By J.Zel Lurie
DELRAY BEACH, Florida — Now that President Obama has come and gone, Israel’s new Knesset will get down to business.The question in my mind is will Yair Lapid, the new flag bearer of the middle class, succeed in his bold program or will he follow the example of his predecessors, Shinui and Kadima, which failed and disappeared?
Both Shinui many years ago and Kadima in the 2009 elections campaigned for various reforms. They got nowhere and their voters abandoned them. Yair Lapid laid down his reform program in his maiden speech to the new Knesset last month.
On issue No. 1, drafting the yeshiva youth, who will be added to the workforce after completing national service, he has the support of Naftali Bennet, head of the settler’ party.This issue has rankled the seculars and modern Orthodox for years. But Shas, the Haredi party, was able to get Likud support and stymie any action. Now Shas has been
excluded from the government coalition and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scrambling to protect his Shas allies. Lapid and Bennet are strong enough to get 70 or 80 percent of a full draft of Haredi youth.
Lapid’s issue No. 2 is the unfairness of the distribution of the Education Ministry’s money to the schools. Lapid said in his Knesset address that they were not allocated according to the needs of the pupils but according to the strength of the political party that ran the yeshivas. This issue struck home with me. A quarter century ago, I built a
primary school for Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens in the cooperative village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. This school falls under the umbrella of recognized but not official schools which it shares with the yeshivas. But not having a political party to sponsor it, this school always got much less help per pupil than the yeshivas. As head of the Ministry of Finance, Lapid is in a strong position to implement his reform. But he has to watch out for the machinations of veteran politician Netanyahu.
Issue No. 3 is lowering the cost of living. Everyone favors it, but what can be done about it I don’t know?
Issue No. 4 is building affordable housing. This campaign plank attracted the support of organizers of the tent cities that spread across the country in the summer of 2011 in protest against the large increase in apartment prices and rentals. Here Lapid runs up against the minister of Housing and Construction, a Likudnik who has already announced that construction in the settlements will continue at the same rate as last year.
Issue number 5 is the reform of the electoral system. He wants to eliminate one-issue
parties that hope to elect one or two leaders to lobby for them within the Knesset. He wants to raise the threshold from 2 percent to 5 percent. Success will depend on what support he can get in the Knesset.
Netanyahu will work behind the curtain to undercut his ally in the coalition Yair Lapid. Netanyahu has been a politician for 30 or 40 years. Lapid. who is younger by almost a score of years, is in his first year as a politician. Netanyahu’s Likud ally, Defense Minister
Moshe Ya’alon found Lapid’s new party “childish” during the election campaign.
Netanyahu may give Lapid lip service. But he will always work against him behind the scenes. He will never forget that Lapid has announced that he will be the next prime minister.
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Lurie is freelance writer based in Delray Beach, Florida. His articles also appear in the Jewish Journal of South Florida.