Prize of a lifetime
By Gil Hoffman

(May 9) -- The decision to award the Israel Prize for Life Achievement to Shulamit Aloni has proven to be as controversial as the veteran politician's career.

When Shulamit Aloni receives the Israel Prize for Life Achievement tomorrow night at a ceremony at the Jerusalem Theater, both she and her most vocal critics will remain strangely silent. Aloni declined a chance to speak at the ceremony, preferring to let Hebrew University professor of philosophy Yirmiyahu Yovel speak on behalf of all of the prizewinners.

Deputy Education Minister Shaul Yahalom, who unsuccessfully petitioned the High Court of Justice to withhold the prize, said he would attend the ceremony "although it will be painful." His National Religious Party colleagues considered staging a protest outside the theater, but decided "Independence Day is not a time for demonstrations."

When asked whether the prize - which is being given for her four decades of fighting for the rights of minorities, women and consumers - symbolizes victory over her critics, Aloni said it would give her "feelings of gratification and encouragement," but quickly added that she is not about to start caring what her critics have to say.

"I didn't do anything thinking I would win the praises of the likes of Shaul Yahalom," she said curtly.

Referring to a mishna in the Ethics of the Fathers, she added, "People like me don't serve the public and struggle in order to get a prize - not in this world, and also not in the next world, because I don't believe in a next world."

That defiant attitude has become a trademark for the controversial Meretz founder, who made headlines both by forging a pioneering path advocating human rights and dialogue with Palestinians, and by criticizing the religious establishment and right-wing.

The media debate which has raged since February 27, when Education Minister Yossi Sarid announced the choice of his former party leader for the nation's top honor, has centered on whether the latter disqualifies the former - in essence, whether her actions indeed speak louder than her words.

ALONI IS convinced that the brashness that made her a loner politically did not interfere with achieving her goals, that having a vocal and controversial spokesman, has only helped advance her causes.

"In politics, you can't just play to the consensus - you can't change anything that way," she said. Shinui MK Yosef Paritzky, who recently floated Aloni as a candidate for president, said he agrees with the woman he calls his "guru."

"I don't think there's a non-controversial figure who has contributed to Israeli society," Paritzky said, extolling her virtues.

"No one is more suitable for a life-achievement prize than Shulamit Aloni."

Using the same terminology as Paritzky, Yahalom praised Aloni for her achievements, but said the damage she has done to Israeli society with her frequent diatribes against settlers, religious Jews, the Chief Rabbinate and prime ministers should disqualify her for the prize.

"Life achievement does not require appealing to the consensus, but it does require being a mensch," Yahalom said.

"The prize is supposed to reflect outstanding character. She could have done all the positives without all the negatives," he added as he displayed a copy of his petition to the High Court. The petition contains a list of more than 30 Aloni quotes insulting public officials, interest groups and biblical figures. It asked the High Court to order the Israel Prize Committee to reconsider its decision to grant her the prize as it did in 1997 with Ma'ariv columnist Shmuel Shnitzer.

The court overturned the decision to give Shnitzer the Israel Prize for Journalism after United Ethiopian Immigrants Association chairman Adisu Messele petitioned that he be disqualified for writing an article, headlined "Import of Blood," which Ethiopians considered racist.

The court ruled in that case that the committee should reconsider the prize, because it had not been aware that the ethics committee of the Journalists' Council had censured Shnitzer. Yahalom similarly wrote in his petition that the committee might have been unaware of some Aloni statements that bordered on the criminal, for which she might have stood trial if she did not have parliamentary immunity.

The NRP MK pointed out that former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar censured Aloni for implying that Justice Menahem Elon could not be impartial because he wears a kippa. Aloni also insulted Edmond Levy, the judge in the Yigal Amir trial.

She compared then-defense minister Yitzhak Rabin to Mussolini on the Knesset floor in 1989 and repeated the same slur 10 years later against former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who she also said was "a good student of Goebbels."

NOR DID prime ministers Begin, Shamir and Peres escape her wrath Judges Jacob Turkel, Dalia Dorner and Theodore Orr declined Yahalom's petition, saying that the Shnitzer case was "absolutely exceptional" and writing, "Don't turn us into a committee for awarding prizes."

Aloni said she cannot be compared to Shnitzer, because "everyone knows everything about me." "I considered suing Yahalom for slandering me in his lawsuit, but instead I should thank him," Aloni said, "There has been an outpouring of support for me since the lawsuit."

Netanyahu, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, former NRP MK Avraham Melamed and even haredim have written her letters of congratulations. Even Messele, a former Labor MK, said there was no connection between Aloni and Shnitzer and that she deserved the prize.

"Shnitzer wrote a racist article against aliya, a subject on which there is national consensus," Messele said.

"I wish Aloni would behave in a more statesmanlike manner and I disagree with her on many things, but at least the statements she made were about subjects on which there is legitimate public debate."

Yahalom said he also has received tremendous public support for his campaign against Aloni and that he regrets that she decided not to take him to court. He denied allegations by Aloni supporters that the petition was merely a stunt intended to increase his popularity prior to his race for head of the NRP.

"I was the voice for a massive public outcry against her selection," Yahalom said. "I would have made the same objection if they decided to give the prize to [Palestinian leader] Yasser Arafat. Everyone knows I would have done the same thing even if I were not running." Yahalom issued rare criticism against his boss, Sarid, calling his awarding the prize to his former rival in Meretz "very unethical."

