Politicians will do anything to see Kahlon fail
Op-ed: Israel's new finance minister will do his best to successfully execute his plans, but too many people in the top are lurking in every corner.
No one knows how long Benjamin Netanyahu's new government will last and whether it will succeed in executing its plans. But everyone is pinning their hopes on only one minister in that government: Moshe Kahlon.
The media, followed by many citizens in the State of Israel, have treated Kahlon mercifully almost the entire time. The successful cellular revolution he led gave him his current public and political standing, and from there, everyone believes, he will spread his wings.
Kahlon is now the national darling. He will be the one people will look at after every failure, and it's impossible that there won't be any failures. Success? Well, as the saying goes, success has many fathers. These fathers, particularly one of them, will make an effort to turn Kahlon into an orphan with the successes. Politicians don't like other successful people apart from themselves.
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Many see him as the realization of a dream: A transit camp child, a Mizrahi from Givat Olga, who knows about cholent and Yemenite hot sauce, who comes up with ideas for the sake of the citizen and knows how to fulfill them. And the smile? It's worth a million dollars. Moshe Kahlon with the white teeth is an ideal model for any type of toothpaste.
Kahlon and Netanyahu. In today's politics there seems to be only one formula for success: The rival's failure is our success
Other politicians are well aware of that too. They want to climb up the ladder of positions and one person, Kahlon, is getting in their way. They would have liked to be Kahlon (as Netanyahu once said in a mistake he won't repeat: Everyone should be Kahlons). He is both a Mizrahi and upright, and is also seen as a successful person in every household in Israel. What more can we ask of him that he hasn't already given?
In today's politics, unfortunately, there seems to be only one formula for success: The rival's failure – in this case Kahlon – is our success. That's the way to climb to the position of a senior minister and prime minister, whether an important one or not.
And that is what is in store for Finance Minister-designate Kahlon. He will deal with it. He will try (and I hope he succeeds), but too many people in the top are lurking in every corner. They will find all kinds of excuses to make him fail in each and every step he takes, and pretend, especially in the media, to congratulate and applaud him. Outwardly, they will flatter him, say everything he wants to hear. Behind his back, they will wait for him with knives. And they know how to smile. It's not like Kahlon's smile, but they are trying.
The question is how will Kahlon respond. He didn't come into politics yesterday, and if he reached the current top position, he will likely know how to use not only his sweet smile but also his political elbows. He is not "vegetarian." Today no one reaches the top in a charming manner. Like his predecessors, he has probably also left a few political corpses behind.
He entered my private consciousness when he served as Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau's bureau chief. A senior police official told me at the time that he had vacated his position and his seat in order to make it possible to appoint "one of our own," a person who shares the Likud's views, and that Kahlon quietly concocted the entire exchange. This means the man knows about politics and engages in politics.
At the time, he was already dominant in a government ministry and in the police, which was allegedly far from political intrigues. He is nice to those who are nice to him, and his white teeth can turn into jaws if needed.
This is our good luck wish to Moshe Kahlon. As the hollow cliché says, his success is our success. We really, really want him to succeed. We also want people not to misjudge him.
