Channels

Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO
Netanyahu is clearly looking for elections, even if it won’t happen this time around
Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO
Sima Kadmon

Netanyahu is still looking for an excuse to go to elections

Op-ed: The prime minister found out that the IPBC is not a good enough excuse to call early elections, but he does have two good reasons to dissolve the government—the police investigations against him and Trump’s determination to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The farce that had taken place before our eyes for weeks, known as the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) crisis, came to an end only last Thursday afternoon, after five meetings. We live in a country with so many urgent matters, and the question we are left with at the end of this soap opera is what does Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want.

 

 

Did he really seek elections, wanting to weaken Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on the way and turn him into an illegitimate candidate, or did he finally realize what Likud members and the other coalition parties had tried to make clear to him again and again—that they would not allow elections now, which is why he should come out of this affair with as many achievements as possible?

 

And he did come out of it with achievements. Regardless of what we hear in the press conferences or in commentaries about who won and who lost, it is already clear that the IPBC is facing a grim fate. Granted, it will go live, and almost on the original date set by Kahlon, but this is not the launch it hoped for. Most of the journalists hired for the news division, which won’t go on the air, will be fired. Instead, we will get the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) employees, who owe the preservation of their workplace to Israel’s royal couple.

 

Netanyahu with Finance Minister Kahlon. Even if the prime minister presents himself as the winner, he hasn’t come out of this affair looking very good (Photo: Amit Shabi)
Netanyahu with Finance Minister Kahlon. Even if the prime minister presents himself as the winner, he hasn’t come out of this affair looking very good (Photo: Amit Shabi)

 

So what have we got? The new IPBC is actually a meat restaurant that only serves dessert. Kahlon’s main achievement, it seems, apart from not deviating from the budget, is freezing the media supervision law. He will likely point out that the IPBC heads, CEO Eldad Koblenz and Chairman Gil Omer, got to keep their jobs, although he himself gave up on them a long time ago. I doubt they see that as an achievement, now that the heart of the IPBC—the news division—has been uprooted. The fact that the news division’s board of directors and CEO will be appointed by a committee headed by a judge is likely seen by Kahlon as another achievement. We will know if this is indeed an achievement only when we see who has been selected to serve in that committee and how many of its members are Netanyahu’s associates.

 

Even if Netanyahu presents himself as the winner, he hasn’t come out of this affair looking very good. It’s sad and even embarrassing to see what the prime minister has been preoccupied with all these weeks, and to realize that the main thing on his mind is who will be the IPBC’s main news anchor and who will be its economic reporter. It’s just pathetic.

 

Kahlon has expressed a lot of gratitude to legal experts, who he believes solved this mess. There is no doubt that the attorney general played an important role here. I already wrote last week that, legally, it would have been very difficult to defend Koblenz and Omer’s dismissal. The law would have had to be amended.

 

What got Netanyahu in trouble was mainly his associates’ comments. It looks like they helped him a bit too much with statements like the ones made by Coalition Chairman David Bitan, that the IPBC is a leftist, snobbish organization. What would they have told the court when asked why they wanted to shut down the IPBC? Netanyahu would not have been able to innocently claim that it was a matter of cost or efficiency. Bitan and Culture Minister Miri Regev already made it clear that it was all about wanting to control, to influence, and that is something Netanyahu has apparently achieved.

 

Don’t be confused, however: Netanyahu is clearly looking for elections, even if it won’t happen this time around. He found out that the IPBC is not a good enough excuse. But the prime minister does have two good reasons to go to elections: First of all, the police investigations against him. Even if the investigators are taking their time, it will eventually happen, and the investigations will lead to an indictment, at least in the illicit gifts affair.

 

The second thing is the diplomatic issue. The joy over Donald Trump’s election was apparently premature: The weird man sitting in the White House seems quite determined to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and his special envoy, Jason Greenblatt, appears to be a profound and thorough person. He is traveling all over the place, meeting with anyone who has any influence or opinion on the conflict and forming a full and detailed picture of the problem—and perhaps of the solution too—for himself and for the president.

 

Netanyahu appears to be very worried about this odd combination between the thorough, diligent and sensible envoy, and the short-tempered president, who is so concerned about his image. This is not Barack Obama. Netanyahu won’t be able to resist a plan presented by Trump and Greenblatt. And for that, Netanyahu needs a different government, a different coalition.  

 

Now all he has to do is find the right excuse.

 

(Translated and edited by Sandy Livak-Furmanski)

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.04.17, 11:18
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment