Religious Jews Playing Pivotal Role in Israeli Election

JERUSALEM, Feb. 2 (RNS) -- When Dina Bartuv, a 24-year-old economist from Israel's northern Galilee region, attended a massive rally here recently protesting peace process concessions on Jerusalem's holy sites, she came as a religious Jew and a member of a younger Israeli generation that can't even remember when the city was divided.

"I grew up on the assumption that this was one city," Bartuv said. "Now, all of a sudden they are talking about giving up Jerusalem, and everything that we achieved. Why then, did people fight for all of these years. Why did Jews pray for 2,000 years for Jerusalem and dream of returning here. If we give up Jerusalem, our most holy place, what do we have left?"

Religious Israeli Jews like Bartuv, deeply angry about the recent negotiations over Jerusalem, are expected to play a critical role in bringing opposition leader Ariel Sharon to a probable victory in Tuesday's upcoming Israeli elections.

Labor government Prime Minister Ehud Barak, while going further than any Israeli leader in history to reach an agreement with Palestinians, has also alienated Israel's Orthodox Jewish community more profoundly than anyone before him.

Their opposition to him goes beyond whatever feelings they may also have that his policies are either the cause of four-months of Palestinian violence against Israeli targets, or the reason Israeli security forces have not been able to better protect Israeli Jews, nearly 50 of whom have been killed, compared to more than 300 Palestinians.

The violence began in September following a visit by Sharon to the Temple Mount, a visit Palestinians say was a provocation -- and religious Israeli Jews was within his legal and religious rights.

The sense of anger and betrayal reaches across the spectrum, from the ultra-Orthodox sects, for whom tradition is a more important driving force than the trappings of statehood, to the religious nationalists and even the religiously moderate Meimad Party, which is part of Barak's own government coalition.

"When Barak was elected two years ago, he represented himself as the middle ground," said Nadav Shragai, who reports on Israel's Orthodox communities for the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. "Now, he has become more left wing than the dovish Meretz Party. He agreed to give up the Jordan Valley. He agreed to some sort of new arrangement on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, and to a division of Jerusalem.

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