January 30, 2003

Sharansky steps down as MK

By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER

Yisrael B'Aliya leader Natan Sharansky stepped aside as a member of Knesset Wednesday, in what is expected to be the first step in a restructuring of the party, including a renaming and the inclusion of other well-known political figures into its list.

The party received only two mandates in the new Knesset instead of the expected four to six. Marina Solodkin, No. 3 on the list, will now enter the Knesset behind Deputy Absorption Minister Yuli Edelstein.

"I don't see any point for us joining with any government," he told Channel 1 Wednesday night. "It won't help our goal, which is rehabilitating the party."

Sharansky issued a news release saying that the party's campaign strategy was "to focus on our traditional base of support, Russian immigrants, even while we reached out to other audiences, including our English-speaking supporters, as well as to the general Hebrew-speaking population. It is clear from the results that we made significant inroads into these new communities, while it is also clear that Russian immigrants no longer feel the need to vote for a 'Russian immigrant party.' While we celebrate that fact for Israeli society, we obviously regret its impact on the results for us in the election."

Sharansky said he was stepping down to focus his efforts as party chairman on bringing the party's message to mainstream Israelis.

"I will dedicate my efforts in the coming months, as chairman of the party, to reaching out to all Israelis," he said. "I take responsibility for our showing in the election, and will focus now on presenting a compelling message to the wider Israeli community."

Eli Kazhdan, No. 5 on the party list, said the move toward a reorganization "has to be an evolutionary process. We're not going to parachute someone onto the party list, but I am sure that the transformation process in Yisrael B'Aliya will of course include the incorporation of new faces." Kazhdan mentioned Yehuda Harel, head of the Golan Heights Regional Council and a former member of the Third Way, and Yosef Ben-Shlomo, a leading ideologue of the settler movement, as figures who had come out publicly in support of Yisrael B'Aliya.

"I know of many other people, and Natan will be working closely with these people and others to develop Yisrael B'Aliya's new strategic directions," he said.

Arye Green, head of the Anglo division of the party, said party leaders "have been talking about a new name for a year."

There has been a general agreement that we ought to consider renaming the party to reflect what we have to offer to middle Israelis, and that's why the party has to join forces with center-right Israelis, in order to present a real alternative to mainstream Israelis."

Green said his reading of the results, which party officials blamed on low immigrant turnout, was that "we were not rejected by the voters. They did not hear us. We don't view this result as a failure. Yes, it's clear the Russian immigrant community has decided it no longer needs sectarian representation in the Knesset.

"On the other hand, it is quite clear that a significant proportion of our voters came from the English-speaking or other non-Russian communities. The very fact that English-speaking, Spanish-speaking, French-speaking, and a not inconsiderable number of Hebrew-speaking Israelis, from all walks of life, did vote for us is an important indicator of the power of our message. Now we just have to communicate that message with the wider Israeli community."

Disappointment among party leaders with Tuesday's results was tempered by the realization that it was the party's very success that will now force it to promote itself to a broader audience.

"I am certain that Yisrael B'Aliya played an historic role in integrating more than a million new olim into Israeli society," Kazhdan said, "but ironically, I am glad to see that these people now feel themselves more Israeli than olim. That is the ultimate sign of our success.

"Of course I'm very disappointed. We certainly expected to get somewhere between four and six seats, and this came as a very unpleasant surprise. What is clear and that is something that we understood, but perhaps did not internalize sufficiently is that Yisrael B'Aliya must evolve, and the faster the better. We must move from a party representing the concrete interests of new immigrants, to a party with a broad and all-inclusive message for Israelis of all walks of life in the realms of peace and security, Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and the economy."

Aaron Weil, coordinator for the Ra'anana/Sharon region and a communications adviser to the party, said the results show that "the king is dead long live the king. This is proof positive that there is no future in Israel for immigrant parties. The No. 1 lesson we've learned here is that immigrants, whether Russian,

Anglo, or Argentinean, think in their native tongue, but act in the mindset of their adopted home. The message of Sharansky has a sound audience beside Russian immigrants, and in the next election our goal is to take that message to the people of Israel in whatever language they speak."

Weil said the feeling among party activists, many of whom came to Tel Aviv late Tuesday night to see the results and absorb them together, "is that the party leadership is now headed in the same direction that we in the Anglo community have kind of felt should have been the direction from the get go. There's optimism and energy that the message that we've worked on, and the issues that we've struggled for, remain true."

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