Next up for Netanyahu: appointing four new ministers, a strategic decision on whether to seek immunity and then the March election, where even greater dangers may lurk
Amos Biderman
There were two reasons behind Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on having the Likud leadership primary take place the day it did, on Thursday (December 26). First of all, by midnight next Tuesday, New Year’s eve, the prime minister must resign from the four additional ministerial posts he holds (in the health, agriculture, labor and social affairs, and Diaspora affairs ministries) and appoint successors; and secondly, two days after that, at the very latest, he has to decide whether to ask the Knesset to grant him immunity from prosecution. He preferred, correctly from his point of view, to have the primary hurdle behind him.
The prime minister’s mentor, the late Moshe Arens, used to say: When you appoint one person from a list of 10, you create nine enemies and one ingrate. Netanyahu knows what’s best for him. As long as the appointments hung over the heads of the MKs like dog-training treats, he had the candidates’ commitment and sweeping support – whether it was willing or it was because of a promise he made to them.
On the assumption that the premier, after being reelected Likud chairman, will appoint two new ministers from Likud’s ranks (he’s also expected to appoint someone from Shas and to upgrade Yaakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism, now deputy health minister, to full minister), the embittered folks from his party will no longer be in a position to dump him. (A case in point is MK Yoav Kish, who backed Gideon Sa’ar in the primary after Netanyahu “forgot” – as he himself said – his explicit promise not to intervene in the competition over selection of a Likud Knesset faction chairman, and supported MK Miki Zohar over Kish.)
We’ll get back to the appointments later. The immunity request is a matter of strategic importance. With a single letter to the speaker of the dissolved Knesset, Bibi’s lawyers will topple the public line of defense the suspect created for himself during the three years he was under investigation. From “There will be nothing because there is nothing” (a slogan he dropped some time ago) to the bad-mouthing of the police investigators, to the lies his attorneys spread after his hearing about the “collapse of the cases,” to the reply of feigned innocence he gave to a television interviewer earlier this month: “What? No way!” Netanyahu guffawed, when asked if he would request immunity.
The potentially more significant damage lurks farther down the road – the March 2 election itself. In recent years, Netanyahu, as a suspect under investigation and interrogation, and also, lately, as a freshly indicted defendant, has provided us with countless precedents of unseemly conduct – none of which do honor to him, to the institution of prime minister or to the state.
Now another precedent looms. A candidate for prime minister who is under indictment and requests immunity for himself is something we’ve never had in these parts. It’s hard to see how he, with all his sophisticated campaigning abilities, can make this situation work in his favor.
Netanyahu at a rally held in his honor. Ohad Zwigenberg
On the other hand, what is his alternative? Miki Zohar has said that if no formal request for immunity is made (if it is, it will delay the start of trial until the formation of a coalition, whenever that might be), Netanyahu is finished: His indictment would be submitted to the Jerusalem District Court, and a date set for the proceedings to begin. Thus, perhaps in the midst of an election campaign, we would witness the spectacle of a defendant standing across from his judges and declaring: Not guilty.
No matter what happens, he will not wake the “dormant votes” he often talks about, which he lacked the last time around to form a government. He’s on a sure path to a classic lose-lose scenario.
Judging the judges
In the September election, Likud, fortified by Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party and by Moshe Feiglin’s faction, lost between seven and nine seats. The voters who turned their backs were mainstream types who said: Why in the world should we vote for a person who behaves like a criminal offender, who attacks and harasses the law enforcement agencies and ceaselessly incites against its senior figures?
Those voters will certainly not cast their ballot for Likud next March – especially after the indictment, after the nauseating rally of supporters last month in the plaza of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which had the prime minister’s blessing, after Amir Ohana, after “Investigate the investigators,” “Jail the prosecutors” and, probably just around the corner, “Judge the judges.”
Those voters will not come home when home resembles a mafia whose boss – personally or by means of his family, gofers and consiglieri – directs web hooligans and sics them on anyone who questions his continued rule: whether it’s Gideon Sa’ar and his supporters, or Attorney General Avichai Mendeblit and the state prosecutor and his team. Those voters will not rediscover the hidden light where darkness rules, where a legitimate political rival and his backers are branded traitors, doormats and backstabbers.
