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Sat., January 12, 2008 Shvat 5, 5768

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Last update - 23:34 11/01/2008

The candidate

By Photo by David Bachar , By Na'ama Lanski

Tags: Meretz, Israel, Haim Oron

Last week, a few of MK Haim Oron's backers in the race for leadership of the Meretz party informed him that they had decided to underwrite a chauffeur for him. For years, Oron has driven by himself every day from Kibbutz Lahav, in the northern Negev, to the Knesset in Jerusalem or to Meretz headquarters in Tel Aviv. Even when his workday ends close to midnight he insists on driving the gray Ford Mondeo home to Nili, his wife. Oron reacted to the news with a burst of laughter and a jolt of embarrassment: "Why in the world a driver? Me? A chauffeur? Are you off your rockers? Out of the question." "It's a matter of life and death," explains Prof. Danny Jacobson, from Tel Aviv University's Department of Labor Studies, a fervent believer in Oron's candidacy. "It's true our campaign isn't flowing with money, but if anything, heaven forbid, were to happen to him, even something small, what would the whole campaign we are toiling over be worth? Yes, he objected strenuously, because he lives and breathes the ethos of the kibbutz and Hashomer Hatza'ir [a left-wing youth movement], which holds that no one has privileges and that pampering is wrong, but I think we managed to persuade him how important this is."

Oron will soon be 68. Until he announced his candidacy, a month ago, he had intended this to be his last Knesset term. He had hoped to go back to being more involved in the kibbutz - on the economic committee and in the plastics plant - to spend more time with Nili and with their eight grandchildren, to travel and to study. Oron has no formal education beyond a high school diploma from the 1950s, after which he chose to go to the Negev to fulfill the principles of the youth movement in which he was active.

"My plan was to audit courses, to pick up a bit of Jewish philosophy and history," he relates over lunch in the kibbutz dining hall. "I felt it was right for me to lower the volume. I had a feeling of having had enough. How long can one be a member of the [Knesset] Finance Committee? How many budgets can one pass? Things repeat themselves, there is less of a challenge, and I have no one to pick a quarrel with. On the substantive issues, the discourse has become rather shallow, at the level of yesterday's headlines. There is no one in the Knesset today who espouses a comprehensive ideological approach different from mine with whom I can truly argue."

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Just as he used to claim that he had no ambitions to be an MK and did not push to become the executive secretary of the Kibbutz Ha'artzi movement, this time, too, he was pushed into the race, acceding to the heavy pressure exerted on him or accepting the "movement's decision" - a term he is especially fond of.

"The word 'push' is very appropriate in this context," says the writer Amos Oz, who has been one of Oron's closest friends for the past 30 years, since the beginnings of the Peace Now movement. "Jumes was not eager to run for the Meretz leadership," Oz continues, using Oron's nickname. "In previous rounds he rebuffed requests, including mine, to run, but today, in light of the circumstances in the party, on the left and in Israeli society, he decided that it would be right. He accepted the movement's decision - and that is not just an empty phrase. I don't think he has a burning ambition to be number one. He is less ambitious than most politicians, and therein lies strength, not weakness. It is devotion to the cause that drives him. He excels in human relations, is a team player and has an extraordinary ability to read the political situation correctly and make an accurate situation assessment. I have had the feeling for a very long time that Jumes should lead Meretz and strengthen it."

How can Meretz be strengthened in its present condition?

"By creating drama around its policy positions."

Is Oron a man of dramas?

"It will be done with the help of others. So I am happy in the knowledge that he is a leader who will share the work with everyone."

Here to work

In addition to Oz and Jacobson, Oron's ardent supporters include activists and intellectuals like Yair Tsaban, Elazar Granot, Nissim Kalderon, Avishai Grossman, Danny Filk, Aliza Amir and Yossi Proust. All of them, with the exception of Amos Oz, met about a month ago at the home of Meretz founder Shulamit Aloni, a former MK and cabinet minister, in the affluent community of Kfar Shmaryahu for the critical stage of the campaign to persuade Oron to run.

"Jumes continued to refuse, but we kept badgering him. We told him he could not be an evader," Aloni relates. "There is no one who does not hold Jumes in high regard. You will not find anyone. It's true that he is not famous and does not spur his assistants to get his name into the gossip columns. That is not the kind of people we are, like the current speaker of the Knesset, people who are concerned about their hairdos and the styling of their clothes. Jumes is a truth-speaker, is not ashamed of ideology, and little by little, he will also learn how to stand out and sell himself. It'll be fine."

Oron agonized after the meeting, his friends say, mainly because of a scenario that was presented according to which Meretz will be wiped out in the next elections, without enough votes to enter the Knesset. After he declared his candidacy for the party leadership, compliments poured in from every direction. Publicists, public figures and Knesset colleagues extolled his virtues as a diligent, upright, probing parliamentarian, an authentic personality who is also affable and liked by everyone in the legislature (with the possible exception of a few members of Meretz). Others, though - albeit fewer in number - alleged that he is a compromiser, seeks consensus, is naive, lacks talons, is totally without the color, wit and linguistic fireworks of Shulamit Aloni and former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid - and on top of it all is a kibbutz member, which in this context makes him sectoral.

"So people say 'compromiser,'" Oron retorts. "In what way am I a compromiser? I was one of the leaders of the Geneva Initiative. Does anyone have a more radical and far-reaching idea than the Geneva Initiative? On social issues, I don't think anyone will claim that any member of the Finance Committee espouses more radical positions in their essence. Style is something else. I don't have to gouge someone's eye out in order to say that I disagree with him. I can treat his approach respectfully while telling him the most radical things.

"I do not deny that the least developed part of me is my elbows, and that I have no intention of sharpening them, even if some people view that as a defect."

And naivete?

"That is my tendency to listen to people's positions and try to understand them. Maybe it comes from self-confidence, sometimes excessive, that I have a position of my own. I am not afraid to listen to or confront other positions. I am aware of all kinds of allegations against me. There is the allegation of Jumes the state-oriented, or Jumes whose public will get screwed because he will not look after his kibbutz the way he will look after a neighboring kibbutz. And finally, I am accused of being sectoral."

The most convenient place for Oron is number two. There he can flourish as the highly successful nondescript official. The one who is knowledgeable about the small print in the budget, who stands out above all the members of the Finance Committee, whose credibility landed him the position of chairman of the Knesset's Ethics Committee a second time, and who is the tenacious head of the parliament's public health lobby.

You said you have had your fill of this kind of activity, so why should people now vote for you as party leader?

"I am aware of a claim that even though I was number two, nothing happened without me. In the Knesset I viewed myself as someone who simply came to work. It's my job. I arrive at 8 or 8:30 in the morning and start to work, whether on legislation or in the Finance Committee or dealing with requests from the public. I try to be ready, to read relevant material, to make an effort. But I made a wholehearted decision to run, and if I win - and let it be clear that no one has yet crowned me - I will not put on a one-man show. I believe in the model of a shared leadership, which will give expression to everyone."

Implicit in this remark is criticism of the party's outgoing chairman, MK Yossi Beilin. "There was no such thing as 'Beilin's leadership,'" people in Meretz say, "because he tended not to consult or share things with others, but to do as he pleased." Oron, who has decided to run a positive campaign and not badmouth his party colleagues, chooses his words carefully: "Yossi chose a certain pattern of leadership which was not appropriate for Meretz," he says. "The assumption that one can speak in a number of voices in such a small party and that things will work out, is mistaken. We had arguments over this. In a party of the Meretz type, there is no way that five MKs will speak in five different voices."

You and MK Ran Cohen are veteran rivals. Will cooperation be possible after he accused you, among other things, of representing the old Ashkenazi elite and as being responsible, along with Beilin, for driving away voters?

"Of course it will be possible. In a campaign there is a certain aggravation of relations. I am not one to hold a grudge. Even if sometimes people say things that were better left unsaid, we can go on. I prefer to hold my tongue. After the next leader is elected, we need to adopt a more restrained culture. There is no need to shout out a different stand in order to acquire status in the party. I do not intend to shirk responsibility for everything that happened in Meretz. What happened, for good and for ill, was my responsibility, too. But if I made voters leave, then so did Ran Cohen and [MK] Zahava Gal-On" - who is also running for the party leadership.

Shunning the extremes

In the Ramat Gan neighborhood where he grew up and in the youth movement, Oron was called "jamus" - a water buffalo - because he was "big and black," and this later morphed into "jumes," a sycamore fruit.

Oron's parents immigrated to Palestine from Poland before the Second World War. The father was a textile worker, the mother a housewife, and to supplement their income they both made curtains on commission. Haim Oron met his wife, Nili, in the youth movement, and they have been together ever since. In Kibbutz Lahav, which they joined after military service in the Nahal brigade, Nili became involved in education and Haim taught in high school and was active in various kibbutz industries: poultry, field crops and the sausage factory (pork products). In addition, he was a member of every kibbutz committee, a worker in the plastics plant - and at one stage its manager, served as the kibbutz executive secretary and held the same position in the Hashomer Hatza'ir movement, was twice the national secretary of Hakibbutz Ha'artzi and was among the founders of Peace Now. He was first elected to the Knesset in 1988, on behalf of the Mapam party (the political branch of Hakibbutz Ha'artzi, the party became one of the components of Meretz). In 1994 he was appointed treasurer of the Histadrut labor federation, under the organization's chairman at the time, Haim Ramon, and in 1999 was minister of agriculture for 10 months in the government of Ehud Barak.

Haim Oron is intimately acquainted with the northern Negev. He loves driving through the area and telling about the expanses that surround Kibbutz Lahav, the wheat fields, the fields of carrots and onions, where the earth is now being turned over before being seeded anew, because the rains were late in coming. Of the settlement of Eshkolot, which lies east of Lahav, across the Green Line, he speaks in other tones. When the settlement was first established, he used to "spit out a curse" whenever he passed it, "even though the people who live there are relatively moderate."

According to the Geneva Initiative - Oron has no doubt that it will be implemented in full in a political agreement with the Palestinians - the border of the state of Palestine will pass 800 meters from his home. When that day comes, no one will be happier than he.

Legend has it that Oron's hair turned white in one day, 32 years ago. He took his 4-year-old son, Yaniv, with him to work in the kibbutz fields. The boy fell off the tractor and was critically hurt. With his son in his arms, Oron ran several kilometers to the kibbutz, but the boy died. Yaniv was the Orons' third child. Their eldest, Irit, lives with her family in Matan, a community in the Sharon area; their son, Uri, is a colonel in the air force. Another son, Assaf, an economist living in Tel Aviv, was an infant when the tragedy occurred. Two years after the accident, another son, Oded, was born, and is now also in the air force. Oron remains reticent about the incident.

"Even after all these years, it is something I am unable to talk about. A few years ago, Nili and I went to visit the grave. The pain is still intolerable, and so is the guilt." Nili Oron's grief was channeled into a children's book she wrote. Published two years after her son's death, it contained stories that Yaniv especially liked. Hanging in Oron's study (he still calls his home "the room," despite its spaciousness) hang four original illustrations by the writer Alona Frankel, which appeared in the book. A few months ago, several dozen copies of the book - which has long been out of print - were found by chance in the publisher's warehouse, and Nili, overjoyed, bought them all.

For years she has been working in ceramics, creating decorative walls, such as the one that greets those entering the dining hall of Kibbutz Lahav. Her workshop, in which she gives courses in ceramics and pottery making, contains many of her own works, which are optimistic and pleasing to the eye. But in a hidden corner are a few works she describes as "hard and frightening, which are impossible to love." One of them is a sculpture of a woman holding a seemingly comatose infant.

Oron says they were supposed to move to the neighborhood of the kibbutz veterans, but prefer to stay in their longtime home with the broad garden in which they planted a tree in honor of each of their eight grandchildren and in which Oron also built a swing. He is devoted to the kibbutz and has no qualms at all, he says, about the fact that his entire salary from the Knesset goes into the collective treasury or that his pension will not be as good as that of the other MKs.

His perception of the kibbutz project reflects the compromiser's approach attributed to him. In Oron's words, "Life is not lived at the extremes; that does not mean it can be totally pragmatic. Reality is multifaceted and complex, and you have to struggle for your views, but also to compromise - up to the point where the core of your ideology is in danger."

Your notion that "life is not lived at the extremes" is reflected in other areas, too. For example, in the green sphere, which Meretz advocates: you did not oppose the building of the Trans-Israel Highway, you are not against the establishment of the army's training camps complex at Ramat Hovav [a site where toxic waste products are stored and processed], and an institute in your kibbutz performs experiments on live pigs.

"The green issue was always part of Meretz's agenda, and is now more important than ever. I think we have to limit unnecessary cruel experiments on animals, but we also have to ask where the point of equilibrium lies. We were involved in developing valves for the heart and in examining a drug for leukemia. Are people ready to give up these achievements? I am not an expert in the field, but I have heard many experts state that there are many areas in which it is not yet possible to forgo experiments on animals.

"I did not oppose the Trans-Israel Highway, because of the route's importance for those who live at its extremities. This world would look green and delightful if there were no people here, but people do live here and we have to make life easier for them. Along with my support for the building of the highway, I worked, for example, to reduce the interchanges when possible. And I am definitely not against the training camps complex. If there is a problem with Ramat Hovav, it is equally valid with regard to Be'er Sheva, which is the same distance from Ramat Hovav as the army complex will be from the site. There is a great deal the state can do to ensure that Ramat Hovav will not pollute the training camps or Be'er Sheva or the Bedouin settlements, which are just a few kilometers from the site and are scandalously neglected. I have been involved in that story for 15 years now."

