Labor leader: Unity deal is a farce, a fraud, a ridiculous zigzag that’s bad for Israel

A furious Shelly Yachimovich, the Labor leader, on Tuesday condemned the new Likud-Kadima unity government as a farce, a fraud, an exercise in self-interest, and as damaging to Israeli democracy and to the electorate’s faith in politics and politicians.

“Did you believe a word of what they just said?” wailed Yachimovich, taking over the same room where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz had just shaken hands on their coalition partnership. “Has truth lost it value? Can words be thrown into the air with no truth to them? Does commitment have no significance?”

In the past 24 hours, she said, Israel had witnessed “a ridiculous zigzag” — from the imminent move toward early elections to the Netanyahu-Mofaz deal — “worse than anything Israeli politics has ever seen. It will resonate for ever,” she said. “It will be taught in political science courses. It will boomerang on those who forged it.”

She said she traveled the country “telling people that politics is not disgusting… that it’s a tool that can be used for good.” The political system, the Knesset, “these are a wonderful thing.” Politics “is disgusting only when those who are engaged in it forget why they are involved with it.

“I convince people to join parties,” said Yachimovich, “to take an active role. What are we supposed to tell them now?”

She said Kadima had been “a farce of an opposition throughout the lifespan of this parliament.” Now, in government, it would play a role in enabling a budget for 2013 that “will be bitter, capitalistic, brutal — it will widen the social gaps. And who will vote it through? The man who said he would struggle for social equality.”

The Labor leader stressed her pro-peace credentials, but said: “Before we make peace for our citizens, and before we go to war for our citizens, first we have to have a state — a state where the government is responsible to its people, distributes resources fairly… provides a health service… a viable justice system… an equitable balance between the sectors.”

She said she had “never called Benjamin Netanyahu a liar — as Shaul Mofaz did. When I criticized him, I said there were gulfs between us — he’s a right-wing extremist on diplomatic and economic policies. There’s an ideological divide between us.” She was a campaigner for social justice; he was a heartless capitalist. She was a pragmatist on peacemaking; he was an extremist.

The new unity government was not about ideology, she fumed. It was “about avoiding the electorate, about survival… and it’s not good” for Israel.

She noted that Mofaz had falsely accused her of hatching a deal with Netanyahu “at the very moment that he, Mofaz, was doing precisely that. There is just no shame,” she said of Mofaz.

Labour, she said, has regained the public trust in recent months, and “now it’s clearer than ever that we’re the only party that can be a real alternative to Netanyahu.”

“Whoever didn’t want a Labor Party now with 20 seats will get a far bigger Labor Party at the eventual end of this Knesset’s term,” she promised.

Until then, Yachimovich is now expected to become the leader of one of the smallest-ever opposition factions in the Knesset, numbering just 26 MKs.

Yachimovich, a former journalist who entered the Knesset just six years ago, was predicted in recent polls to lead a resurgent Labor Party to 18 seats if early elections were held, which would have made Labor the second-largest party after the Likud.

“I wanted elections — that is not a secret,” she said in an interview with Army Radio on Tuesday morning. “It’s also not a secret that the Labor Party is very strong with the public. We will wait patiently.”

The opposition leader is chosen by votes from the Knesset members outside the ruling coalition. With the new arrangement, Labor is the largest single party in the opposition, making Yachimovich the prime candidate.

Walla reported that a number of Knesset members from the Arab parties, all of whom sit in the opposition and whom together have more mandates than Labor, were discussing an agreement to create a rotating position for opposition leader, which would lock Yachimovich out of the position.

However, there seems to be no consensus for such a move. “I personally oppose the initiative and urge my friends to oppose it,” said MK Ibrahim Sarsur, head of the United Arab List.