In the next elections, Netanyahu will walk all over Kahlon's head
Amnon Abramovich
Photo: Tzvika Tishler
The real alternative to the Netanyahu government
Op-ed: Unless the government dramatically changes its character, Israel will soon have new elections; as the Labor Party will likely still be stuck with the Buji-Tzipi duo, Kahlon and Lapid will have to join forces.
There are expressions which seem to have been with us for generations and seem to have been worded in a long and thorough academic process. Take for example the legal expression, "a reasonable prospect for conviction." Probe legal experts and legal correspondents, ask most readers, and they will tell you that it's an ancient expression which was born with criminal jurisprudence. No, this term was born as a slip of the tongue more than a decade and a half ago.
In the distribution of portfolios and positions in the government, during the formation of coalition, people spoke throughout the years about underhanded opportunism and benefits, about dumplings and matzah balls. Greedy and slightly ghetto-related terms. One journalist recently converted these expressions into "toolbox" and "working tools." The new terminologies caught the attention of one of the ministers. The minister bought the verbal goods and incorporated them into the negotiations he conducted.
This is what happened: In a High Court petition in an affair known as the "Bar On-Hebron scandal," the state was represented by a young advocate named Shai Nitzan. During the discussion, Judge Eliezer Goldberg asked him, I believe: When do you people in the State Prosecutor's Office decide to file an indictment? Nitzan, who was surprised by the question, pulled out the following response: "When there is a reasonable prospect for conviction." Nitzan telephoned then-Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein from the courthouse and informed him of the expression he had just improvised. You phrased it well, Rubinstein said to him.
Political Farce
Op-ed: When an American official arrives in Israel, who is he supposed to meet with – the minister in charge of strategic affairs? The minister in charge of the dialogue with the Americans? The intelligence minister? The deputy foreign minister? Or perhaps the minister in charge of Iranian affairs?
Now there is not a single political report or coalition negotiation which don't include the terms "toolbox" and "working tools" and give us the feeling that the ministers leave for work at dawn and return home at night with their backs bent, and that all their hard work is for us.
Lapid (L) and Kahlon. A centrist movement which will position itself as an alternative to the government (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
For the avoidance of doubt, it should be noted that the termination "working tools" does not refer to a transportation minister who is also an intelligence minister; to an interior minister who received chunks of the Foreign Ministry; to a public security minister who is also a strategic minister and also an information minister; to the Iranian issue which has been added to the Energy Ministry and will return to the Strategic Affairs Ministry at the end of the summer, but the Israel Atomic Energy Commission remains in the Energy Ministry; to the Nativ agency which is channeled to the minister of Jerusalem affairs who is also the immigrant absorption minister; to a minister for gender equality and equal gender who is both analogical and digital at the same time; to a prime minister who is also a communications minister and a foreign minister and to his deputy who corresponds with the Temple Mount instead of with the White House.
At the beginning of the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the Likud faction. In the next elections our goal is 40 Knesset seats, he said. It's a pretentious number, but it's not groundless. In the next battle, Netanyahu won't admit that his ministers and partners made him fold like a synthetic object, took advantage of his weak character and mind, and dismantled him as if they were peeling grains. He will argue that you can’t rule with 30 Knesset seats. You saw what's happened, he'll say.
Yes, we did, only yesterday: Oren Hazan is the last Knesset member both in terms of his spot and in terms of his quality. He issued a public threat against Netanyahu, and now he is a deputy Knesset speaker and a member of five committees, including the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Finance Committee.
In the next elections, Netanyahu will walk all over Moshe Kahlon's head. He will try to do to Kulanu what he did to the Bayit Yehudi party. Till then, he will sabotage Kahlon's chances of succeeding as finance minister. He has already made commitments worth some NIS 10 billion (about $2.5 billion) behind his back to public activists and sub-activists, for ministries and sub-ministries, for unnecessary positions, real and imaginary. He will deteriorate the public sector even more with a law permitting political appointments. And he will of course move on with the policy which calls for a siege, boycotts and bans from all over the world.
Kahlon promised to deal with the housing distress and with the banks. But he made another commitment as a necessary precondition: Not to sit in a narrow government. If the government isn't suddenly expanded and doesn’t dramatically change its character like a sex change operation, we are headed to new elections. I doubt the Labor Party will have enough time or succeed to bid farewell to Buji and Tzipi, the dream team of every right-wing candidate, a duo tailored at the Likud sewing workshop.
When that happens, Kahlon, Yair Lapid and others will be forced to join forces and create a centrist movement which will position itself as an alternative to the government.
Amnon Abramovich is a Channel 2 News commentator.