At the same time, however, he praised Sarid for "acting in a more dignified manner as education minister than Aloni" in his dispute with Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, whom Aloni has repeatedly insulted and compared to the wicked Roman emperor and mass murderer Caligula. "Sarid might have the same opinions as she does, but at least he's civil - at least in public," Yahalom said, citing Sarid's lack of response to Yosef's infamous "cursed is Sarid" speech. "Imagine what Aloni would have said in response to the same insult."

ALONI denied Sarid's charges of cronyism and said that many other "political figures" have received the prize, citing NRP-affiliated rabbis Bnei Akiva yeshivot founder Moshe Zvi Neriah and Merkaz Harav Yeshiva head Shaul Yisraeli, comparisons which Yahalom rejected as unrelated to politics.

"The real comparison would be if [former NRP leader and education minister Zevulun] Hammer would have given the prize to [former NRP leader Josef] Burg. He would not have dared to risk the inevitable public outcry," Yahalom said.

For the record, several former MKs have won the prize, including Golda Meir, Knesset speaker and Labor party minister Shlomo Hillel, and NRP MK Sarah Stern-Katan, but the awards were given mainly for work done prior to entering politics.

Yosef also won the award - for Torah scholarship - in 1970, long before he entered the realm of controversy.

The prize, which was first given in 1953, was awarded for 40 years without controversy until Aloni herself caused an uproar as education minister by deciding to give the 1993 prize to philosopher Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who once referred to IDF soldiers as "Judeo-Nazis."

Aside from Shnitzer, the awards have been given without protest ever since, until Sarid's announcement of Aloni.

"In all her years of work in the public sector, Shulamit Aloni stood up and struggled for respect and human rights," Sarid said in announcing the award.

"As a teacher, an educator, lawmaker, and publicist, with a strong heart and clear voice, she fought to right corruption."

WHEN ASKED what she believes are her top accomplishments, the 70-year-old Aloni first mentioned the success and the staying power of Meretz.

"There have been so many generals that tried and failed to form political parties - Moshe Dayan, Ariel Sharon, Yigael Yadin, Ezer Weizman, Rafael Eitan - where are they now?" she asked smugly. "Here I was, a woman with no money, and I managed to build a successful party. That's a worthy accomplishment, isn't it?"

Aloni is also credited with starting the battles for human rights, specifically the rights of consumers, women, secular Jews, Arabs and foreign workers - battles, she said, that were by no means easy.

"When I started the civil-rights battle, people in Israel had never heard of such a thing," Aloni said. "There was so much red tape and bureaucracy. Now there are organizations like the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and B'Tselem."

Aloni started the consumer movement in the 1960s, when she hosted a popular weekly radio show called After Office Hours, in which she dealt with citizens' complaints, usually against the state. She became known as Israel's unofficial ombudsman and later founded the Israel Consumer Rights Council.

Almost from the moment she entered the Knesset in 1965 on the breakaway Labor Party Rafi list, Aloni locked horns with then-prime minister Meir. After not being elected in 1969, she broke off from Labor and formed the Citizen's Rights Movement (now part of Meretz) in 1973.

Elected to the Knesset as a CRM member in 1974, she briefly served as a minister without portfolio under Rabin, but resigned after the NRP joined the coalition. She continued battling the religious parties throughout the rest of her Knesset career, which ended unceremoniously after Sarid gradually took over Meretz.

WHEN SHE resigned from politics in 1996, she published a bitter autobiography entitled I Couldn't Do It Differently, in which she lashed out at Sarid among others.

Now that she is retired, Aloni is busy as ever, working on several cultural and educational projects and teaching at Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion university law schools.

Aloni said she is satisfied spending more time with her three children and seven grandchildren and imparting her wisdom to a new generation, teaching courses entitled "The influence of political monopolies and coalitions on human rights."

While Aloni said she is happy with her own life, she is frustrated by the current state of the country, and the lack of a constitution, a goal she never accomplished.

"We got out of Egypt and earned our freedom 52 years ago, but we still haven't received the law," Aloni said, in a timely reference to Pessah and Shavuot.

"Freedom doesn't make a nation. To be a nation requires a constitution."

Part of the maturation process the country still requires is "ridding itself of its Diaspora mentality and learning to deal with sovereignty," she said.

"The country still lacks a feeling of responsibility for all its citizens."

Despite complaining that the country is "greedy," "racist," has a "brutal Darwinist economy" and a "dangerous fundamentalist public," Aloni is relatively optimistic. "I honestly still believe that we won't destroy ourselves," she says.

ALONI does not appear to be upset that her battles with Shas, which forced her out of the Education Ministry, are behind her and left to Sarid. She praised Sarid for standing up to Shas's "caprices and extortion."

"Yossi Sarid has learned from my mistakes," she said. "I regret that I gave up the Education Ministry thinking it would satisfy [Shas], because it obviously didn't work."

Aloni called Shas "a regional mafia that puts money ahead of the nation and spreads ignorance," and Shas leader Eli Yishai "a weak leader in who is trying to look tough by acting extreme," but she had nothing bad to say about Yosef.

Comparing Prime Minister Ehud Barak's dealings with Yosef to the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, Aloni said, "I blame Esau (Barak) for selling the birthright, not Jacob (Yosef) for taking it." When asked whether she regretted making any of the statements that caused controversy, Aloni said she meant to criticize the religious establishment as a whole and not individual people or Judaism itself. She also reiterated that she never incited or called for violence.

"I don't think anything she said against anyone has been incitement," Paritzky, said in her defense. "If she's an inciter, then so are the prophets Amos and Jeremiah."

Despite her accomplishments, Yahalom said Aloni would be remembered more for spreading hatred than encouraging equality.

Paritzky however said the prize is a sign that Aloni was right all along and in the long run will be proven correct.

"History will judge Shulamit Aloni as the prophet of the 21st century," he said.