Netanyahu and his gang know no limits and will stop at nothing, just as there is no civil servant or state official who will not become fair game if the need should arise. The Supreme Court, too, will not escape the onslaught.
A first toxic spore of this plague appeared on Wednesday in the lead headline of Israel Hayom, a freebie collection of newsprint that calls itself a “newspaper”: “The fix is in” – that was how the panel of judges appointed by Supreme Court President Esther Hayut to hold a preliminary hearing on the petition to disqualify Netanyahu from forming a government after the election, was referred to.
Waiting in the wings
After he emerged victorious from the primary, Netanyahu can be expected to decide early next week whom to appoint as cabinet ministers in his place. The question is whom he will choose to promote from among Likud’s MKs. Five names should be taken into account: Avi Dichter, the deputy defense minister; Miki Zohar, the Knesset faction chairman; Tzipi Hotovely, the deputy foreign minister; and MKs Nir Barkat and David Bitan.
Dichter and Zohar said recently on a number of occasions that they would prefer to remain in their present posts. We’ll soon know whether they meant what they said. Barkat, a newcomer to the Knesset, has been demanding a promotion from the moment he arrived; membership in the parliament is inconsequential to him. Bitan would have been appointed a minister long ago, but the indictment that’s about to be filed against him (following a hearing) will make it difficult for Netanyahu to choose him now.
For her part, Hotovely, who has been in the Knesset for a decade, longer than any of the others, is definitely expecting an upgrade. “Expecting” is putting it mildly.
The way he has treated this energetic MK to date offers something of a microcosm of Netanyahu’s world. Faced with a dilemma between appointing the most talented, most representative and most worthy person, or preferring the most aggressive and sycophantic – Bibi will generally opt for the last two criteria. Which is how, for example, David Amsalem and Ohana became ministers in the transition government.
Hotovely, however, has never embarrassed Netanyahu, has never prompted his criticism after something she said, and hasn’t caused him harm or shame, as have her two party colleagues who were annointed ministers. She does not repel voters, and among members of the religious-Zionist movement, from which she came to Likud, she is admired and popular. In the last election campaign, Netanyahu had her accompany him on visits to yeshivas and pre-army preparatory courses.
He’s aware of Hotovely’s electoral strength in constituencies that are important to him, but also of her calm disposition. If he skips over her (as he did in the past, despite numerous promises), he knows that she won’t try to get back at him. She won’t launch an “intifada” against him, as Culture Minister Miri Regev once threatened to do, should he have the temerity not to appoint her a minister.
Oh, yes, she’s also a woman. The Israeli government is the most male-dominated in the Western world. There are three female ministers (two from Likud – Regev and Gila Gamliel – and one from Kulanu, Yifat Shasha-Biton) out of 20. Utterly disgraceful. This would seem to be a time to make amends.
Parents day
In the past 10 days, Likud’s ministers abandoned their offices and affairs of state, to push themselves to the limit, and beyond, to save Netanyahu in the primary against Gideon Sa’ar. Like a chorus of cheerleaders they went from community to community, alley to alley, house to house, hard on the heels of a 70-year-old candidate whose adrenaline, fueled by his inborn fear of unpleasant surprises, infused him with frenetic energy.
At the end of last week, they were seized by panic when they learned that their dearly beloved candidate was seriously considering holding a primary for the Likud Knesset slate as well. They felt cheated, demeaned. The buzz among them was: We’re committing suicide for him and he’s about to drag us into the hell of a party primary just a year after the last one? That’s how he thanks us?
The narrative that took root was that Netanyahu wanted a primary in order to eliminate Sa’ar and his camp, or at least cut them down to size, on the next party ticket. Over the weekend, two people showed up at Balfour Street, separately: Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, Netanyahu’s campaign manager, and MK Barkat. Both of them came to make a case – each for an opposite cause. The former urged the premier not to be tempted into holding a primary for the Knesset slate, the latter pressed him to hold one.
