One Minute to Midnight Dr. Irving Moskowitz ISRAEL'S FAR LEFT IN THE POST-ALONI ERA What will become of Israel's far-left Meretz Party now that its colorful and outspoken leader, Shulamit Aloni, has retired? A hint was offered in a recent letter in an Israeli magazine by Ralph Seliger, a veteran of Mapam, one of the three factions that make up Meretz. Seliger argued that Aloni's "strident secularism" should not be permitted to "forever sully the image of the entire movement." Will Meretz really now shift to a less anti-religious stance? Don't count on it. Seliger simply represents the more savvy, pragmatist faction of Meretz--those who understand that Meretz's open hatred of Judaism helped turn religious voters away from Shimon Peres and led to the defeat of the Labor-Meretz government. But there's a vast difference between tactics and ideology. Seliger and those like him are interested in changing tactics; their ideological resentment of Jewish

tradition will not change. Anybody who is familiar with the statements and actions by Meretz leaders in recent years knows that Aloni was hardly alone in her violent verbal attacks on Judaism. It was not only Aloni, but also her colleagues Ran Cohen, Yossi Sarid and Mordechai Bar-On, who co-sponsored legislation to legalize intermarriage between Jews and Arabs. It was not Aloni, but Meretz veterans Ornan Yekutieli and Gad Yatziv who led the crusade to open Jerusalem movie theaters on the Sabbath. It was Meretz MK Ran Cohen who once referred to a group of Orthodox Jewish protesters as "a swarm of black ants." It was Meretz MK Dedi Zucker who recently proposed that Israel be physically divided into separate "cantons" for those who observe the Sabbath and those who do not. And when Aloni was removed as Minister of Education, her replacement, Meretz's Amnon Rubinstein, faithfully continued her efforts to de-Judaize Israel's public school curricula. No, the departure of Shulamit Aloni will not, unfortunately, result in any meaningful change in the Israeli far left's hatred of Judaism, Jewish tradition, and Jewish nationalism.

Americans for A Safe Israel
147 East 76 Street
New York, NY 10021

Outpost               - 12 -               September 1996