Labor Party is part-and-parcel with the government, Pinkas says. Peres,(left) and Sharon
Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO
Government with no agenda
Sharon and Labor joined together for one reason: To breathe a little. This is not leadership
The history of parliamentary democracy shows that governments fall when they lack a clear, central policy agenda. Whether they are homogeneous systems (such as Britain and Canada) or coalition systems (such as Israel and Germany), they begin to fall apart when there are internal divisions, when there is no dominant agenda or overriding agreement between the parties.
This creates burnout in the status of the prime minister, just as claims and pressure – internal and external – to create an agenda that the government cannot or will not adopt as its policy.
An "agenda" can be proactive (such as disengagement) or forced (war on terror). It can be political, economic, social, legal or a combination of any of these.
But our government lacks an agenda that translates into policy in any of these areas.
The Sharon government finds itself in a strange political position. It accomplished its main policy goal, disengagement from Gaza, to the satisfaction of most of the political and international establishment, the public and the media.
But now, it is left without a natural agenda except survival.
In theory, it is a classic recipe for gradual disintegration, which with specific relation to the Israeli political establishment and party framework – should not be long in coming.
In post-disengagement Israel, and without a further concrete political program, we have a situation in which the most pressing agenda without a government is searching for a government with no pressing agenda.
'Likud Central Committee is the problem'
That agenda is clear to the public-at-large: corruption, the improper connection between money and power, and poverty.
The Sharon government has the mandate, the tools and the ability to turn corruption into its main agenda. From the public's perspective, corruption and poverty are naturally the country's main priorities.
The problem is that the current government cannot legitimately deal with corruption because it rests on the "democratic verdict" of 104 members of the Likud Central Committee.
It is not Sharon, but rather the Likud Central Committee, that prevents the government from declaring political and economic corruption the top national priority. It is unbelievable and not serious.
But if there is no agenda, why is the government so stable? Because, in fact, it does have a clear agenda upon which it leans. It is a passive, rather than active, agenda: Quiet. Stability. Calm. Let us breathe a bit.
Even by Israel's raucous standards, the last six months have touched the outer limits of Israeli society's ability to digest.
Secondly, in actual fact there is no alternative to the current government.
The Labor Party is part-and-parcel with the government. There is no inner faith or desire to pick a fight with Sharon. There are no strong political or economic differences between Sharon and Labor.
'Governments with no purpose fall'
The Labor Party has accepted its marginal role in the next government with pre-ordained humility, if only in large part of its accurate reading of current political reality and Israel's electoral map.
The Labor Party, except for Amir Peretz, will make no effort to establish a new national agenda of any sort from the Likud.
The party that gave Sharon public and international legitimacy by joining his first government in 2001, the party that made disengagement possible, now has a whole host of reasons, real or imagined, why "national responsibility" requires it to remain in Sharon's government and to accept his leadership.
It would seem to be a correct calculation, but it is made not by an informed decision, but rather by 104 members of the Likud Central Committee, who simply wanted to continue to work in this special Israeli profession, rather than really choosing a national agenda.
From the moment Netanyahu resigned from the finance ministry, the only excuse Labor might have had to propose a new agenda also disappeared: the national budget.
There will be some performances, threats, muscle-flexing, claims that "we are not wrapped around Sharon's little finger", "He will bear full responsibility if he drags the country to early elections," and attempts by Herzog and Peres) to formulate a package to reduce poverty.
At the end of the day, the budget will probably pass, unless Sharon wants early elections (not an impossible possibility).
It turns out, then, that Sharon and the Labor Party joined together at this time to sustain a government with no agenda. This might give the public a chance to breathe, but it does not count as national leadership.
But this utilitarian arrangement will not altar the rules of history - governments with no purpose fall before their terms expire.
