The prime minister’s clout on the national level is in inverse proportion to his poor grip on his party, which holds its
In the past two weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu put on a nose plug, took an anti-nausea pill and dived deep into the murky waters of Likud party politics, which he abhors. A titanic battle has been underway for months between the prime minister and the chairman of the Likud convention, MK Danny Danon, over the agenda of the convention next Monday.
Seemingly, the brawl is purely procedural: over what the delegates will discuss and who bears the authority to convene party institutions. But in Likud, procedure is everything. And if there is anything Netanyahu, in his many years as party leader, has learned and internalized, it’s that whoever controls the procedure, decides the outcome.
Two motions for the agenda were submitted. One by the chairman of Likud, which is addresses just a few subjects and whose message to the delegates is: Get off my case and don’t interfere with my running of the country. The other, submitted by the chairman of the convention, is the exact opposite: crammed with more issues than you can shake a stick at – plus it sticks it to Netanyahu.
Danon, for example, is calling for a vote on the peace plan being put forward by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and also on the Likud merger with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party. He is also asking the delegates to amend the Likud’s constitution such that the convening of the convention or the Likud Central Committee will henceforth be done “in consultation” with the party chair – but not be subject to his agreement.
In short, Danon, who is already the strongman in Likud institutions, is out to inject content into the titles he holds. By doing so he may turn Netanyahu into his peon, his doormat.
No wonder Bibi is stressed. He is skittering frenetically between hundreds of phone calls, nighttime meetings in the Prime Minister’s Residence and below-the-radar meetings with party activists. (This week he took part in two of those encounters, in Be’er Sheva and Rehovot, in a effort to make up for three years of neglect.)
The repertoire is pretty much the same each time. The prime minister opens the gatherings with security issues: Iran, Middle East, Palestinians and the “Jewish state.” Then he apologizes for having been out of touch with the grass roots and promises that he is now “coming home” and will be in contact with the activists on a regular basis and not only when he needs them.
What follows is the veiled threat: “There is someone who wants to undercut my powers, to push Likud over the edge of the cliff …” He then adds: “But there aren’t two drivers. You know what happens when there are two pilots in the cockpit … I have to lead. You chose me in order to lead you. Let me lead, so you won’t be led into the abyss.”
The result if the other guy – that Danon – gets what he wants will be “chaos” and “suicide,” Netanyahu tells the activists none too subtly. But the Likud chair is not going the extra mile and threatening to resign if Danon prevails. Still, political figures in his milieu are not above reminding people what happened the last time a leader of the party was slapped around at a convention: Two months later, that person left Likud and established Kadima, and his ghost almost killed his former party in the subsequent election.
Netanyahu, however, is not eager to bolt and establish a party of his own. In contrast to Ariel Sharon, who was borne on the wings of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip but still hesitated and agonized before deciding to act – Bibi suffers from reverse abandonment anxiety. His electoral base is not broad and solid, the way Sharon’s was. Netanyahu without Likud and without a breakthrough political process that will bring him the centrist votes would be without a political lifeline.
Shalom’s cruel dilemma
Energy and Water Resources Minister Silvan Shalom undoubtedly hoped that by this weekend, it would all be behind him. But the decision by the attorney general to pursue an investigation against him, due to allegations of sexual offenses, because it “has not run its course,” will give him more long, tormented, sleepless nights. Why go on looking into a matter that falls under the statute of limitations and will most likely end without an indictment? Only the heads of the state prosecution and the top brass at the police know the answer to that question.
Shalom has been a player in the big leagues of Israeli politics since 1992, holding a long list of portfolios, some of them very important. And he has played well, it should be said. With skill and talent. Never has he been accused of anything improper. He hasn’t even been the subject of “rumors” (though rumors are not necessarily a guarantee of truth; indeed, sometimes they are the opposite of the truth).
