Bogie could be Bibi’s number one contender

By Mazal Mualem, al Monitor

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed candidates for the position of his political adviser. It was part of a comprehensive program to rehabilitate Netanyahu’s image in his own Likud party. Netanyahu wants to regain control over the mechanisms of the ruling party, control that he has lost over the past few years. He is looking for an energetic young candidate to run between the party’s branch offices and make the right political connections on his behalf. Most of all, the prime minister hopes that his new political adviser will help him to avoid any more embarrassments like the ones he suffered in his most recent battles within the party’s institutions.

Over the past few days, Netanyahu’s schedule has been devoted largely to his summit with US President Barack Obama at the White House. Nevertheless, as part of his rehabilitation program, Netanyahu also cleared some time on his busy schedule to meet with senior Likud activists for the first time since the last elections in January 2013. These are mostly confidantes of senior ministers from the Likud, whose support Netanyahu is eager to get.

The source of the the prime minister’s sudden frenzied political activity is his belated realization that he has effectively lost control of his party. Since he wants to run for prime minister from the Likud in the next elections, Netanyahu realized that he must take back control of the party’s institutions and win back popularity among its supporters. But what bothers the prime minister more than anything else is when his senior ministers, headed by Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, accumulate popularity of their own.

As it turns out, Ya’alon walked away from his embarrassing incident in January practically unscathed, even though his derogatory and insulting statements about US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared in media outlets around the world. One year after the government was formed, Ya’alon is in first place in polls when it comes to public satisfaction with the various ministers. He reached this position almost immediately after being appointed defense minister and has managed to keep it in all the polls since then.

Ya’alon’s popularity is not limited to the right. He is also popular among the general public, which has a tendency to show high levels of support for its defense ministers. Ya’alon, a former chief of staff, is considered an authority on security issues, which is why the public trusts him. But what worries Netanyahu is not just the rising popularity of his defense minister, but also the extensive political activity attributed to Ya’alon.

Despite his exhausting schedule, Ya’alon makes a point of holding political meetings with Likud members on a weekly basis. He comes to them almost anywhere in the country, and gives the sense that they are intimate gatherings with the highest echelons of power. His official vehicle and security guards that show up in a convoy at local Likud headquarters contribute to the feeling among the party’s supporters that Ya’alon is one of them, even if his kibbutz background would otherwise associate him with the Labor Party.

In the current balance of power, some 20% of the Likud’s membership affiliate with the hard right, among them the settlers. This might help Ya’alon capture the Likud’s leadership, especially with Netanyahu being perceived all too often as hesitant and willing to concede. In contrast, Ya’alon is depicted as someone who uncompromisingly protects Israel’s interests. Ya’alon operates according to the dictates of a tight political strategy. His allies in the Likud are the settlers and the right wing, and his allies in the general political system are the ultra-Orthodox. Through his alliance with the right, he is supposed to take over the leadership of the Likud one day. Through his alliance with the ultra-Orthodox, he should be slated to become prime minister. It is the exact same strategy that brought Netanyahu to the premiership in 1996.

Ya’alon gives the right the impression that he is a loyal representative of their interests in the government, a position that was bolstered by the Kerry incident. At the same time, however, he rarely makes a mistake when dealing with the ultra-Orthodox sector. Surprisingly, the defense minister, who is responsible for the implementation of the new conscription law, is not at the forefront of the public debate, and is hardly involved in the many controversies that the proposed law evokes. Ya’alon, who has spent years among the country’s military elite, decided in this case to favor his position as a politician over his position as defense minister. He already began acting this way in Netanyahu’s previous government when, as minister of strategic affairs, he was appointed by Netanyahu to be his representative to the Plesner Committee, which tried to initiate a similar move. At the time, and with Netanyahu’s backing, Ya’alon prioritized his alliance with the ultra-Orthodox over any efforts to advance the law, which resulted in a severe rift in the coalition and caused the Kadima Party to withdraw from the government after just two months.

The defense minister’s absence from the debate on the matter is also bothersome when considering statements made by senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers. Chief of Staff Benny Gantz was critical of the new law, which caps the recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox, and said, “It is impossible to say, ‘He will serve’ and ‘He won’t.’” Another senior IDF officer, speaking anonymously to Israeli news website Ynet was even more forthright, saying, “I am worried about the final result and hope that we get something apart from declarations.” It is safe to assume that in the moment of truth, the ultra-Orthodox will know how to reward Ya’alon for refusing to personally raise the banner on behalf of sharing the military burden, thereby ensuring that the law is toothless.

But will all of this help Ya’alon to reach the prime minister’s seat? Looking back at the careers of previous defense ministers, it looks like Netanyahu has nothing to worry about. While the Defense Ministry does provide wide public support for whoever stands at its helm, it does not necessarily provide an advantage in any competition over the position of prime minister. Defense Ministers Ezer Weizman and Binyamin “Fouad” Ben Eliezer were so blinded by the public support they had mustered that they set off on failed political adventures. Similarly, Minister Shaul Mofaz failed to translate support for him into victory in the race for the premiership. Beyond that, the position, though obviously advantageous, also has risks of its own. Four defense ministers were forced to resign as a result of security failures under their watch: Pinchas Lavon in 1955, after what became known as the “Unfortunate Affair” or the “Lavon Affair;” Moshe Dayan, after the Yom Kippur War; Ariel Sharon, in the wake of Sabra and Shatilla; and Amir Peretz, who paid the price for the Second Lebanon War.

For Netanyahu, however, Ya’alon’s stable popularity rouses all the latent suspicious feelings seething within him. Fear of the day that Ya’alon takes advantage of his moment in the sun to compete for the leadership of the Likud keeps the prime minister awake at night, especially given his political propensity to see every shadow as a threat to overcome. The truth of the matter is that in the political system and among the general public, Netanyahu is still deemed the only candidate capable of leading the State of Israel. Ya’alon may be very popular among the right, but among the rest of the public, his views are often seen as extreme. At the end of the day, the Likud’s supporters also see the latest polls, which give their party more than 30 seats when headed by Netanyahu, and anticipate continuing in power.