Passing the 2005 budget is now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's main mission, now that passage of the Evacuation-Compensation Law (5765-2005) is behind him. This is a critical mission, because he only has 40 days left to pass the budget, otherwise he'll have lost everything. Without a budget on March 31, there is no government, no Knesset, and only early elections by the end of June. QED. This means that there is no disengagement either. Government activity can somehow be funded with monthly allocations based on the 2004 budget, but the Ministry of Finance is financing the disengagement plan by increasing the 2005 budget deficit, and without a budget, there is no deficit, and therefore no financing.
The absence of a budget will have an immediate impact on implementing the disengagement plan. If Sharon already had a budget for 2005, SELA (the disengagement administration) head Yonatan Bassy could immediately begin signing settlers on voluntary evacuation agreements in exchange for advance payments on the generous compensation the Knesset approved last week. There are already dozens of candidates lined up, but the Knesset Finance Committee has only approved NIS 30 million for his purpose. Given the lack of money and uncertainty about the budget, the settlers have no incentive to leave voluntarily, especially if the disengagement plan is postponed, or even never gets underway at all.
The loss of precious time leads to doubt, and is liable to jeopardize the disengagement timetable. Sharon is now under pressure to find the votes needed to pass the budget by March 31. Right now, he has only 51 MKs, with 17 rebel Likud MKs also opposing the budget. The votes in favor include 23 Likud MKs, 19 Labor MKs (since MK Amir Perez's One Nation faction opposes the budget for its own reasons), 5 MKs from United Torah Judaism, and three or four other MKs.
Sharon has the following options to make up the difference: up to five Likud MKs from a collapse of the rebel from; lobby Yahad and the Arab parties to abstain, which will reduce the opposition's roll count by 14 votes (Yahad wants the disengagement plan to go forward, and the Arab parties can be offered financial incentives); Shas could be brought into the coalition, adding 11 votes (although the chance is slim, given Shas's NIS 1 billion price tag); and winning the support of Shinui's 14 MKs (a dubious prospect).
Sharon and his aides are examining all the options simultaneously. Their working assumption is that early elections is deterring all parties, except for Shas, which is already prepared for them, so that March 31 judgement day will cause most opponents to at least abstain, reducing the number of opponents by 28 MKs, and giving the government at least a 50:40 plurality. Early elections threaten the Likud rebels with the loss of their seats, so that the government plurality might even be greater.
Sharon met Shinui chairman MK Joseph (Tomy) Lapid at Sycamore Farm last night. The meeting was part of this effort, even though a Shinui safety net is not Sharon's priority. The meeting lasted an hour, and its content and consequences were predictable. Sharon asked for Shinui's support for carrying out the disengagement plan; Lapid agreed, on the condition that Shinui is brought into a the government with Likud and Labor, and the religious parties are ousted. Lapid said Shinui left the coalition in the first place was the reason it could not support the budget from the opposition bench.
The meeting did not end on a low note; to the contrary. Sharon and Lapid agreed to meet again. The two men would be still thinking as one, as they have for the past two years, were Sharon not burdened with the Likud central committee. The central committee dictated its preference for its historical coalition with the haredi (ultra-orthodox) parties. In his heart, Sharon agrees with Lapid, because a Likud-Labor-Shinui government - even without the Likud rebels - would have 61 MKs, which favors both the disengagement plan and the budget, and "without haredi extortion", as Lapid puts it. But this is not the reality for now.
In the real world, Sharon will strive to reduce Shas's demands for joining the government. But Sharon's problems are not only vis-à-vis Shas chairman MK Eli Yishai, who is already in the midst of an election campaign, but also with Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fight for the budget framework. Yishai's plan for Israeli's children and the poor will cost NIS 1 billion. A confrontation between Sharon and Netanyahu for and against this price now seems to be the only way to remove Netanyahu from Sharon's path. This would be better than Netanyahu voting against the disengagement plan in the cabinet tonight.
Netanyahu's no vote in the cabinet is not a threat to Sharon. Netanyahu can only crawl to the radical right in the Likud central committee, which would not improve his personal standing. Sharon can allow Netanyahu this gesture, in the hope for future cooperation.
Sharon can also expect concessions from Netanyahu on the budget in order to finance Shas's joining the government, giving it stability and avoiding early elections. If Netanyahu won't concede, Sharon might call him on the carpet. But he might not. People are highly unpredictable when a sharp sword is placed against their jugular.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 20, 2005