Presidential rule is here
President Peres will make life of any prime minister much more complicated
What are you going to do about it?
This, more or less, is what the prime minister will soon hear from the president – even if not in those exact words.
Shimon Peres – that's for sure - will fill the post of president too in a different manner. He'll make the role larger, more decisive, more influential. The presidential institution is about to be revolutionized, and the Israeli regime will no longer be what it was.
The new president will not be satisfied with handing out certificates of merit to exceptional soldiers and dedicated employees. Rather, he will invite presidents from all over the world and harness them to his diplomatic plans. He'll fly to cities we've already been to and to those we've never visited.
The ninth president of Israel will not stop at pardoning prisoners. He will organize resources and funnel them to targets that he alone will decide on, beyond the State budget – without cabinet ministers and their associates laying their hands on them and without Treasury officials abusing them.
He will harness investors and donators for projects that bureaucracy is castrating and destroying – in the outlaying areas and in areas where economic returns are not instantly visible.
The next president will not be comforted by suave speeches on festive occasions. He will conduct diplomatic talks over the heads of the prime minister and foreign minister. That's the way he is. This is the way he conducted himself until now and this is how he will conduct himself in the future. Once again he'll be labeled subversive, a megalomaniac – and he'll carry on doing his own thing.
It's not quite clear who the next prime minister will be, what type of government he'll have and whether he'll have the power to change things – in any event, the life of any prime minister in Israel will become much more complicated in the course of the next seven years.
Peres the trailblazer
When Peres was once appointed postal minister, the first thing he did was to upgrade the name of the meager portfolio he had been given to "Communications Ministry." This was just a semantic name change, but even then, more than 40 years ago, it demonstrated that Peres does not think small.
Even earlier, in the post of Defense Ministry director general, he swept the country towards a nuclear age, he was marked as a trailblazer, a man who strives to change the map, not only read it, and that he thinks out of the box.
When he permitted messianic Gush Emunim settlers to start building settlements in the West Bank, during his term as defense minister in Rabin's first cabinet, he made clear to his superiors that he would not take hierarchies and old orders into account. At Oslo he reiterated this message.
And that's how he conducted himself in all the posts he has filled – whether we liked it or not, whether we love or abhor him. This is the man, this is the way he is, and this is his modus operandi.
Ehud Olmert or Tzipi Livni. Ehud Barak or Benjamin Netanyahu, whoever the next prime minister may be, he or she would have to lead the country within a new presidential reality. They would have to live in harmony with President Shimon Peres the first, or they'll break. The prime minister, that is. No one will break Shimon Peres. He has ultimately ended up the winner.
On the other hand, on observing this cabinet, the prime minister and Knesset members, there's a sense that we no longer have much to lose. The political horizons are so grey, hope is so vague. Perhaps he, perhaps his presidential rule, will show us the way.