The Barghouti connection

Oron was always attentive to the plight of the Bedouin population in the Negev, even before he entered the Knesset. On a visit to the "unrecognized" village of Umm Batin, he points across the road, where the villas of Omer, an upscale Be'er Sheva suburb, are visible between the trees. "The largest socio-economic gap in the country exists here, within an area of less than one kilometer," he says.

The village, which consists mainly of tin huts, is not connected to the power grid and has no running water; what does run through it is Hebron Creek, now reduced to a conduit of stinking toxic sewage originating in Hebron and in Jewish and Bedouin settlements. Salameh Abu Kaf, a Meretz activist, relates that beyond the unbearable stench and the horrific look of the place, all manner of insects that are drawn to the sludge in the summer often bite the local children, some of whom have ended up in hospital in serious condition.

With Oron's aid, a sewage purification facility will be built that will produce water fit for irrigation which, by chance, will be used by Kibbutz Lahav. He also helped get a clinic established, as well as nursery schools, with the considerable assistance of Yossi Sarid when he was minister of education. A few years ago, says Ali Abu Kaf, the principal of the regional school, a village child was hospitalized in Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, and his parents could not afford to pay the bill of NIS 67,000. MK Talab al-Sana (United Arab List) tried for a month to help "but with no success. Then I turned to Jumes. I wrote him a letter, and the next day I already had a meeting with the director of Soroka, and two days later we were asked to pay only a third of the bill."

"And then what happened?" Oron asks with a smile. "Talab al-Sana got the credit," Ali Abu Kaf says.

And with all the help, do the village residents vote Meretz?

"Very few of them," Salameh Abu Kaf says.

This story reflects two of Oron's problems. One, well-known and tragic for Meretz, is that Oron and his colleagues work to benefit people who do not repay them in the form of votes, and the party has not been able to find a way to avoid this trap. The second is that Oron allows others to take the credit that is his due. A salient example is the Geneva Initiative, which is identified above all with Yossi Beilin.

According to a source who was very much involved in the process, Oron "was the driving force in Geneva, the industrious ant who put everything together but remained in the background while others enjoyed the credit. There were serious arguments during the process, and he was the compromise force. The effort nearly fell apart at least twice. I remember that there was a tremendous crisis with the Palestinians over the issue of the refugees and the prisoners, and Jumes, in his biblical sandals, stood up in front of everyone and said, 'Listen, do you know what the implications will be if we don't succeed in reaching understandings here, between the people of peace?'" He bridged everything in a businesslike way, with no tricks and no backbiting."

Kadoura Fares, a senior Fatah figure, who describes Oron as "a loyal friend of mine," relates: "He was very dominant and encouraged us to make progress all along. He didn't care what the newspapers and the history books would write about him. He treated the agreement as though it were going to be implemented tomorrow. He is loyal to Zionism and to his country, but on the other hand he is attentive to all our problems. He is consistent in his approach and doesn't speak in different tongues. He was the most influential person on the Israeli side, and he never fell into the despair that seized some of us. I do not want to belittle Beilin's skill in marketing the idea internationally, but without Jumes the Geneva Initiative would not have happened."

Fares began meeting with Oron more than 10 years ago, together with his colleague, Marwan Barghouti, who is now serving five life terms in an Israeli prison for terrorist activity. Since then, close relations of full trust have existed between Oron and the two Palestinian activists. "Jumes never bought the monster image that Israel tried to forge for Marwan," Fares says. "I swear on the Koran that if Jumes were prime minister and Marwan head of the Palestinian Authority, we would achieve peace here within six months."

Oron: "I have known Marwan since long before he entered prison. There was a lengthy period when, if things got boring in the Knesset, [former Meretz MK] Dedi Zucker and I would go to Ramallah to eat hummus with Marwan and Fares.

"At a certain point after his imprisonment," Oron continues, "I asked to visit him, while he was still in solitary confinement. Since then, for more than three years, I have visited him regularly once every week or two. That's more than his wife sees him. Maybe only his lawyer sees him more than I do. At the personal level, close relations have definitely been formed between us. We talk a lot about his family, about what he is going through."

According to some media reports, Oron is the mediator or liaison between Barghouti and the Israeli government. Predictably, Oron denies this: "I am not a mediator and I don't have a mandate to be a mediator. From my opposition perch I am trying to maintain the central track of dialogue with a responsible and important individual in the Palestinian leadership, whom I know wants to reach a peace agreement with us quickly and whose basic policy lines are more or less on the table.

