Israel Matzav

Comrade Peretz declares war - against the Jews

Our hopeless sap of a 'defense' minister, Amir Comrade Peretz has declared war against the Jews, giving the residents of the Shalom House on the border between Kiryat Arba and Hebron 24 hours to evacuate the building. Some three hundred revenants have been living in the Shalom House - which was purchased two years ago from its former Arab owners - for the last three weeks. Extreme leftist attorney general Manny Mazuz (who was Yossi Beilin's candidate for the position) has approved the expulsion order.

All that is standing between the government and a bloody confrontation with fellow Jews is whether other parties in the coalition are willing to perpetrate a coalition crisis over this. The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai is scheduled to visit Hebron today. Yishai is the Chairman of the Shas party, one of the two most likely parties to perpetrate a coalition crisis. Yishai said "If the house [pictured at right. CiJ] was purchased legally, it is inconceivable that they will be evacuated." Unlike the other ultra-Orthodox parties, many of Shas' voters are secular voters for whom the Likud had become too left-wing. I would bet that Shas will have to oppose this.

Haaretz reports that Tourism Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch of Yisrael Beiteinu said that if the building was purchased legally, the buyers must be allowed to stay and not be evicted. But he hedged his bets by saying that the state must look into whether there is a 'security risk' in allowing the revenants to stay. Almost everything in this country is a 'security risk' - the question is one of degree. My guess is that Yisrael Beiteinu will not be able to let this pass silently in the government - it would be putting the final nail in their own coffin in what everyone anticipates will be early elections sometime after the Winograd Commission report comes out. They will be slammed by National Union/National Religious Party for betraying their right-wing constituency, which NU/NRP would only be too glad to grab for itself.

Haaretz also reports that Peretz will likely have to coordinate any expulsion of the revenants with Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert. It's no great secret that Olmert does not share Peretz's zeal for expelling the revenants, because even he realizes that after his failure in Lebanon, the next biggest cause of his unpopularity is the fact that he expelled the revenants from Gaza and we got Kassams on Sderot and Ashkelon in return.

And then there are those within Kadima Achora who would like to save their political careers, like Otniel Schneller who has said that he would oppose any expulsion of the revenants from Shalom House.

With a court appeal of the order expected as well, unless Peretz manages to sneak several thousand troops into Hebron (that's what it will take) in the middle of the night, don't look for this to happen anytime soon. Peretz is grandstanding for the Labor party election, which is scheduled for May 28.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:53 AM