Last week, the Batsheva dance troupe boycotted an Israeli Independence Day gala in Jerusalem because Orthodox Jewish politicians were trying to censor their act, which featured a partial striptease. In response, Tel Aviv's Mayor, Mr Roni Milo, invited the troupe to perform at his city's Independence Day open-air extravaganza. When that proved impossible, because the Tel Aviv stage was too small, he instead showed filmed footage of the controversial dance routine on massive video screens.
Last year, the Israeli Labour Ministry, controlled by the ultraOrthodox Shas political party, set about closing down shops and businesses that were open on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath. In response, Mr Milo threatened to send a convoy of cars into the ultra-Orthodox Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak, where secular Israelis do not usually travel on the sabbath in deference to Orthodox sensibilities. The Labour Ministry backed down.
By acting decisively to counter attempts by Orthodox politicians to impose religious coercion in Israel, Mr Milo has attracted extraordinary popularity in Tel Aviv, a proudly secular city whose residents contrast themselves with what many of them perceive as the Orthodox-dominated citizens of Jerusalem. Although Mr Milo is a member of the governing Likud, the Labour Party had been unable to come up with a candidate to stand against him in local elections this winter.
But yesterday, Mr Milo rendered that particular complication academic. In a move that managed to hit the political system like a bombshell, Mr Milo convened a press conference to announce that he was not planning to contest this year's mayoral elections. He was giving up his membership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and, instead, he was setting up his own centrist party and would be campaigning to become prime minister when general elections are next due, in the year 2000.
The 48-year-old mayor highlighted his determination to break the stranglehold imposed on many aspects of Israeli life by the Orthodox minority - a stranglehold that derives from the fact that Orthodox politicians have for years held the balance of power between the two main competing political blocs, led by the Likud and Labour. "My aim,["] he said flatly, "is to neutralise the leverage of religious extremists."
But Mr Milo has more than one string to his bow. And although he chose not to talk a great deal yesterday about his position on the other great Israeli controversy of the day, the peace process with the Palestinians, he must be confident that he can win votes on this issue, too. A former Likud minister of police and of the environment, Mr Milo was one of the first Likud leaders to advocate an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. And since leaving the Knesset to become mayor in 1993, he has taken ever more moderate positions on the peace process, becoming a champion of the assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's fundamentally conciliatory approach to peacemaking.
Many of his surprised political peers recovered quickly enough from the shock of Mr Milo's announcement yesterday to declare that they had nothing to fear from him. Some Likud leaders argued that he would take votes only from the left, badly damaging the prime ministerial aspirations of Labour leader, Mr Ehud Barak. Some Labour leaders countered that he might draw all sorts of Likud malcontents into a new centrist bloc that would thwart Mr Netanyahu's re-election hopes.
But the more honest politicians acknowledged that the straight-talking, pragmatic Mr Milo has the potential to revolutionise Israeli politics and hurt both sides. Noting that many Israelis were heartily sick of the damaging rivalry so prevalent in recent years, and that they seek a fresh, open-minded leadership, Labour Knesset member, Mr Haim Ramon, said that Mr Milo could well be triggering "the beginning of the `big bang'." What Mr Ramon left unsaid is that he, along with many other frustrated young politicians from Labour and the Likud, must now be considering jumping aboard Mr Milo's new centrist political bandwagon.