"We are making a big mistake in delaying his release. I understand the political difficulties, but I also understand well the significance of this person. People like [cabinet ministers] Fuad [Benjamin Ben-Eliezer], Ami Ayalon and Gideon Ezra already agree with him openly, and if I have contributed to that, it makes me very happy. According to everyone who is informed about developments at the grassroots level, he has by far the highest public and political status in Fatah. Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad [referring to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his prime minister] are partners for dialogue but are too weak, while the strong dialogue partner is sitting in jail, and could do a great deal to advance the process."

In addition to Barghouti's release, Oron would like to see steps taken that would bolster the moderates in the Palestinian camp; if that route is not taken, Israel will reach a "no exit" situation, he says. "Negotiations must be held on the core issues, which everyone - Olmert, Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak - knows are on the table and also knows that there is no better proposal than the existing one. The second necessity is to implement changes on the ground, such as removing checkpoints and dismantling settlements, as well as releasing security prisoners. Alongside the list of Hamas prisoners who will be freed to recover the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, a list of prisoners to be freed for Abu Mazen must also be drawn up. This is so the Palestinian nation will understand that we release prisoners not only when a soldier is abducted but as part of negotiations. And that second list has to be no less meaningful than the Hamas list. We are holding 11,000 prisoners, which is a mass that the Palestinian government cannot countenance. There are thousands of families coping with this situation."

How do these sharp stands sit with the support that you and Meretz gave Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement and Olmert's Annapolis conference - neither of which reflected your principles?

"What do you suppose our voters expected from us when Sharon decided on the disengagement? For us to oppose it and thwart it? Am I supposed to stand by the side in a situation in which settlements are evacuated? People had better not play games with me. We checked, and I can tell you that the majority of our voters expected us to side with the disengagement, despite the harsh criticism we voiced because it was not done in coordination with Abu Mazen. From the moment it became clear to us that Sharon would not talk to Abu Mazen, what were we supposed to do?

"As for Olmert, it's true that after the publication of the first report by the Winograd Committee" - which examined the management of the Second Lebanon War - "I called on him to resign, but then you have to ask what you do when it turns out that he is not resigning. He is still the prime minister. So is he barred from attending a conference at Annapolis? What am I supposed to do when the conference is on the agenda and might bring progress?

"I do not accept the approach that all you have to do is shout 'Olmert go home' and do nothing until he does. Meretz should not adopt that approach. In every situation we have to ask how we can help influence a change of direction."

What is your view of Ehud Barak's return to politics?

"Barak is not saying anything and, regrettably, in a great many areas he is doing the opposite of what needs to be done. I don't know what he wants, and many members of his own party, including senior figures and cabinet ministers, have not succeeded in explaining his policy to me. He is cloaking himself in the mantle of head of the peace camp, but there is no content to that title. He ran in internal elections, said nothing about what he thinks, and won, so apparently there are large segments of the public who think it's not necessary to know what the party leader thinks. After the big disappointment in Barak as prime minister, we were sold a different Barak, a changed Barak. I find no change.

"Putting aside the personal aspects, I am against the positions Barak is adopting on a daily basis as defense minister. Checkpoints have not been removed - in fact, new ones have been added - prisoners are not being released, and nothing has been done to ease the situation at the crossing points or in commerce. Everything is stuck. From authorization to open a hospital ward to the supply of electricity and water. Nothing has changed [regarding the territories], and these are matters for which Barak bears the main responsibility. He has not made a turnabout in the Defense Ministry."

New blood

Oron is apprehensive about those who say he will win the leadership race, scheduled for March, in a cakewalk. According to a recent survey by Israel Radio, Oron has the support of 59 percent of Meretz voters, compared to 18 percent for Zahava Gal-On and 6 percent for Ran Cohen. "At the same time," he says, "and without crowning myself chairman prematurely, with all due modesty and seriousness, I am already thinking about the day after. About attracting groups of voters to Meretz. The party also needs new blood."

What is your opinion of Beilin's remark, after he withdrew from he leadership race, that the Meretz label has worn itself out?

"With all my support and closeness to Beilin, I think the Meretz label has not worn itself out at all. I do not read Beilin's texts like Scripture. So he said what he said."

If you are not elected Meretz chairman, will you carry out your original plan to retire from the Knesset at the end of this term?

"Possibly. I don't want to commit myself to anything just now. I made a decision in order to win, not lose. I do not share the fears that Meretz will diminish or will not get enough votes to enter the Knesset. I have my masochistic aspects, but not to the point where I would enter this race in order to be, heaven forbid, the undertaker."W

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1.	Barghouti killed Israelis while Meretz MK Oron ate humus with him	20:29	\|	Dr. Aaron Lerner	12/01/08

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