Katz, in second place on the slate (after Yuli Edelstein) in the September election, realized that he can’t get any higher up. Barkat, who garnered the eighth spot, is convinced that he’ll do far better in the next heat, maybe even outdoing Sa’ar (fourth place) – whom Barkat views as his main rival in any post-Netanyahu contest over Likud’s leadership – and pushing him down to the lower half of the top 10.
Netanyahu heard them both out but did not commit himself. At the same time, he came under intense pressure from other ministers – Yariv Levin, Zeev Elkin, Yuval Steinitz, Gila Gamliel – not to abandon them, not to leave them at the mercy of the activists. They took advantage of every spare moment at rallies for him to try to ascertain where he, or his aides, stood on the issue.
At first Bibi said nothing, before indicating that he would soon make a decision about the party primary. Afterward, he ostensibly yielded to their pathetic cajoling and said, “Okay, I’ll speak to Michael Kleiner” – the president of the Likud’s internal court, who was to rule on the fraught issue.
But he didn’t speak to Kleiner. As long as that conversation – in which the party leader and prime minister makes it clear to the Likud court president what he must decide – did not take place, the ministers were fearful that he was pulling the wool over their eyes.
Such is the dichotomy of life with him. They support him, praise and exalt him. Yes, they will take a bullet for him. And no, they don’t trust him for a second. To them he’s a permanent suspect. As far as they’re concerned, the criminal charge “fraud and breach of trust” was invented to describe the leader in whose captivity they live.
So the hours passed and the pressure gauge shot through the roof. David Bitan was heard saying to someone: Bibi sent me to the Knesset’s arrangements committee to ask for another 15 million shekels ($4.3 million) for the party, and now he wants to spend eight million of it on a primary in order to screw me? Miri Regev’s colleagues found her to be the most panic-stricken of all. She held the most intensive talks with Bibi. On Monday, just before the party’s internal court convened, the stars fell into the desired alignment. Netanyahu joined a petition against holding a primary for the slate, announced his position publicly, undoubtedly talked to whomever needed talking to – and the judges ruled accordingly.
Rest came to the weary, repose to the hysterical. Regev was able to go back to Netanyahu’s rallies, where she’s a permanent fixture, and mumble her favorite mantra: “Likud is a family and we will not abandon our parents.”
Friendly advice
Avraham (Beiga) Shochat has been friends with Labor Party leader Amir Peretz for more than 30 years, from the time they served simultaneously as mayors of Arad and Sderot, respectively. Even when they held positions that invariably led to clashes between them, as finance minister and head of the Histadrut labor federation, respectively, their friendship remained solid. Twice in the past few years, Shochat actively and publicly supported Peretz in Labor leadership contests: in 2017, when he lost to Avi Gabbay, and early this year, when he triumphed over rivals MKs Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli. Other former ministers – Uzi Baram, Ophir Pines and Yuli Tamir, members of Labor’s unofficial House of Lords – also backed Peretz.
What Shochat says here, however, reflects only what he thinks.
“I read the column on Friday and was upset,” he told me this week, referring to what I wrote about the stubborn refusal of Peretz and his Gesher party partner, MK Orli Levi-Abekasis, to consider joining up with Meretz in advance of the next election. Methodical as always, Shochat said he wanted to discuss several points. First was Peretz’s contention that in the September vote, Labor-Gesher took three Knesset seats away from the right wing.
“That’s completely fake,” Shochat says, adding, “one of the most baseless things I’ve heard. He didn’t even take half a seat. I conducted a thorough check. In the April election, Labor [under Gabbay] got 190,000 votes, and the lady from Gesher got 75,000 [when they ran separately]. In September, the two of them running together got 215,000 votes – 50,000 fewer votes. Peretz got fewer votes and fewer seats than Gabbay.”
Shochat also examined the geographical distribution of about 1.5 million votes: “It’s true that in Likud-saturated places, Labor-Gesher got a few more votes, but fewer than what each of them got [running] separately in April.”
On the eve of the September election, he, Pines, Baram and Tamir made a huge effort to persuade Peretz to join forces with Meretz (which afterward morphed into the Democratic Union, in combination with Ehud Barak’s party). There were quite a few meetings at which Peretz gave them the impression that he supported their idea. A few days before he held a joint press conference with Levi-Abekasis, another meeting took place. I only want to talk to Tzipi Livni and to Orli, he told the former ministers.
