Elazar Stern opens up on split from Hatnua
In interview, former MK discusses Livni's persistent efforts to recruit him to her political party, says was approached by Labor several times to join before merger of two factions was conceived.
Former Hatnua MK Elazar Stern, who quit Tzipi Livni's Hatnua party in December, did not want to join the Labor-Hatnua party list as a token security expert just in order to fill the empty slot, he recently said in an interview with Ynet, describing the split from Livni's Hatnua as 'very unpleasant."
"Even when I sit on a sofa at the psychiatrist's office, there will be two questions I won't have a clear answer to: How and why did I agree to go into politics, and why did I come so unprepared," Stern says. "The idea came into being shortly before the last elections campaign, and it wasn't created in my mind."
Stern was then a member of the HaBima directorate, Livni was its chairwoman after she already left Kadima with bells and whistles. "'I need you by my side,' she told me, and offered me the third spot on the list. I told her I'm not sure politics was right for me, that I needed to this. It was already after I met with Rabbi Haim Amsalem, who offered me second place on his list, after I met with Yair Lapid, who offered me to join the party he was forming.
"But Tzipi wouldn't give up. And then, one evening, I called in close friends for consultations, along with my family members. The bottom line was that this was indeed not for me. At two in the morning, when we were on our way home, Tzipi called. 'I heard you,' she said. 'And now let me talk to your wife.'
She talked to Dorit and in the morning Dorit told me, 'Enough, give her a positive answer.' It'll be difficult, I told her, we were targeted once following the disengagement (from Gaza). 'True,' she said. 'But we'll handle it, and you'll do what needs to be done.' I told Livni yes, placed in third place, and at night, less than 12 hours after being placed, Livni called, said she was bringing in Amir Peretz and she wants to put him at number three. Okay, I told her, and moved to fourth."
And how was the split from Hatnua?
"Very unpleasant. It was obvious to me that the situation that was created with the union, when I'm no longer filling the bracket they were after; as if they were doing me a favor by taking me to the new party. And I don't like it when people do me favors. It was a bit strange because even before the decision to unite I was approached by the Labor party several times to join. 'You're too left for me,' I told them. 'So pull us to the center,' they told me. And now, after the union, they keep looking for a security expert and doing me favors? I said thanks, but this doesn't work for me, and goodbye."
Are you disappointed?
"From the people, yes. I found that in our politics, someone's word has no meaning, friendship is not really a friendship and the exception are only the security experts, who were raised in a different kind of place. I went with Tzipi despite my ties to Mofaz. He thought I was making a mistake, but respected my decision. And that's how I felt with the others as well: With Yaakov Peri, with David Tzur, with Amram Mitzna."
And what about the stories of 'snakes at the Kirya'?
"There are a lot more in the Knesset."
The second drop out from Hanuta, police Maj.-Gen. (ret.) David Tzur who was the commander of the SWAT unit, the commander of the Border Police and the Commander of the Police Tel Aviv District, an international expert on security, also admits he did not do his homework before saying yes.
"I met Tzipi in 1991. I was then in the SWAT unit, and along with Elik Ron we decided to start a foundation that will promote the construction of a neighborhood for the unit's fighters. Tzipi was then a real estate attorney. Ariel Sharon, who was the housing minister then, recommended that we go to her and she did indeed take care of our interests. In the years that followed we kept in touch and shortly before the last elections we coincidently met at an event at the Jaffa Port. 'Can we talk about this?' she asked me. I told he I didn't know, and she suggested we meet.
"We met several times. I told her that what interests me are issues of internal security, she said it was just right for her and offered me the sixth spot while showing me polls predicting 12 mandates. And that's exactly the problem: The gap between the great expectations on the eve of elections and the reality that followed. We got six mandates, and of course the Internal Security Ministry wasn't ours.
"When the decision was made to unite with the Labor party, it was clear to me I had nothing to do there. When I entered politics, I gave up the level of income I had, I gave up an interesting and rewarding job that I could come back to. If I had done then what I really wanted to do in politics, I would've stayed. All around us there were talks of a security bracket that the both of us, Stern and I, could fill, but the problem is that even the search for security experts turned into a kind of reality show."