On the assumption that no additional complaints will be added to the one filed by M., who worked in Shalom’s bureau when he was science minister in 1998, and that the case will be closed – nothing need prevent Shalom from continuing to serve in this and future governments.
But the question of running for president of Israel is something else entirely. Here he faces a dilemma, even a cruel trap: If he pulls out of the race (or, more accurately, doesn’t enter it officially), he will have to explain why he is taking that step. After all, Shalom’s confidants and family members – notably Nimrod Nir, his son from his marriage to Judy Nir Shalom Mozes – explicitly blamed political rivals for trying to frame him in a Facebook post. Of carrying out a “targeted assassination” against him on his way to the President’s Residence.
Logic, then, says that after the case is closed, Shalom will have to run as he had planned, and to project self-confidence and belief in his innocence. He will want to demonstrate that the malicious conspiracy didn’t work, so that the wicked shall not rejoice, so that the would-be assassins will be hoisted by their own petard, and so forth. His running in that case will even have a sort of educational value.
This coin, though, has another side. Let’s say Shalom is elected president by the Knesset. The dark cloud will always be hovering there, above the new leader and above the institution, both of which must be of irreproachable character, certainly after the Moshe Katsav trauma. A presidential term lasts seven years. Whoever has an eye on this lofty post would do well to examine his closet thoroughly for ghosts, skeletons and cans of worms, in order to obviate unnecessary shame and scandal in the future.
Strongest, weakest
The anxiety and sense of emergency that have gripped Netanyahu ahead of the party test that awaits him illustrate well what everyone already knows: His clout and stability, and the fact that he has no competition – almost on a Ben-Gurion-like scale – are in inverse proportion to his weakness and his loose, effectively nonexistent grip on his party. So far he has been a leader without an external alternative and without internal authority. The second part of that equation will be put to the test next week.
This is a critical period in regard to the negotiations with the Palestinians. The fourth round of prisoner releases was scheduled to take place by the end of this week, or on Sunday at the latest. Even if agreement is reached on extending the negotiations – without which the prime minister will not fulfill his commitment to free the remaining prisoners – there is no way they will be released before the voting in the Likud convention ends. Photos of exultant freed terrorists, interspersed with those of Likud delegates waiting in line to vote, are just what Danon – who is threatening to resign as deputy defense minister if the prisoners are released – needs to ensure and seal his victory.
I asked Danon whether he didn’t think he was overdoing it. After all, Netanyahu is Likud’s prime asset, having brought the party into power three times.
“I am trying to keep the struggle on a substantive rather than a personal basis,” Danon said. “But you mustn’t forget that Likud is in regression. In the last election, we shrank from 27 to 20 Knesset seats. We didn’t do our homework. The movement is demoralized. What’s happened in the past two weeks is actually a good thing: The prime minister has returned to the grass roots.”
You’re flexing a muscle and in the end you will force him out. What then? Will your situation improve?
“No one is trying to force Bibi out. I want him to come to meetings more, to listen to the party members. He’s doing that now, but I am telling them, ‘Be careful, you are only his prop.’ The problem is that he looks to his right and sees Yvet [Lieberman], and to his left and sees [Yair] Lapid, and he envies their one-man rule in their parties.”
Necessary narrative
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is in charge of the negotiations with the Palestinians, has gone underground and vanished from public view. The moment of truth for the talks, which seem to be taking their last breath and in need of urgent resuscitation, is also her own private moment of truth. She is in despair, says someone who converses with her often about these issues. Simply in despair over everything that is happening.
Livni ran in the election and entered the government on a one-point agenda: negotiations with the Palestinians. There is a partner to talk to, she maintained. There’s a chance to achieve a final agreement, she declared. Just let me be in the room with them, she insisted. Bibi isn’t the same Bibi, she explained, this time he’s different. He means business.
If the negotiations fail, her conception will collapse with them, along with her political raison d’etre. He presence in the government will become superfluous. She will have to justify, first to herself and then to her constituency, her decision to continue to serve alongside Naftali Bennett and Uri Ariel. What will she say – that there is no partner? The skies will fall on her.