“He said that Orli had hunkered down, wasn’t answering his calls, but that actually they had already struck a deal,” Shochat recalls. “He tricked us, he deceived us. I was actually pleased that Tzipi and Orli, or one of them, was going to come on board – but not at the expense of running together with Meretz. Now he’s going to run alone with Orli again, but this time the risk is far higher. If one of the two parties [Labor-Gesher and the Democratic Union] don’t make it into the Knesset, there’s a high probability that Bibi will be prime minister.”
In September your party was hysterical, I remind him, but in the end it crossed the electoral threshold comfortably.
“What saved them was the final polls, on the Friday before the election,” he says. “According to them, Labor-Gesher had four seats [the minimum needed to get into the Knesset]. In my family there are 12 people who are entitled to vote. Until that weekend, only a minority intended to vote Labor. They were split between Kahol Lavan and the Democratic Union. Because of those polls, 11 of the 12 ended up voting for Peretz. That will not happen again.”
I ask Shochat what he thinks is driving Peretz. “I really don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe he wants to assure himself some freedom of maneuver after the election.”
How do you think things will turn out? “I don’t know,” he replies. “I’ve read that he’s sending emissaries to Kahol Lavan, asking them to take him.”
There’s no chance of that, I say. They don’t want to hear of him.
“They’re right,” Shochat says. “What do they need him for?”
It has been reported that Bibi is asking for immunity. This huge and is a contradiction of what he said he would not do.
The high court passed on the case brought before them to determine if he was eligible to form a new government while under indictment.
So without ruling, Bibi is now eligible as nothing is stopping him. The court did not want to rule on this issue it appears as they asked the AG for an opinion twice and he passed twice. The three judges hearing the case said that at this point it is all theoretical as he needs to get 61 seats supporting and him and be picked by the President.
So contrary to many people’s comments they (Supreme Court) have not interfered in the election. Hopefully they will continue on this path as it is up to the electorate, elected MKs, and Rivlin who should govern according to the Israeli system and Basic Law.
Jonah Jeremy Bob is the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s in-house press secretary on the staff of the Jerusalem Post. All of the JPs the leaks from the prosector’s office, the A-Gs office, and the Supreme Court justices come from him. Although this article reflect’s the thining of the court and the A-G like all of Bob’s reports, it is more honest than usual about their political motivations.
I hope it is true that they are afraid that the “political class” will deprive them of their ability to meddle in politics if they carry their chutzpah to the point of removing a Prime Minister from office, without bothering to wait for the voters to decide who whether or not they want him to remain in office.
Are the allegations against Bibi politically motived? Do the AG and the supreme court want to oust him because they oppose his policies? This news analysis article in the Jerusalem Post, unusual in its honesty for that paper, gives some answers:
@ Bear Klein:
What do you mean she’s dangerous…..are you afraid she’ll sexually attack you….
Keep away from her then….but I don’t think you’re her type..
Leifler is dangerous. Those who protect her are doing evil work! Those who protect her illegally need to suffer the consequencesIf
Sorry Bear, I was writing and had posted before your reprint of the blog, and David Melech’s post were on the screen. The blog account seems very convincing
I have just finished reading this incredible article The writer, without any doubt, MUST have had a “Life of Capone and the Gang Era” in front of him whilst “composing”-with a little plagiarizing thrown in. Sebastien, with clarity, out of a Sargasso of floating waste, picked out the “Netanyahu and his gang”.and the succulent “toxic”… . Adam also posted with measured logic on another matter, equally damning of Netanyahu, (mainly by osmosis).
I suspect that my friend Bear Klein has a lifetime subscription to Ha’Aretz, that scurrilous yellow rag, which puts the old “News of the World” and the tabloids themselves, to shame. He highlights accusatory speculations which include purported actual dialogue (perhaps from someone listening at a keyhole), are often from sources not named, ………but we have a pretty good idea..
But….the highlight of the verdict of the Australian Court, is not to be doubted, and I do not include it in my comment. I also read it elsewhere.
It seems now that Netanyahu will do anything “to cling to Power”…. Israel seems to be on the edge of disintegration, and may dissolve at any moment….
