JERUSALEM - How could anyone determine that Natan Sharansky, the Jewish world's most famous former prisoner of Zion, most celebrated human rights and democracy activist, a veteran immigrant absorption leader, a man who served both as deputy prime minister of Israel and as minister for Diaspora affairs - is unfit for the post of Jewish Agency chairman?
Well, believe it or not, that's what happened last weekend at a secret meeting of the Agency's "Advise and Consent Committee," composed of a dozen Diaspora leaders who are central to the agency's operations!
On the eve of what was likely to be a stunning, come-from-behind victory by Natan Sharansky over Raanana Mayor Zeev Bielski in a vote scheduled for Friday - the committee decided to disqualify Sharansky's candidacy, effectively preventing him from standing successfully for election.
The hurriedly called "Advise and Consent Committee" meeting was summoned yesterday at the request of World Zionist Organization leaders who sensed - and supported - an impending Sharansky victory. They wanted to be sure that no impediments stood in their way, and were sure that the committee's "consent" was just a formality. After all, the committee was created in order to prevent political hacks from making the agency a target of their machinations, and to ensure a clean, democratic process in voting on the agency chairman.
Their mandate was to declare Sharansky as "basically fit" or "unfit" for the post - not to usurp the democratic election process. And who could dare declare a giant figure like Sharansky as "basically unfit?"
Yet - shockingly - they did.
"I am truly saddened by last night's Advise and Consent Committee decision, which is an insult first and foremost to the Jewish Agency as an institution and its democratic processes," said Sharansky in response. "I had wanted to give of my experience to this important institution and help it out of the very difficult situation in which it finds itself. Unfortunately, narrow interests and foreign considerations prevented me from running in a fair and democratic manner and winning."
Sources in the Sharansky campaign were even more categorical in their condemnation of the last-minute hijacking of the election process.
"These Diaspora leaders, and people in Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon's inner circle, want the agency to remain their plaything, with a pliable man at the helm, not someone with global stature and strong convictions like Sharansky," they accused. "So with astonishing chutzpa they commandeered the process at the last second, clutching Bielski's defeat from the jaws of Natan's expected victory. Natan will remain a giant figure of global proportions even after this race. But what shame this brings to the Jewish Agency!"