Based on what Livni said last week, at the Negev Conference, to the effect that the key for the implementation of the fourth round of prisoner releases is in the hands of the Palestinian president – she appears to be adopting a narrative that will leave her in the government: casting the blame for the failure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Americans will undoubtedly throw her a lifebelt. They will not declare the death of peace, but rather, play what is going on as a temporary setback. The effort to achieve an agreement will continue as long as Barack Obama occupies the White House and John Kerry is secretary of state, they will say.
If Livni wants to go on believing that prattle, that’s her business. But she will be the only one.
Q and some A
The following story consists of facts and queries. Not all the queries have answers, unfortunately.
First, the facts: 1. The pro-settler newspaper Makor Rishon, owned by Shlomo Ben-Zvi, will be sold to casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who also owns the freebie Israel Hayom, for 14 million shekels (about $4 million).
2. Adelson is saliently right-wing in his politics. Above and beyond that, he is Netanyahu’s man and Netanyahu is his man – as anyone who reads the “Bibipaper” can see.
3. Adelson never before took an interest in buying Makor Rishon, even when it was up for sale in the past. This time he made an offer that was originally three times as high as the second-best offer, but only after it was learned that the publisher of the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth, Noni Mozes, was also considering submitting a bid to the court-appointed trustee. Mozes did indeed contemplate this, but then thought better of it.
4. In the last election, Makor Rishon avidly supported Naftali Bennett, the leader of Habayit Hayehudi, who is loathed by Bibi and his wife Sara, who are beloved by Sheldon. Bennett was and remains a bitter rival of Netanyahu and a target for political annihilation by the prime minister.
5. Bennett is one of Yedioth’s favorite politicians, and generally gets favorable coverage in that paper – which automatically makes him a preferred candidate for annihilation by Israel Hayom.
Those are the facts. Now for the queries. An informed source in the right-wing media claims that in the wake of Ben-Zvi’s collapse, it was Bennett who asked Mozes to buy Makor Rishon. When Adelson heard about that, he moved fast and placed a fistful of chips – err, sorry, shekels – on the table.
Question 1. Is Bennett the person who with his own hands inflicted Adelson and Netanyahu on Makor Rishon – “his” newspaper, his ideological stronghold? Bennett’s aides deny this. His confidants say that they heard only after the fact about the interest shown by Mozes and hurried to dissuade him, precisely for this reason: so as not to wake sleeping tycoons. However, they failed.
Question 2. Is it correct that, according to the same source, the person who urged Adelson to make a high offer was none other than Netanyahu? When the prime minister heard that Mozes – his great enemy, whom he believes, and with no little justification, is persecuting him with his highly popular paper and website – might become the owner of the right-wing paper, he almost had a fit and rushed to seek succor from the munificent old guy from Vegas.
Aides to Netanyahu did not reply directly to the question of whether the prime minister was behind the move. One of them recalled Netanyahu’s remark in his affable appearance on the “State of the Nation” TV show: “I am against the closure of newspapers.”
Question 3. This one has to do with timing. Adelson’s generous offer was made the day after the report (by Amit Segal, on Channel 2) about the party- and political camp-crossing bill that aims to prevent Israel Hayom from being given away for free. One of the bill’s signatories is MK Ayelet Shaked, the chairwoman of Habayit Hayehudi, who is close to Bennett. Is there a connection or not?
Adelson has meanwhile promised the court to retain, for a year at least, 90 percent of the Makor Rishon staff, regulars and freelancers alike. What about the content? Will the paper’s talented and opinionated journalists be able to write whatever they want about the prime minister, or are we now witnessing the emergence of Bibipaper II – this time with skullcap, checkered shirt and sandals?
yamit82 Said:
@ yamit82:
Yamit, you are the weakest link! Sorry!
