Yisrael BaAliyah

Yisrael BaAliyah ( _he. ישראל בעלייה, lit. "Israel on the up") was a political party in Israel that focused on Zionism and representing the interests of Russian immigrants. The party was founded in 1996 by Natan Sharansky, a former Refusenik, and established its constituency almost solely on the immigrants from the former-USSR. The party dealt mainly with immigrant issues (Aliya is the hebrew word commonly used to refer to immigration to Israel). Israel Ba'aliya began its way as a "centrist" party, and gradually adopted more 'hawkish' views. In October 1999, two MKs, Roman Bronfman and Alexander Zinker, left the party and formed a left-leaning party, "The Democratic Choice". Bronfman later joined Yachad with his party. In 2003, Yisrael BaAliyah merged with the ruling Likud party.

Formation

Sharansky had long been the symbol of efforts to earn for Jewish residents of the USSR the right to emigrate on the basis of religious discrimination throughout the Soviet Union. He had been imprisoned for more than a decade in labour camps and prisons in Siberia. His victorious emigration to Israel in 1987 started the process of Soviet reform in that area, and he became the most recognized voice and activist in Israel for the steadily growing flood of immigrants.

In 1991 the USSR finally ended all restrictions on emigration and the resulting flood of immigration to Israel stunned the Israeli infrastructure for immigration absorption that hadn't handled a wave of more than 100,000 immigrants since the 1950s. Although the new arrivals were among the best trained doctors, engineers, scientists, and mathematicians in the world, the job market was not open to them, and the economy in Israel at the time was in a disastrous slump.

Furthermore, in 1991 a group of circa 20,000 immigrants from Ethiopia arrived, compounding that year's massive tally from the Soviet Union. Over the next three years both the Ethiopian and Russian-speaking immigrant communities swelled and became islands of poverty that neighboured other, native-born Israelis, many of whom were also unemployed leading to tensions between the groups.

Sharansky's aim first and foremost was to create a movement that would place Zionist ideals in the context of immigrants' lives, something that the two main parties, the center-right Likud and center-left Labour, had not been trying for decades. He also sought to further their integration into society, promote the image of Russians as cultured and highly educated, and battle the damaging stigmas stemming from Russian criminals who arrived in the ranks of the other immigrants. Sharansky's personal image as a dedicated and long-suffering idealist were intended to be the catalyst for an immigrant revolution in Israeli politics. Yisrael BaAliyah was chosen as the name for the party, both denoting its identification with immigrants, as well as the literal meaning of Ba-Aliya, "rising" or "in ascendance". With another ex-Soviet dissident Yuli Edelstein as a cofounder, they chose a slogan stating that their political party is different: its leaders first go to prison and only then go into politics.

1996 elections

In a race known mostly for the victory of the dynamic young right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud over the aging diplomat Shimon Peres, Yisrael BaAliyah polled 6%, earning 7 seats in the 120 seat Knesset.

The two-seat differential between Labour (34) and Likud (32; Netanyahu had won in direct elections for prime minister with 50.5%) made Sharansky one of several kingmakers of the new government.

In ministry

The euphoria was ended when it became clear that unrelated issues were tearing apart the party. The most obvious one was the rift over the Oslo Peace Accords and Declaration of Principles. Many Russian immigrants who had settled in Gaza and the West Bank, slated for territorial negotiations, viewed the agreements as a threat to their new lives. Sharansky himself was a keen supporter of Jewish settlements, but would not commit himself entirely to sinking the Oslo Accords.

The party received two ministries in the Netanyahu government, with Yuli-Yoel Edelstein as Immigration and Absorption Minister and Sharansky as Minister of Industry and Trade. However, they failed to make a significant impact on the government, and in the course of the Knesset term two members of their faction, Michael Nudelman and Yuri Stern, broke away and formed Aliyah, eventually joining the far-right immigrant group Yisrael Beiteinu of Avigdor Lieberman.

1999 elections

Yisrael BaAliyah did surprisingly well in the early elections that fell in May 1999. Once again, the two main parties Labour and Likud overshadowed them and other smaller groups. The party polled 6 seats, roughly 5% of the total vote. Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman's more hard-line immigrant group polled 4 seats (3%) giving the Russian sector 9 seats, or 7.5% of the Knesset. The idea of joining together was dashed when Sharansky opted to join Gen. Ehud Barak's One Israel (an alliance of centre-left Labour, centre Gesher, and moderate religious Meimad parties) group in the government, and later Lieberman effectively coalesced with the rightist National Union alliance of Benny Elon and Zvi Hendel.

Breaking point

Unfortunately One Israel's policies proved to be too leftist for Sharansky. Despite their reduction of representation in the Knesset, he was given the powerful post of Minister of Internal Affairs, but that was the only ministry Yisrael BaAliyah received. The Ministry of Immigration Absorption, one of the target posts, was occupied by Premier Ehud Barak, and later Yuli Tamir (One Israel [Labour] ), and Yisrael BaAliyah was given only the post of deputy minister, to which Barak named Marina Solodkin.

Summer 2000 was the breaking point for the Barak government. In June of that year the left-wing Meretz group resigned over failure to define the religious Shas Party's role in the government, particularly the Ministry of Education. Barak was at the same time involved in intensive talks with Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat aimed at producing a "final status" solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On July 11, 2000, Natan Sharansky and Marina Solodkin tendered their resignations in response to official discussions that hinted at the possibility of redividing Jerusalem, the party left the coalition along with the religious Shas Party, and a day later the rightist National Religious Party. The rapid disintegration would in November force Barak's resignation and early direct elections for the prime minister in February 2001.

Under Sharon

When Ariel Sharon (Likud) was elected prime minister, Yisrael BaAliyah immediately joined his coalition and remained in it throughout the end of the 15th term of the Knesset. In an unusually bloated government that included nine parliamentary groups, 31 ministers, fourteen deputy ministers, and four (later 3) deputy prime ministers, Sharansky was appointed Minister of Housing and Construction. He was also appointed deputy prime minister along with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (Labour-Meimad), Minister of Internal Affairs Eli Yishai (Shas), and Finance Minister Silvan Shalom (Likud) during the beginning of the government on March 7, 2001. The only other member of the party in the government was Deputy Minister of Immigrant Absorption Yuli-Yoel Edelstein.

While in the course of its term five parties bolted from the government, Yisrael BaAliyah was one of those that stayed solid. But Sharon never rewarded the party with any more ministries. A more specific problem was the defection of the leftist wing of the party when Roman Bronfman and Alexander Tsinker broke away to form the short-lived Democratic Choice that would merge into Meretz. This was in response both to the neglected state of internal and social affairs by the government, and the hard-handed treatment of Palestinians during Operation Defensive Shield (April 2002).

Now working with four Knesset members, the party was being increasingly labeled as a Likud lackey. The lack of movement on social affairs, the demotion of Sharansky from Internal Affairs to Housing, and the defection of Bronfman and Tsinker, dented the image of the Prisoner of Zion that Sharansky had been prior to his parliamentary career.

Complete failure

In January 2003 elections for the 16th Knesset provided a surprising boost for the Likud and parties of the right. The abandonment of the direct poll for the prime minister also hurt smaller parties, among them Yisrael BaAliyah. The group shrank to only two seats in the body (2.15% of vote) while Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Beytenu stayed strong with half of the National Union's eight seats.

Merged into Likud

Disappointed by the result, Sharansky resigned from the Knesset and was replaced by Yuli-Yoel Edelstein. However, he remained chairman of Yisrael BaAliyah and decided to merge it into the expanded Likud in the hopes of achieving more direct pressure on Sharon in relation to immigrant affairs. Sharansky was appointed Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, a ministry nominally considered important, but in reality with little power. Solodkin was reappointed Deputy Minister of Immigrant Absorption. Their rival, Avigdor Lieberman (National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu) was appointed Minister of Transportation.

The strategy failed when the government consistently disappointed on economic and educational affairs. Sharansky increasingly seemed to be little more than an instrument of the Likud's political machine of patronage while many ministers from the Likud and its key ally Shinui were fingered by police probes into fraud and other illegal activities.

Resurgence?

When Sharon announced his Withdrawal Plan from the Gaza Strip in phases during the course of 2004, members of the defunct Yisrael BaAliyah within in the Likud joined the massive campaign to defeat the plan during Sharon's attempts to have it passed by Likud's internal bodies.

