The Eidelberg Report
(abbreviated and edited for Internet).
MK Benny Elon calls for a bloc of right-wing or nationalist parties (read: Echud Haleumi—to which he belongs—and Mafdal) bloc to preserve settlements to, oppose an emerging left-wing constitution, and to bolster Jewish education.
This is not a program but a call to support motherhood. Elon does not have a constructive program. He, like all MKs, is primarily concerned to preserve his seat in the Knesset. I know this from having prepared a program for him before the 1999 elections, a program which, had he supported it, might have prevented Israel’s present plight. The program included, among other things, personal election of MKs to replace voting for boss-led party slates.
Consider carefully. If “Disengagement”—I mean the expulsion of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria—if Disengagement proved anything, it proved that MKs must be individually elected by the voters in regional elections. Just remember, two-thirds of the Likud MKs, who campaigned against Disengagement in 2003 voted for it in 2004!!!
Now, as my colleague Prof. Israel Hanukoglu has pointed out, if you commit a serious traffic violation, you may lose your drivers license for a year. Well, by signing the Sharon-designed coalition agreement after the 2003 election, and by remaining in the Sharon government, Rabbi Elon—like Effie Eitan and other self-styled nationalists—committed a political offense far worse than any traffic offense.
That coalition agreement required them not to oppose a Palestinian state. Indeed, Sharon was on record of supporting a Palestinian state for five years prior to the 2003 election. Did he not sign the Wye Memorandum as Netanyahu’s foreign minister yielding—to begin with—42% of Judea and Samaria to Arafat? Elon signed a coalition agreement that doomed Gush Katif! And now he has the audacity to call upon people’s support non-existent or utterly compromised right-wing parties!!!
MKs like Elon should lose their political drivers license. We need new blood in the Knesset, and we need new political traffic laws, by which I mean new parliamentary electoral laws that make MKs and cabinet Ministers ACCOUNTABLE—I repeat, ACCOUNTABLE.
Shimon Peres has been in the Knesset for more than four decades despite his national reputation as a “saboteur” and despite his disastrous Oslo policy. He has never had to compete against a rival candidate in a constituency election. Why? Because there is none. Peres remains on the top of a fixed party list and he can ignore public opinion with impunity. Elon knows this, but he remains silent—silent while this decadent SYSTEM doomed Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria.
Another thing: in 1995, the late MK Rafael Eitan proposed a 4% parliamentary electoral threshold (instead of the then 1.5% threshold). This means that a party would have to obtain at least 4% of the votes cast in an election to get seats in the Knesset. Elon called a 4% threshold immoral! Why? Many countries have a comparable threshold and even higher–it’s 5% in France. So why is a 4% threshold immoral? Why? Because it would have deprived Elon and his Moledet party of any seats in the Knesset!
What’s moral or immoral therefore depends on whether it preserves his job. And almost 90% of the public knows this about the Knesset, which they regard as a haven for job-seekers.
Elon opposes a leftwing constitution. I offered him an alternative constitution in 1999. Of course, I proposed a constitution that would have changed the old political traffic laws, which give politicians an easy ticket to the Knesset.
And while Elon was a cabinet minister and said he could more good inside than outside — sheer EGOISM – look what happened:
1. He allowed Sharon to develop his plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gush Katif.
2. He worked with Shinui to promote Judaism and Jewish unity—Judaism and Jewish unity with Tommy Lapid?
3. He did nothing while funding for yeshivot was slashed.
4. He did nothing while Jewish outposts were bulldozed.
5. He did nothing while the Supreme Court handed down rulings more favorable to Israel’s enemies than to Israel’s soldiers and civilians. And he was silent about other court rulings that compromised Jewish control of Eretz Israel. Why didn’t he go public and denounce these rulings and call for democratic reform of the Supreme Court?
In short, Elon did nothing while the Knesset, the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court undermined the Jewish people and Eretz Israel! And this is not all.
Today Israel’s government is regarded by an international organization as the more corrupt than any other developed nation except Italy! And I doubt whether they know about the most serious corruption in the Sharon government. But why didn’t Benny Elon stand up and explain why there is this corruption?
Why didn’t he say because MKs are not accountable to the people but to their party leaders?
Why didn’t he say that MKs, unlike American congressmen, do not exercise administrative oversight over the bureaucracy to prevent corruption?
Why didn’t he say that an MK can’t subpoena a cabinet minister, as an American congressmen can subpoena a secretary of commerce or secretary of defense?
Why didn’t he say that, every year the State Comptroller submits to the Knesset a volume detailing the corruption and inefficiency of the bureaucracy – and the Knesset sweeps it under the rug. Why, because the Knesset consists of pawns of the government.
Why didn’t he say that the party bosses in the cabinet control the Knesset committees? Why has he failed to criticize a system of government that has brought disgrace to his country and the Jewish people?
But now he has the chutzpah to call for a right-wing or nationalist bloc to get your support, yes, to ease him back into the Knesset!!!
We must erase the present INFAMY and the SYSTEM which Benny Elon and MKs of his ilk have been aiding and abetting!