As I wrote in a previous comment, the actual threats may include the threat not to reveal them. I cannot say I am privey to what they really are. But based on things I have surmised, try this on for size. Obama threatens to accept the PA into the UN as a member state. Obama threatens to actively boycott all Israeli exports to the USA and the EU. Sanctions against Israel. Revealing top security secrets about Israel that our enemies do not know. Helping Iran with its nuclear program and Iran’s attack on Israel. I could go on, but maybe you catch my drift. I have a funny feeling that you might reply to the effect of “let them, who needs them anyway! We have faith in God and not in Obama”. But go ahead and reply. I’m curious.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
Shmuel, you obviously have many credentials which enabled you to do the things you describe. I am not sure how that fits into being able to read the political map or having information from MK’s or aides to MK’s. You are welcome to check out the credentials necessary to run for public office if you like. Good chance that the list of credentials is a short list. We are not talking about corporations doing business with individuals. We are talking the nation voting for their leadership. Unless you think most Jews in this country are idiots, the people have a good idea of who is representing them. Yes ocassionally the person they elect turns on them, but that is actually the exception to the rule. The positions in the government are dictated by the heads of the coalition partners. If BB wanted Lapid in his coalition (which he did, he had to pay a price for it. Lapid wanted Finance. BB gives it to him with a fight, knowing that it’s a tough job and odds are Lapid will screw it up. There is no easier way to rid oneself of an opponent than letting him hang himself. The same for Livni. BB wanted her in. And wanted her to be head negotiator because he knew she would fail (which she will!). Bingo, there goes another opponent, this time for good. All the papers say it openly. The fact that you do not see these obvious moves on BB’s part is good reason for you to be nervous or afraid of what is going to happen. It also shows you total contempt for a man who is smarter than you, me and Bernard put together. Politically, strategically and machiavellian. He did not get elected to be PM three times because he is a fool. So shame on you here. All you seem capable of doing is seeing the very micro and no vision for the macro. You finish by saying you don’t want them to harm us anymore? Please tell us what harm BB has done to the State of Israel and then balance it will all the good. The pressures are immense. If he could get away with doing no harm, he would. Sometimes the PM of Israel has no choice. Because either he agrees to do a little bad or others will make things very bad for us.
Ted My previous comment to einkerem blocked by filter pls retrieve and post.
@ einkerem:
What threats??? I keep asking that question and never receive a cogent answer. Your turn. The rest of what you wrote in inane.
einkerem Said:
You are a very immoral character. You justify your politacal choices based on your perception of who in the Likud has the best chance of gaining control of the country.
You brag aboutbeing a life term member of the Likud central committee the most immoral of all of Israel’s major political parties. They rubber stamped Begin (the worst of the group) Shamir who sold us out in Madrid, was afraid to put down the first intifada which cost many lives, caved into the dikate of the Americans in the Gulf War fiasco and allowed Israel to be pumeled for a month of scuds and sealed rooms against gas attacks. They supported BB again when he was a known commodity based on his first term and then supported Sharon and many even after he split with the Likud bringing the Likud to 12 mandates. Then you selected him again????
It’s you who should check his moral compass and your steadfastness to a corrupt inept party whose only reason for existence is self interest of it professional members and good paying Jobs based on Israel’s version of the “Spoils System”
What matters who you elect as party leader and PM when they adopt and execute the policies of Mertz?
Any mafia kapo would make a better national leader than BB Olmert, Sharon, Shamir and Begin. Shmuel at least had the intellectual honesty to correct his views even belatedly but not you. You would have us keep BB and the Likud only because they have the power. What they screw up and cost the country is irrelevant as long as Labor or Lapid are kept out… That’s immoral. We are commanded not to follow the majority to do evil.
Rabin and Peres are only partly responsible for the tragedy of Oslo. BB and Sharon are at least equal partners. They had thousands of legal excuses to extricate from Oslo but carried them out dafka. Where was your Central committee??? Where were You????
What garbage you spew. May I remind you that Israel has been planning and practicing an attack against Iran for over 13 years, Billions of dollars have been invested like the F-16I and other systems for that purpose only. An attack 5-or 8 years ago would have had a better chance of success than today with less chance of any serious blowbacks…. BB is a political coward who has never stood up to any pressure even from his fat ugly wife who seems to be running the country through BB.
BB has Based his whole terms in office on a platform (Raison d’être) to stopping Iran from attaining weaponized Nukes. Any fool knows he waited too long and can’t do it today nor will America. He has endangered us all and we will stand shortly facing another Shoah. I would not be unhappy if another Yigal Amir does a Rabin on him.
It does not matter any more neither will BB. Did any one expect Olmert to attack Lebanon? He was right to attack and did not and could not know that our army is as inept as our politicians.
We can’t know what any of them would do but we do know BB chickened out so you can’t claim he is any better than what you believe of them.
You are brain dead. Do you have any clue how much BB has cost the country with his giveaways to his friends every time he sold off government assets for 20 cents on the dollar and now half of them have been driven into bankruptcy. How much he has cost our economy by clinging to Americas apron strings as a Vassal? All political parties have lost majority support of most Israelis. There is not much political loyalty by the people to established parties today and it’s been trending like this for a long time. Nobody reads News papers anymore, They can’t give them all away for free and their Influence today is marginal. Most Likud supporters are semi illiterate.
If the country is doing well economically with over a million kids in poverty and 40% of the population below the poverty line. Drug and alcohol addiction rampant, crime rampant corruption in every sphere rampant, health services imploding under the strain and a long list of other societal failings we are still holding our own on a macro level despite BB and his government.
I belong to those who say throw the BUM out and worry about his replacement afterwards, especially when you know the BUM is corrupt and incompetent and will lead us to future disasters. A supporter of BB is a BB enabler and is as bad or worse than the sitting disease in Jerusalem. The disease sits in Jerusalem because of fools like you.
@ einkerem:
We would have to agree on that negotiating is a science. Corporations invest tens of thousands of dollars to train Contract Negotiating Teams. Professor Aumann for example, Nobel Prize Winner Game Theory subjects. would be in my view vastly better qualified to negotiate with Abbas, Lurch II, Obama, etc, than Livni or Netanyahu, or for that matter most everyone else.
PRESSURES: It is a big boy and girl world out there. They do not play for marbles or lunch box sandwiches. Setting aside the top down “vision” expressed by Sharon, a nemesis, if they cannot take the heat, well… you know the rest.
I never took part on political negotiations and I would not touch that with a ten foot pole. I am not qualified for that specialty, period.
I did take part on Major Military Systems Contract Negotiations. That I was qualified for and delivered the goods. Locking horns with Pentagon brass or General Dynamics top dogs was also a monstrous challenge. Pressures including nasty ones were common place. No breaks or waivers my friend. Billions of dollars on the line and national security at stake.
Tenders open for bidding in most cases demand strict disclosure of the credentials of the Program Management professionals involved. I have copies of the appointment clearance documentation required to be Systems Material Review Board Member or Chair. MRBM or MRBC. For example, for me to be allowed, even if I was already a Senior MAS Engineer, to qualify NIGHT VISION, DIGITAL MAP, Optical gyros, etc, I HAD to undergo Certification by the corresponding government military authority. A precondition to even be there, was predicated upon holding recognized credentials. I was then a Category “C” Instructor and Examiner, Digital Map… etc. I signed as approval authority many of the F-16 subsystems drawings. No one else could do that in my place.
Without credentials of some sort being a requirement, Professors, Medical Doctors, pilots, teachers, bankers, industrialists farmers, etc, totally unfit individuals such as Peretz or Lapid end up being nothing less than ministers of Defense and minister of finances. The jackass did not even know how to clear the binoculars for crying out loud.
