Israeli Premier-Elect Forges a Contradictory Coalition

With the addition of a powerful ultra-Orthodox religious party, Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak announced Wednesday that he has put together a long-awaited government that will lead Israel into sensitive new peace negotiations.

Barak’s coalition, forged after six weeks of marathon bargaining, appears to include a contradictory collection of politicians who run the gamut from black-hatted rabbis to khaki-clad leftists.

In a two-paragraph letter, Barak informed the acting head of parliament, veteran Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, that the government can be seated as early as next week.

A spokeswoman said Barak’s coalition will include 69 deputies from six political parties, giving him a comfortable margin in the 120-member parliament, the Knesset. The breakthrough came earlier Wednesday when the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, which represents Sephardic Jews--who are of Middle Eastern or North African origin--formally signed up to join the coalition.

A fundamentalist party with a reputation for corruption and a fervent underclass following, Shas was awarded as many as four ministries, including Health and Labor.

“The important thing is that we got good portfolios, as we deserve, and that we continue to carry the social banner,” said Shas legislator Eli Yishai.

The inclusion of Shas rankled many of Barak’s secular supporters, who accused him of breaking his campaign promise to rein in ultra-Orthodox influence over the daily lives of Israelis.

Indeed, the presence of the fast-growing Shas may inflame religious tensions in this divided country. But Barak needs Shas’ well-disciplined 17-vote bloc to support his efforts at reviving peace negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians. The Shas leadership has been relatively dovish on dealings with Arabs.

Upcoming talks with the Palestinians are supposed to resolve the most difficult issue between the two sides: the fate of the disputed holy city, Jerusalem.

Disappointed supporters of Barak worry that he is sacrificing domestic peace in the pursuit of his foreign policy agenda, constructing a team of ministers and deputies who can more easily compromise with Arabs than with one another.

Barak is likely to come under pressure to satisfy the competing demands of the disparate parties he has drawn into his coalition, anchored by the Labor Party, which has 26 Knesset seats. A cartoon in an Israeli newspaper on Wednesday showed Barak as a giant dove of peace, frantically trying to feed the wide-open mouths of the many baby birds clamoring around him.

Coalition Includes Leftist Meretz Party

For now, Barak’s coalition also includes the left-wing Meretz Party, which was granted the highly prized Education Ministry portfolio. Meretz, whose leaders have previously vowed to boycott any government that included Shas, was unusually silent Wednesday night.

Barak’s spokeswoman, Merav Parsi-Tzadok, said Meretz was expected to remain in the government. The party holds 10 Knesset seats.

The last time Meretz and Shas sat together in government was during a tumultuous several months in 1993-94 under then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Shas ultimately walked out in protest over the presence in the government of a female education minister from Meretz, and Rabin’s government nearly collapsed.

Circumstances are different today. Many here believe that Shas, three times the size it was then, has more of an investment in the system and an interest in remaining part of the government--if only for the power, money and perks that enable it to finance a vast patronage network for its poor and working class constituency.

Moreover, Barak, by including numerous parties, has engineered his coalition in such a way that it is more difficult for a single party to topple the government. People close to him say he has learned from mentor Rabin’s experience with a narrow-majority government.

To the chagrin of Barak’s closest supporters, however, the broad coalition also dilutes the influence of Labor or any one political philosophy.

End of Domination by Likud and Labor

A highly decorated military commander with relatively little political experience, Barak won a landslide election as prime minister May 17. But the vote, in which Israelis cast a separate ballot for parliamentary parties, also sent a record 15 factions to the Knesset.

The 20-year domination by two large parties, the center-left Labor and the right-wing Likud of defeated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ended. Instead, Labor and Likud became mid-size parties.

Barak may yet be able to enlist eight more deputies from two additional parties, and 10 Arab members of the Knesset will support Barak on peace issues, though they will not join the government.

Other members include the hawkish National Religious Party, which favors expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank; the Israel With Immigration party of Russian immigrants; and another smaller ultra-Orthodox party of Ashkenazi, Jews of European descent.

Such a government, commentator Hemi Shalev noted, is “a scary combination of opposites.”

“This is the government of evvvverybody,” Shalev said, “which as of now, apparently does not give comfort to anybody, except, maybe, for Barak.”