Prove that your word is your bond

Daylight Saving Time has returned to our agenda. In the wake of Interior Minister Eli Yishai's decision to accept the recommendation of the special committee which has been discussing the subject in recent months, Daylight Saving Time has been extended to 193 days.

Firstly, we should clarify that, like many members of the Israeli community, most of the ultra-Orthodox do not object to extending Daylight Saving Time. The previous situation did not constitute a spiritual framework, and the ultra-Orthodox do not oppose changes to it. Yet it is important to note that the disagreement over Daylight Saving Time did not begin today. It existed in the past and was decided in a democratic fashion, even in the days when Polishuk represented the name of a real Knesset member and was not just a satirical television show.

The following quote is taken from the 2005 Knesset protocols, from the 228th meeting of the 16th parliament, when, at the end of exhausting discussions in the Internal Affairs Committee, the Knesset achieved nearly widespread agreement among all factions regarding the desired format for Daylight Saving Time, a format that marked a compromise between the various positions. I quote, from the protocol: "Knesset members had a toy called Daylight Saving Time. It could have been possible to spin it countless times and have endless discussions each year and create limitless conflicts between secular and religious. Suddenly, we come in and take away the toy and reach a compromise." The following lines were not uttered in the Knesset plenum by an ultra-Orthodox MK named Meir Porush or Yaakov Margi, but by a dear man who recently retired, Haim "Jumes" Oron, who protested to his Knesset colleagues that they had turned the subject of Daylight Saving Time into a "test of secularism." "Focus on more serious problems," Oron urged them.

"We are passing a bill for many years to come, possible even generations," Shas party leader MK Eli Yishai joyfully said then. He never imagined that, five years later, in his role as interior minister, he would have to bow to public pressure and establish a special committee whose conclusions would again change the broad agreement previously reached by a majority of MKs, in an effort to end this saga once and for all.

One can make claims from here to eternity about Daylight Saving Time, about darkness and light, about children and work. And the ultra-Orthodox, as noted above, do not object to it, because it is not one of the Torah's mitzvot (edicts). This is exactly the meaning of compromise, of a decision that comes after comprehensive discussions in the Knesset. And now that the decision has been made to extend Daylight Saving Time, we should treat the reactions as a case study on relations between the secular and religious in Israel. We reached a new conclusion in the wake of the committee's creation, and the ultra-Orthodox met the secular half-way to implement change. The interior minister adopted the public committee's findings and extended Daylight Saving Time, yet secular MKs, both from the ruling party and opposition parties, once again found a reason to complain and request a different formula that would perhaps appeal a bit more to the public. Before you ask the ultra-Orthodox to change, to meet you half-way or to compromise about the next public issue to come up for discussion, you, the secular, must first prove that your word is your bond. And, in the end, when a decision is made, a democratic decision is reached, it will remain intact and not lead next year to another argument that escalates to the point of dividing the nation and gives expression to our problematic political conduct.

The writer is the communications adviser to MK Moshe Gafni, chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee.