Following Lapid-Bennett Deal, Likud Facing Civil War
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Photo Credit: Miriam Alster/FLASH90
At 12:55 PM Wednesday, the prime minister’s office leaked a message so subversive and so clever, it insisted the editor of the 1 PM news edition at Kol Israel attribute it to anonymous “Likud circles.” That’s one notch below “senior Likud officials” and well below “circles close to the prime minister,” which is, basically, the prime minister. I heard it in my car, driving up to Jerusalem, but didn’t pay attention to the special wording. Maariv’s Shalom Yerushalmi paid attention, and realized the PM people were using the Atomic option.
The Likud circles, according to the leak, threatened that if there won’t be a breakthrough in the coalition negotiations within hours, the Likud would initiate an accelerated negotiations with the Haredi parties for a right-leaning new government without Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.
In addition, a higher level source inside the PM’s circles, told Haaretz that Netanyahu believes the reason Lapid has upped the ante of his demands was his buyer’s remorse. Somehow he ended up agreeing to the Finance portfolio, and now, seeing the mess he would have to deal with, he wants to back out, so he’s making it impossible to come to an agreement.
That’s not such an outlandish surmise. Lapid, ever the glitzy charmer, had had his heart set on the Foreign Minister’s job. And he would have made a great FM, kissing hands and raising champagne glasses and all the other fun stuff FMs get to do in Paris, London, Rome, DC, and, of course, Moscow.
Except Avigdor Liberman, Netanyahu’s faction partner, already had dibs on the Foreign Ministry. Liberman couldn’t serve in the government for now, not until the silly corruption suit against him is resolved in court. But Bibi had promised Ivet to hold on to the seat for him, and breaking that promise would have been a deal killer all around.
So Lapid backed off and agreed to take another of the top three portfolios—Finance.
Customarily, the Foreign, Defense and Finance ministries belong to the party of the Prime Minister. It is a rare occurrence, usually driven by a national crisis (such as when Moshe Dayan was invited, from the opposition benches, to become Defense Minister in 1967). So, giving Lapid this high honor was a big thing.
But the job of Finance Minister is not going to make Lapid many friends this time around. No hand kissing and champagne here for the teen idol. The Netanyahu government has accrued a 40 billion shekel (just under $11 billion) deficit which has to be cut from the next budget. Unlike the U.S. government, which can run deficits in the trillion, Israeli governments are prohibited by law from running a deficit that’s higher than 3 percent of the budget. The new deficit constitutes 5.10 percent, and so some cutting has to take place.
And lover boy Yair Lapid will have the dubious honor of deciding what gets cut:
Should it be the new raises to hospital nurses? Low-cost education? Environmental improvements? Social Security benefit increases for the elderly? Highway construction? Train service?
There’s no two ways about it – in the end, someone is going to hate Yair Lapid for whatever cut he’ll make. And since he’s an avowed free market and anti-tax type, he won’t be able to fix things by taking more money from business (although Teva, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical conglomerate, received close to a billion dollars in tax break from the outgoing Finance Minister – that should pay for a few hot lunches).
The leak was a lie, of course, Lapid seems just as eager as before to embrace the, arguably, second most important job in government. But the first anonymous threat, about a coalition with Shas, UTJ and Bennett – especially when, reportedly, backed by Bennett himself, who assured Lapid he intended to stay in government, with or without him – that convinced Lapid it was time to call the game and put the cards on the table.
There’s an old Jewish joke about a shadchan who tries to convince a yeshiva bocher to marry Princess Margaret. He answers every one of the poor man’s questions – she would make a great wife, she has money, she will convert for the right man – until the yeshiva bocher breaks down and agrees to the deal. At which point the shadchan sighs deeply and says: Now starts the hard part.
For Netanyahu, having cobbled a 21-minister, 8-deputy minister government—a huge improvement over most past governments that featured 30+ ministers, including many with the dubious “Minister without Portfolio” title—now has to turn to his own party, and dole out the seven precious seats in his possession (Liberman’s share already includes Foreign, Agriculture, Tourism, and Homeland Security).
For starters, the Ministry of Education has been yanked away from Likud star Gideon Sa’ar, who ran a fierce campaign in an attempt to retain it. He mobilized all the organizations under his influence, including the teachers’ union, local municipal authorities, even the Student Council. They all sang his praise as the inventor of modern education, a classroom god of and the messiah of homework.
It didn’t work. You see, Gideon Sa’ar, when he wasn’t busy teaching the children of Israel, was also in charge of the Likud Beitenu election campaign, which took them down from 42 to 31 Knesset seats. Ouch. And, worst of all, rumors have it that Sara Netanyahu, the Madam Pompadour of coalition politics, can’t stand him. Double and triple ouches.
Now Gideon sa’ar, who came in second in the Likud primaries, must fight over the Ministry of the Interior against Silvan Shalom and Gilad Erdan, both of whom are equally popular and equally hungry.
The Likud, Israel’s ruling party, is about to face disintegration—whether Netanyahu weathers this storm or not. The young and the restless right-wingers (and knitted yarmulke types) won top spots in the primaries have not given up their ambitions for ministerial titles. They paid their dues, they want a share ion the loot, even if the loot this time is a mere seven ministries.
Danny Danon, Zeev Elkin, Yariv Levin, Tzipi Hotovely, Ofir Akunis and Gila Gamliel will fight each other and Netanyahu for the slabs of government meat on the floor. And then there’s Sara Netanyahu’s most recent hated enemy, Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin, a sweet and principled man who was ousted because of a few critical things he said about Sara’s husband. So now Bibi has a new, formidable, uber-disgruntled enemy within the ranks, who is certain to draw all the rest of the disgruntled – and many evil surprises are sure to sprout in the next few months.
It’s a good time to be a political analyst. If Likud does not break in half—or more—in the next term, it would be a sure sign that there’s a Likud angel up there, and he, too, is probably scared of Sara Netanyahu.
tell a friendAbout the Author: JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published two fun books: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.
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