A problem I, perhaps mistakenly, saw here is that the accused Malka Leifer is also an Israeli citizen. It seems not to be any hindrance to her extradition.Years ago, it was a very common, even universally observed practice of Sovereign States to refuse unequivocally, extradition of any of their citizens for offenses elsewhere, regardless of the crimes. When this position began to thaw, it did so at about glacier speed…
I don’t know what the inter-state agreements are today. Anyway Leifer can always follow the crowd, and plead that…..
…..
NETANYAHU IS TO BLAME….!!!
The toughest decision nutunyahoo, the cabinet and the Knesset should have to make now is to throw out the egyption so called agreement between Israel and hamas.
What’s in it for Israel? The sodomites get extra fishing, to work in Israel, + other goodies. What does Israel get in exchange? A few weeks without midnight rockets. So what we have is another foreign document with no real pressure to the enemy to behave.
What should have been written reduced fishing area, fishing only during certain times, no shopping in Israel (sit by the border gates,sorry cannot take pics for security reasons.) See the shopping buggies loaded going from Israel to Gaza.
Notice this time only the sodomite leaders homes, hotels individuals will be cleansed for good.
But the current government like those before tread on eggs. In yesterday’s J P one of the previous P M’s was again uptake surrender of J – S.
Leifer has claimed to be mentally unfit for trial ever since extradition proceedings were initiated. (Those involved in examining her say that she is faking panic attacks whenever a date to extradite her gets close).
According to the police charges, Litzman allegedly threatened officials in his ministry, warning them that if they did not write psychiatric opinions demonstrating that she was unfit for trial, they would be fired..
If true he is protecting a pedophile and should be drummed out of the Health Ministry let alone run it. Then some for political reasons prefer to argue on behalf of the pedophile and their protectors.
”
So in an Australian Court room it has been found the abuse alleged was real and Leifer is responsible, Adam. That is why I believe it and believe she is a pedophile and should be extradited ASAP. Protecting a pedophile is a black eye on those involved in doing so.
.
See full article at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-07/malka-leifer-and-melbournes-secretive-adass-community/7306950
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, most if not all Australian Jews want to see Leifer stand trial in Australia for 74 charges in relation to child sexual abuse.
Litzman has not been convicted that is correct. Why is he impeding the extradition of a charged pedophile?
I do not believe in protecting an alleged pedophile by interfering with the extradition.
Why publish an article with these vicious Haaretz lies about Netanyahu?
Bear,How do you know that the accused individual is a pedophile? How do you know that Litzman did anything wrong? Neither Litzman or his supposed protege have been convicted of anything. The Israeli courts have not yet decided whether the alleged pedophile (a woman) will be extradicted to Australia or not.
You and a lot of other people have forgot all about the presumption of innocence.
Now, this was an intelligent article. https://www.jewishpress.com/news/politics/saars-numbers-a-little-better-than-feiglins-against-netanyahu-but-hes-essential-to-immunity-vote/2019/12/27/?fbclid=IwAR3SuUzMl66kF-s7HXBsoS9ei4E3iNn7yL3C5Y5_MfI3YByEvFHOV0XIL3k
So, voters should reject Bibi “and his gang” because he’s a “toxic spore” of a “spreading plague?” Got it. And this author calls somebody else “hysterical.” What can I say. This article is hysterical. Nobody but a true believer on the left would believe a word of it, just from the hyperbolic language of character assassination alone. This is pure tabloid stuff. By the way, did you see that Bibi just won the primary with just over 75 percent of the vote?
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Gideon-Saars-career-done-if-he-opposes-immunity-Knesset-Deputy-Speaker-612326
It is important Bibi stay in power that helps the UTJ and Litzman after all he is so important and good for the country and pedophiles fleeing justice.
Naturally there are those who will say the police and prosecutors are the bad ones here they are persecuting Litzman. They will forget about the victims of the pedofile because it is a deep state conspiracy. When there is no defense of the crime attack the accusers.
If Bibi is going to be able to function as a Prime Minister he needs immunity. He can be tried after he is no longer Prime Minister. That is for the good of the country.