During both the Likud referendum (May 2004), and the Central Committee vote (September 2004), Sharansky and other Russian members of the Likud were key activists in the battle to sink the plan. This earned him praise from the right-wing of the Likud and Knesset, though the twin victories were negated by Sharon. He was also important to the opponents of the plan because of his status as Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, former Prisoner of Zion. While Sharon threatened and fired other ministers who voted against the plan, he never hinted that he would fire Sharansky, even though as a non-member of the Knesset he would have been banished from political life by such an action.

On May 4, 2005 Sharansky resigned as Minister of Jerusalem Affairs in response to what he saw as the beginning of execution of Sharon's withdrawal plan. This marks a crossroads in his career, and that of his followers. Yisrael BaAliyah is now defunct and its ex-members divided into several camps. Many nationalists joined Lieberman's Yisrael-Beiteinu, secular ones have joined the liberal Shinui group, and others have stayed with the Likud.

One of the people who wouldn't be happy if Sharansky returned is Yakov Kedmi (born Yasha Kazakov). Himself a Yom Kippur War veteran and Prisoner of Zion, he has declared he is forming his own more social affairs-inclined immigration rights group, and has frequently criticised top tier Russian-Israeli politicians like Lieberman and Sharansky.

Replacement? Some criticisms

It has never been analyzed thoroughly why Yisrael BaAliyah, one of the most promising social movements in the nation in 1996, in the end disintegrated and lost almost all of its voters. No one has been able to place the blame directly on Sharansky; he is too well-respected for his activism for democracy, immigrants, and against worldwide anti-Semitism and discrimination. However, many of the flaws that doomed the party in the eyes of the public were articulated by Kazakov/Kedmi and other critics:

A. Since entering the Netanyahu government in 1996, the party never forcefully pushed the issue of immigrant rights as much as it did opposition to security and territorial concessions.

B. It is partially blamed for never criticizing the continuous breakdown of the education system.

C. The party has been grouped with other factions that demand funds for a particular constituency (in this case Russian immigrants) without responsibly budgeting and accounting for those funds along with Shas (religious and Oriental Jews), United Torah Judaism (Ultra-Orthodox), and right-wing (settlements) and Arab parties. One problem they never successfully dealt with was the large scale cheating by many Soviet immigrants, many of whom falsely claimed they were Jewish or used family connections to earn immigrant subsidies and citizenship. These images limit the party's ability to attract support from new voters, and damage their perception of it.

D. While they originally hoped to represent all immigrants to Israel, the party never expanded its constituency to include anyone besides moderate right-wing immigrants from the USSR. At the same time they alienated native Israelis due to ethnic tensions, violence and crime within the immigrant communities, and the above-mentioned cheating. While the number of new arrivals from the USSR decreases yearly, French, English-speaking, and Latin American immigrants have steadily risen in numbers, or at least remained level. None of these groups were targeted by Yisrael BaAliyah, nor were the already long immigrated, yet still impoverished Ethiopian community that is unrepresented in the Knesset, a failure that Kazakov vows not to make.

E. Yisrael BaAliyah resigned from the Barak government without making it clear that they would back up the prime minister if he would take a firm line on negotiations. Barak's economic policies were better for Russian immigrants than the Netanyahu government's, and had they remained the party may have been able to acquire more concessions on social affairs later in Barak's term. By leaving the government they sowed the seeds of the Bronfman and Tsinker defection that changed the group from a broad-based immigrant party to a right-wing one. Yisrael-Beiteinu was, and still is, far more popular among rightist immigrants than Yisrael BaAliyah was, and therefore Sharansky forced himself to compete for a constituency that had already chosen its leader, Avigdor Lieberman.

F.In contrast, Sharansky remained in Sharon's government from 2001, despite his continuous concessions. Only recently did he dig in and throw down the gauntlet against the Withdrawal, while at the same time failing to affect the internal affairs policy of Sharon's government that is extremely unpopular among the unemployed, as well as the Soviet immigrant community.

All of these considerations will deeply complicate any efforts at a resurrection of Yisrael BaAliyah, or any new party led by former members of it. Meanwhile criticism of the Likud's social policy has been taken over by media reports on the deteriorating school system, the only marginal gains against unemployment, and a budget that has baffled both critics and supporters. All of these priorities have shoved immigrant rights back to the low slot it was at in 1996 when Sharansky first led Yisrael BaAliyah into the Knesset.

Knesset members

External links

* [http://www.knesset.gov.il/faction/eng/FactionPage_eng.asp?PG=5 Party history] Knesset website