Israeli Secular party takes on the orthodox
"Opinion polls suggest Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, 71, a sharp-tongued former television presenter, will more than double the six seats his Shinui (Change) party has in the 120-seat Knesset. His hawkish, centre-right secularist party could even end up as the third-largest party, after Likud and Labour, and find its way into government for the first time since it was founded in the 1980s. With its explicitly anti-clerical policies, Shinui is the only secular party to place itself firmly on the front line of the struggle between Israel's agnostic or moderately religious majority and a small but powerful alliance of ultra-orthodox Jews."

The success of the Shinui party is an interesting development which vindicates Israel Shahak's concerns about the steady polarization of Jewish society and the strength of the dislike of the religious fundamentalist group.

Israeli Secular party takes on the orthodox
"Opinion polls suggest Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, 71, a sharp-tongued former television presenter, will more than double the six seats his Shinui (Change) party has in the 120-seat Knesset. His hawkish, centre-right secularist party could even end up as the third-largest party, after Likud and Labour, and find its way into government for the first time since it was founded in the 1980s. With its explicitly anti-clerical policies, Shinui is the only secular party to place itself firmly on the front line of the struggle between Israel's agnostic or moderately religious majority and a small but powerful alliance of ultra-orthodox Jews."

The success of the Shinui party is an interesting development which vindicates Israel Shahak's concerns about the steady polarization of Jewish society and the strength of the dislike of the religious fundamentalist group.