The Likud MKs' humiliation parade
Op-ed: One by one, the Likud faction members arrived at the corridor leading to the prime minister's bureau to receive their portfolios in the next government. They felt degraded and disgruntled – just like Netanyahu likes them.
Who said Netanyahu was heartless? Why in order to prevent close-up photos of miserable faces or noisy questions from the media, he invited them to the Prime Minister's Office instead of to his Knesset bureau.
But there may be another reason: He didn't want the minutes each person spent in his office to be counted behind the door, or perhaps he didn't want the disappointed people leaving his office to embrace the first journalist they see and share all their troubles with him or her. After all, nothing is over yet. So many things have to be finalized by 7 pm Thursday when the government is sworn in, if it is indeed sworn in.
The first meeting, with No. 1 on the Likud's Knesset list, Gilad Erdan, ended without any agreements. There's no wonder: Erdan wanted the Foreign Ministry. He would have settled for the Education portfolio. If not, then at least the reduced Interior Ministry with the Public Security portfolio. But only the Public Security portfolio with the Strategic Affairs Ministry without the intelligence part, while Yisrael Katz gets the intelligence? No way.
Katz went in next. It should have been short and easy. Katz already has the Transportation Ministry and the intelligence. But Katz has to make sure that Erdan won't get a bigger, or more senior, portfolio, or anything more than he gets. And that's before Silvan Shalom comes in with a hand grenade. Or Miri Regev with her revolution promises. Or Danny Danon with his revolution abilities.
I telephoned Finance Minister-designate Moshe Kahlon on Wednesday night. I wanted to ask him how it felt not to have to go through this humiliation parade. Under different circumstances, he would have been sitting there in the corridor with the others and would have left with the Social Affairs portfolio.
Moshe is sleeping, I was told. What a sweet sleep it must have been. In his dream, he saw his friends sitting in the cold corridor leading to the prime minister's bureau. Pale, stressed out, exhausted after competing for almost six months. They arrived at this corridor, which ends with a bureau in which their fate is decided, humiliated and embittered. Just like Netanyahu likes them.
The way things looked Wednesday night, it was hard to see this humiliation parade end with the government being sworn in on Thursday. But the Knesset was all prepared for the ceremony, and it would be embarrassing if it didn’t happen. Netanyahu had to make sure that everything was finalized. That at the very last moment, one of the disgruntled and unsatisfied Likud MKs would not jump up and raise his hand – or avoid raising it – and prevent him from becoming prime minister again.
And we have yet to mention the families, who were forced to wait till the very last moment without knowing if they were invited or not invited to their loved ones' swearing in ceremony. With Netanyahu, it always ends in tears.
