No longer their pets

The ideologue of the right-wing Jewish Leadership group in the Likud and the author of the book "Revolution of Faith," Mordecai Karpel, believes there is no justification for Israel's existence other than the divine bond. Karpel is so devout in this belief that at last week's annual Jewish Leadership conference, he differentiated between the "summud [steadfastness] of the Arabs, which is to the land, and `our' summud, which is to God."

Moshe Feiglin, a better-known face in the Jewish Leadership, which managed last week to drive the prime minister out of his mind, does not stop talking about the Jewish identity that is missing from Israel's policies and public face. Feiglin even found a similarity between the values of religion, tradition and conservatism that George Bush espoused on his way to electoral victory in the United States, and the values and identity that he and his friends would like to inculcate in Israel.

Feiglin and Karpel see the land of Israel as first and foremost a land of destiny - and only after that a land of refuge. In territorial disengagement, they see only a symptom of a much more serious disease: disengagement from values, faith, Jewish identity and justice. From their point of view, it is a kind of desperation and escape.

Not all the Jewish Leadership's political allies in the Likud necessarily identify with its "recovery plan," which includes the culture of the Third Temple, and in the long run the reconvening of the Sanhedrin and even the renewal of biblical monarchy. But in terms of diagnosing the disease, they have a great deal in common.

Former minister Uzi Landau, former deputy minister Michael Ratzon, and the group of Herut old-timers and Likud founders singing Beitar and underground songs on the podium at the conference, are in accord with this group. They, too, see disengagement and the Oslo process as a kind of mental illness, or at least a process of collective mental fatigue with which the Israeli leadership has been afflicted.

This shared ground is enough to create a commonality of interests that is threatening to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But, as opposed to Sharon's description, this is not an "outside takeover." It is an internal, legitimate move, very much like Sharon's own takeover, and that of his predecessors, of the leadership of the Likud and the country.

Fortunately, the Jewish Leadership, many of whose activists came to the Likud from Kach, Chai Vekayam and Zo Artzeinu, has taken upon itself the rules of the political and democratic game. Sharon and his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu made frequent use of the settlers and Chabad members to win elections. The settlers were good enough to hand out stickers in the street, to manage campaigns, to sit in on strategic campaign sessions, and to be central in successfully traveling the road to the Prime Minister's Office.

But when the settlers and the ideological right stop being pets and get into the kitchen and even, heaven forbid, demand to have an impact and remain faithful to the original Likud ideology, the action suddenly becomes illegitimate.

The mass joining of the Likud by the ideological right is much more legitimate than the mass joining of the Likud of Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox, who were signed up by Sharon's people. What ideological platform does an Arab citizen of Joarish or Kafr Qasem share with Sharon? What common ground do thousands of Jerusalemite ultra-Orthodox Likud supporters have with Limor Livnat and Tzipi Livni?

The supporters of Jewish Leadership are much closer to the Likud platform and the nationalist spirit. As long as the Likud platform states that Israeli sovereignty will extend over the West Bank and even over Gaza - this is the formal platform on which Sharon stood for election - the "rebels" are not really rebels and the "loyalists" are not really loyalists.

Not all of those signed up by the Jewish Leadership voted for the Likud but that is part of Israel's defective political culture. Some ultra-Orthodox who joined the Likud voted for ultra-Orthodox parties. It was a similar situation with the Arabs: 167 residents of Arab village of Tamra voted for the Likud in 2002, but only 29 voted for them in the last elections. In Sajur, 631 people joined the Likud but only 143 voted for the party. In the shared Likud-National Religious Party-National Union vote bank, the phenomenon is known. Yet no one expelled anyone the way Sharon, Livnat and Livni would like to do to the Jewish Leadership activists.

The pot cannot call the kettle black. Sharon - who is threatening dismissal and other sanctions against ministers and MKs who oppose him and vote their conscience in accordance with the Likud platform, and who crushes ministers, MKs and Likud Central Committee members on the way to disengagement - is surprised to find that there are those who are balancing him out, threatening ministers and MKs that they will not vote for them again if they deny the authentic Lukud way and their obligations to voters.