the left was willing to give in to them in exchange for support for a peace agreement. \u201cPeace\u201d was a transcendent value for the Israeli left, outweighing even such values as equality and fairness.<\/p>\n

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The United Torah Judaism faction meeting in the Knesset. Photo by Shalev Shalom<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But in the absence of any diplomatic channels for peace, the Haredim have nothing to offer. On a practical level, if Benny Gantz were to turn to Rabbi Edelstein to secure Haredi coalition participation, he wouldn\u2019t have a government. Avidgor Liberman would leave, as would Labor-Meretz (or what remains of them) and Yesh Atid. Yesh Atid, after all, was founded on a platform of opposition to the Haredim; opposing the Haredim is in their DNA. Furthermore, without a goal such as peace, opposition to the Haredim is one of the organizing principles of the civil-liberal camp. There would, therefore, be no attempt to bring the Haredim into the coalition. As we saw with the \u201cchange government,\u201d the center finds Abbas and Ra\u2019am easier to deal with.<\/p>\n

\n

If the \u201cmarket value\u201d of the Haredim has dropped for the left, it will drop for the right as well. The Haredim will have nowhere else to go. What this all means is that, at least in the short and the medium term, Haredi power has peaked, and things won\u2019t go so easily for them in the next rounds of elections. Maybe this explains their current behavior. Their leaders, who have a clear-eyed view of Israeli sociopolitical reality, feel that the Haredim are now at their peak; going forward, they could find themselves in decline. They have therefore taken the aphorism\u00a0carpe diem<\/em>\u00a0or \u201cSeize the day!\u201d to heart. Or, as they say in Yiddish:\u00a0Chap arein<\/em>! \u2013 \u201cCatch whatever you can!\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

First published by\u00a0\u2018The Times of Israel\u2019.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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