Kadima members who took part in the attempt to split the party and join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition have no place within our ranks, Kadima leader and opposition head Shaul Mofaz said Monday after late night negotiations between several Kadima renegades and the Likud all but sealed their defection in return for cabinet portfolios and other appointments. At midnight on Sunday night, the move seemed to be all but complete when the six Kadima MKs thought they could get another Kadima member to join them, thus meeting the necessary legal threshold of seven MKs needed to create a new faction. Several MKs were even summoned to the Knesset Committee offices to sign the necessary paperwork. According to the plan, the Kadima defectors were to provide Netanyahu with the much-needed majority he sought for his controversial bill to increase the number of haredim and Israeli Arabs in the military and for passage of next year's budget. The group comprised Kadima MKs Otniel Schneller, Yulia Shamalov Berkovich, Arie Bibi and Avraham Duan, Yaakov Edri, and, according to several Israeli news outlets, Nino Abesadze. Edri issued a statement Monday in which he said he had yet to decide on the matter. "No document has been signed," read the statement, according to the Israeli news portal Ynet. The six Kadima members had objected to Mofaz's decision to leave the coalition last week over the haredi draft issue. In the wake of that decision, Tzachi Hanegbi, a former MK and cabinet member for Likud and then MK for Kadima, orchestrated efforts to rejoin the coalition. Hanegbi was expected to get the Home Front Defense portfolio in the cabinet instead of Matan Vilnai, who has been appointed ambassador to China. Duan was reportedly promised the position of Deputy Social Affairs and Social Services Minister. Arie Bibi, a former Israel Prisons Service commissioner, was floated as a possible Deputy Public Security Minister and chairman of the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee. But as noon approached Monday, there were growing signs that a seventh member was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Mofaz convened a press conference saying he would ask the Knesset House Committee to strip four of the renegade Kadima MKs of their party affiliation, thus denying them the privileges they would enjoy if they caucused with Kadima. "Anyone willing to serve as an accomplice to Netanyahu's disgraceful policies of discriminating against young Israelis who serve is no longer part of this party," Mofaz said, calling their move "political bribery." "We will torpedo Netanyahu's attempts to legislate a "Tal Law 2" [referring to the current law that effectively exempts haredi youth from military service]. Mofaz also said that Kadima will continue to serve the country from the opposition, and fight the government's socio-economic agenda. "Anyone who wants to join the bloated government in exchange for a low-level position as a form of political bribery, should go now; anyone who wants to join corrupt people should go; anyone who wants to join the draft-dodgers should go; we are not holding anyone against their will; no one will intimidate us; " Mofaz said. Mofaz added that suspending the MKs from the party does not necessarily mean Kadima would have fewer seats in the Knesset. When Mofaz announced his departure from the coalition last week, he insisted that he had left no stone unturned in his effort to strike a compromise with the Likud over the hot-button haredi draft issue. The draft had been one of the three main items on his agenda for joining the coalition in May, in a move that shocked the political world as it was announced just hours before the Knesset was to call early elections. Mofaz's decision to leave the coalition came after talks over the new law became deadlocked over the number of haredim who would have to be drafted, their age and the enforcement mechanism this would require. The High Court of Justice ruled in January that the de facto waiver haredim enjoyed under the so-called Tal Law was unconstitutional as it discriminated against the majority of the Jewish population that does serve in the military. The justices said the government had to enact new and more just legislation to replace the law when it expires on Aug. 1. On Sunday, Vice Prime Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon presented the ministers with the new bill for haredi conscription which denies deferment of service for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who have reached the age of 26 (the current law allows the to continue studying until they are 28, at which point would-be conscripts are deemed unfit to serve). Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement last week saying that the Defense Ministry intended to present the government a proposal to standardize haredi enlistment over the next two years based on "the High Court's ruling, the IDF's specific needs and the justified public demand for equality in the shouldering of the national burden. " However, it is unclear whether this would pass constitutional muster and meets the threshold set by the High Court of Justice in January. Coalition Chairman Zeev Elkin was to be actively involved in the talks over the Kadima defection. Last week, when Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz announced an end to the two-month partnership with the Likud unity government, seven Kadima MKs voiced their opposition to the move, including the renegades. Elkin hoped to build on that sentiment and have those MKs submit an official letter to the Knesset House Committee in which they would ask for official recognition as an independent party thus paving the way to join the government as another coalition partner. Dr. Rachel Adato was mentioned as a seventh Kadima MK, but she denied she had any plans to defect. On Sunday Edri, a Kadima MK, was quoted by his associates as saying, "I grew up in the Likud; in fact, I never considered any other party as my home." Hanegbi has also tried to convince additional MKs to leave the party without necessarily joining the coalition. These include Doron Avital, Nachman Shai and Dalia Itzik. Hanegbi's defection efforts also extend to Kadima MKs who remain loyal to former Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni, who was crushed by Mofaz in the party primaries in March and has since left public office. Among those mentioned were MKs Shlomo (Neguse) Molla, Robert Tiviaev, Yoel Hasson and Majallie Whbee, who want to enlist Livni as the head of a new faction close to the next elections. However, Livni has apparently nipped that effort in the bud and instructed her supporters to abandon this effort and has recently even been quoted as saying that "it is important that we are not seen as those who trigger Kadima's split, but instead have Hanegbi initiate it; the move would bolster Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition and allow it survive another year." Livni, however, has not gone out of her way to hide her desire to see Kadima split on the eve of the elections and lead a new political framework backed by several MKs. On Sunday, Mofaz associates condemned Hanegbi's efforts to split the party, with one saying it is tantamount to "political bribery of the worst possible kind." "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to buy the votes of several MKs in order to make the Likud's disgraceful conscription bill acceptable in exchange for non-important portfolios in his already bloated cabinet. Having rejected the historic compromise outlined by Kadima [over the haredi draft issue], the prime minister now wants to get a stamp of approval for a historical disgrace that encourages draft dodging and perpetuates inequalities by means of political bribery." Over at the Likud, officials declined to respond to the accusations made by Mofaz's associates against Netanyahu. Kadima insiders who are involved in the effort to defect define this week as "crucial." "If we have seven MKs there will be a split; if by Wednesday a seventh MK does not emerge the issue will be taken off the agenda," said one source.
