By Amira Segev, Ha'aretz Correspondent
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved

A truckload of red carnations on Friday symbolized the growing alliance between Yisrael b'Aliyah and One Israel, as hundreds of World War II veterans from the former Soviet Union gathered in the Ben Shemen forest for their annual picnic commemorating the defeat of the Nazis, got a carnation - and a message from Ehud Barak.

Delivered by One Israel, the red carnations were distributed to the thousands of people at the picnic by Yisrael b'Aliyah activists working hand in hand with One Israel volunteers. With each carnation went a brochure with a message from Barak. Likud supporters at the picnic were shocked to discover that their party had made no special arrangements to attend the annual picnic, but when they called party headquarters, there was no time to send anyone to the affair.

Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu will try to make up for that lapse in his campaign today at Yad Vashem, where he invited himself to take part in the annual ceremonies marking the Allies' victory over Nazism. Yisrael b'Aliyah's Yuli Edelstein, the minister of absorption, is to attend, along with several IDF generals and Yitzhak Rozovsky, who heads the World War II veterans association in Israel. MK Yitzhak Mordechai is also expected to show up, but Barak has decided not to attend, with sources at his party headquarters saying that Barak "does not attend functions where Netanyahu is present."

If up until two weeks ago, it was One Israel trying to make inroads into the Russian camp, ever since Barak indicated he would give Yisrael b'Aliyah the Interior Ministry, One Israel has seen a flood of requests from the Russian community for speakers from One Israel. Up until two weeks ago Yisrael b'Aliyah activists were denying any cooperation with One Israel, but in the last week, the cooperation has come out into the open. In Kiryat Shmona, Or Akiva, Be'er Sheva, Ashkelon, Nazareth, Akko and the flatland neighborhoods north of Haifa, One Israel rallies for Russian immigrants have been organized by Yisrael b'Aliyah activists. This week, Barak is expected to attend rallies in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Rishon Letzion, and Jerusalem, at the convention center, where the week-long festivities for the annual celebrations of the end of World War II are to reach a climax.

The sudden shift of opinion in the Russian community has become so strong that even activists for Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu are reported moving to support Barak, after Netanyahu, in an effort to win back Yisrael b'Aliyah voters, denied that he backed Lieberman's plan for a second Russian party. Indeed, according to sources at One Israel, a special survey of Russian voters has been ordered precisely to try to measure what they admit is a surprising shift in their favor.

Meanwhile, Sharansky's five-minute appearance at the press conference Netanyahu called with Shas Interior Minister Eli Suissa, was the result of pressure on him from the entire top echelon in Yisrael b'Aliyah not to immediately accept Suissa's apology for calling some Russian immigrants "forgers and prostitutes." Among others, Edelstein was opposed to Sharansky going to the press conference, preferring that Suissa's apology "star in the weekend newspapers" before Sharansky accepted it. Furthermore, inside Yisrael b'Aliyah, sources note that Sharansky's warm words for the other Shas minister, Labor Affairs Minister Eli Yishai, have contributed to a breach in Shas unity, since Yishai is considered a rising star in Shas.

Meanwhile, a leading ex-Prisoner of Zion, Yuli Koshorovsky, who in the last elections was a Likud candidate for Knesset, has bolted the Likud and gone to Yisrael b'Aliyah, claiming "the Likud is only interested in the Russian vote, not in the Russian immigrant".

"If they don't need us, we don't need them" said the former deputy president of the Zionist Forum. Making his announcement of the move from Likud to Yisrael b'Aliyah in Ashdod at a rally attended by Sharansky, Koshorovsky said that the "straw that broke the camel's back was when Likud campaign chief Health Minister Yehoshua Matza fired the head of the Likud's Russian campaign. He told them to go work for Lieberman.

haGalil onLine - Montag 10-05-99