Netanyahu was and is eminently qualified by the MIT, holds a Master Degree on a very critical specialty and he should have stuck to that as he did a fine job at it. Arguably one of the best Finances Minister ever and not just in Israel.
Placing Lapid on that job is an insult to himself and all of us. Lapid did not even get a bagrut thus proving to be utterly undisciplined or otherwise impaired. Some people are affected not due to any personal inclination but due to medical or psychological reasons.
They may be lovely persons, but regretfully, for some jobs being cute just does not cut it.
Placing Livni as top “negotiator” rather than selecting a qualified stern professional at that, was another monumental fiasco.
And so on.
Trust me, I wish them no harm, I just want us, the people not to be harmed by them anymore.
Be well
I am here to be spoken with, without rancor, Shmuel. If you prefer privately, let me know. As for BB coming forward with the threats openly, the problem “may” be that Obama and his gang as well as previous administrations have told BB that if he discloses the threats to the public, then the threats go into effect immediately. Your assumption that these people do not know how to negotiate in a way that works is quite naive. Remember Sharon and his famous line? “what I see from here no one else can see” – These presidents all know that if the threats became public knowledge they would lose some(unfortunately only some)of the Jewish vote so they make sure they protect themselves. And even if BB went public with the threats, you can be sure Obama would deny them, the left would be all over BB for making up lies, and relations between the US and Israel would be finished for good, because even the republicans would understand that the Israeli PM cannot be trusted to keep his mouth shut. Why do I even need to say all this? Isn’t it obvious to every thinking person? Shmuel, I am not impressed with credentials. Not yours and not anyone elses. It’s not personal. And I do not see my being a lifetime central committee member as something to impress people with. I did not look to get it, it was given to me without my request or permission.
@ bernard ross:
I actually would like to talk with einkerem without rancor. Can live with his probably emotional momentary lapses. We all, at least I can, get into that mood at times as well. 🙂
We are in such a mess that personal feuds are not the best way to advance our national interests.
Where we go from here? The present cadre must go. That is a must.
Mr. Isi Liebler just released one of his well known articles also recognizing the disaster that the “process” is. I sent him a note moments ago. I disagree with his last paragraph there but he is one of my favorite human beings.
He is not precisely in my camp politically but he is conclusively, among many of those I had the pleasure of talking with, an excellent person and Jew. There are many others as well. Professor Plaut, Ms. Caroline Glick, Professor Aumann, Mrs. Sarah Honig, Dr. Uzi Landau with whom I have both personal friendship and also technology specialization in common, Mr. Amnon Rubinstein, yes, meretz, lovely human being. MK Danon, MK Hotovelly, MK Feiglin, etc and tens of thousands of our fellow Jews and friends here and in the Diaspora.
We must lance out the rot, freely elect a new system of government and new people.
Lets recognize Ted and you all as well.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
My pleasure.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
Unnecessary, I have not one shred of doubt regarding your credentials, honesty and straightforward character.
einkerem Said:
“for all we know…”
this phrase captures the problem. what makes BB suspect is that no one seems to be able to figure out what he is doing including those close to him and on the cabinet OR they are in on it with the US and we are watching a pre arranged drama. If US pressure is backed by real threats and only BB and/or a couple know about it then these threats and these pressures should be disclosed to the Israeli public and diaspora Jews. If Obama was threatening Israel and BB disclosed the threat publicly then most diaspora Jews would turn against Obama and their party. If obama is seriously threatening Israel and BB kept it to himself I would have to say he was a narcissistic megalomaniac to think that he is capable to decide alone for Israel.
BTW I believe you should apologize to Shmuel for your hasty comments regarding his character. I believe you spoke in the heat of the moment and did not realize with whom you were speaking. One does not have to agree with his conclusions but his credentials, honesty and straightforwardness are beyond criticism, in my opinion.