Shas

The refusal of Shas to join a new Israeli coalition government is a useful reminder, because Shas is a useful reminder. Whatever else Israel may or may not be, Israel is simply not a Western country, still less is Israel the West's front line, or anything like that.

Israel is certainly no more a Western country than, say, somewhere where the President has to be a Catholic, and where a European language is spoken routinely, including in all official business. Or somewhere with at least five predominantly Christian provinces, and where civil servants are given Sunday morning off to go to church even though Sunday is a working day. Or somewhere where, at least until a recent invasion removed their previous protection, Christians comprised about one eighth of the population. Or somewhere with three reserved seats for Christians (and a reserved seat for Jews) in Parliament.

Those countries rather more Western than Israel are, respectively, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

A Western country does not, ever, have the balance of power held by a party which demands that the law of the land conform to not even to the the halachic practices of European Jews, but to the often very different halachic practices of Middle Eastern Jews, who are linguistic, cultural and therefore (from a pan-Arab point of view) political Arabs.

No wonder that Shas is as lukewarm as it is about the settler movement, and really about Zionism in general. People have berated me in the past for suggesting that the settlers, in fidelity to the Zionist pioneers, were trying to set up a little bit of "long nineteenth-century" Germany in the Levant, and didn't really want to be in the Middle East at all. Well, you don't have to take my word for that.

If Britain, or France, or America (and the shift has very definitely started there), or any other Western country ever saw the balance of power held by a party which demanded, for example, Sharia law, then Britain, or France, or America, or wherever would have ceased to be a Western country.

With the balance of power held by Shas, indeed with Shas as a significant political force at all, Israel is not only not a Western country, but is a very, very, very Middle Eastern country, far less Western than Lebanon, or Syria, or Iraq (at least before the invasion), or Iran, and right up or down there with other neocon favourites (indeed, the Clinton and Bush paymasters) in such places as Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and, above all, Saudi Arabia.

Non-neocon, non-Clintonite, non-Bushite attitudes and policy should reflect this.

Post-neocon, post-Clinton, post-Bush attitudes and policy should reflect this.

The attitudes and policy of the Obama Administration should reflect this.