The Sephardi Perspective: In defense of Shas

Recently, the coalition negotiations with Kadima have brought up some very ugly epithets about Shas and its leadership. The political discourse has become rather unsightly.

Regular readers of this column are aware that I am no great fan of Shas. Although some years ago I toyed with the idea of voting for the party, I feel that most Sephardim are not duly represented by Shas. In the two decades since its founding, little has been done to improve the lives of those impoverished Sephardim that are supposedly its constituency.

Those who wish to defame Shas have pointed to the fact that many of their important decisions are made, not by their elected members of Knesset, but by a Council of sages, headed by Rav Ovadia Yosef.

Those on the left and on the right were quite happy having Shas in their coalition when it met their political needs, but when their views were against the coalition, Shas was singled out as "undemocratic".

This is an absurd notion as Shas is part of the Israeli democratic process. It fulfills all of the official criteria of a legitimate political party in Israel and has maintained a healthy representation in every recent Knesset. If those elected representatives decide to defer some of their parliamentary decisions to others, that is their right. There are very few Shas voters who do not understand that when they vote Shas, decisions will be made by halachic arbiters rather than the names on the party list.

Shas does not even try and hide this fact as most of its political and cultural posters will depict an image of Rav Yosef as its main feature. The people who vote for Shas are aware and obviously happy to be represented by religious leaders. The right of people to have the representatives of their choice in the portals of power is a given. Whether we like it or not, that is democracy.

Those who point to Shas' "flip-flopping" on security issues have little basis to lay their claims. Shas has never been known as a party that emphasizes its security credentials and it would be absurd to assume that anyone votes for Shas because of the stance vis-à-vis the peace process.

Members of Shas certainly make statements about the peace process and have from time to time become more hawkish or more dovish depending on any particular circumstance but Rav Yosef has demonstrated that he is not essentially and theologically against the concept of relinquishing land and deals with the reality through the prism of pikuah nefesh (saving lives).

Furthermore, those that vote Shas, it would appear, are not as emphatically hawkish as some would like to believe; or at least the security issue is not a primary priority to them.

Although Shas did not vote in favor of the Oslo Accords in 1993, when it came to a vote in the Knesset its abstention made it possible for those accords to become ratified by the government. As Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz, "Deri's Shas was not a left-wing party, but it... refrained from undermining the first Oslo agreement..."

When the first elections were held post-Olso, Shas remained as strong as it was in the previous elections, even though the electorate had replaced a dovish government with a more hawkish one. It would appear that few Shas voters left the party as a result of their role in the Oslo Accords.

Those that feel that they can pressurize Shas to leave the government because of its stance on the peace process are largely deluding themselves. Shas representatives know very well that their constituents are less likely to leave them over Jerusalem than over family allowances.

Livni, like every other politician, is aware of Shas' price tag - and it has little to do with Jerusalem despite the protestations. Shas will seek lip-service on the issue of Jerusalem but it is very clear that with all the reports to the contrary, Jerusalem is not off the negotiating table.

We may not like Shas' M.O. but we all have a right to vote in a party to push for issues of importance according to our perceptions. Shas voters have the right to do the same. It is high time critics stopped dealing in hypotheticals and wishing the system were designed according to their reading of democracy and put more time into dealing with Shas as it is, warts and all.

If we are against the Shas stance then we have to seek ways to combat it and convince its voters that their party does not represent them. This is how the system works and this is how it should be in our functioning liberal democracy.