Dichter, and the wars that may come

The best phrase to describe the feeling that took hold of Kadima this week would probably be “all-consuming envy.” It is not only that Avi Dichter was appointed a minister and left the MKs high and dry in the opposition, but also that he has found himself an escape route, moments before the house collapses around them, and they have not.

Unlike Mofaz’s entry into the government, Dichter’s joining a government led by Netanyahu drew almost no criticism, including from those who would have liked very much to criticize him. Also unlike Mofaz, Dichter never kept his favorable attitude toward joining the government to himself. He even waged a campaign for it when he ran for the party leadership in the primary elections. Dichter also never participated in the factionalism that has become more and more frequent in Kadima. He resigned from the Knesset and gave his seat back to the party that had sent him there.

But even though the members of Kadima probably understand Dichter and would have behaved exactly as he did under similar circumstances, they have not forgiven him. People close to the prime minister were astonished by the amount of opposition. The approval of Dichter’s appointment was supposed to go smoothly. During August, many Knesset members are on vacation, and the only thing that the public expects to hear on the evening news is whether the next day will be a bit cooler. But on Tuesday, it turned out that the opposition intended to fill the opposition benches in the Knesset plenum.

For three years, Kadima has failed to mobilize MKs for Knesset votes and now everybody’s coming, a coalition member said bitterly. The power of envy, he sighed. The prime minister ordered all the ministers to cancel their vacations and be at the Knesset on Thursday. There would be no exceptions, he said.

Dichter had decided to leave Kadima even before he was appointed as homefront defense minister. He had every reason to do so. Shortly before the Kadima party primary, Dichter withdrew his candidacy and threw his support behind Mofaz. He asked for one thing only: partnership. Dichter hoped that unlike Livni, who made decisions only with help from her strategic advisers, Mofaz would keep him in the loop and consult with him on important matters.

But after Mofaz was elected, Dichter realized that this was not going to happen. Even before he entered the government, Mofaz did not consult with anyone other than his advisers. Although Dichter was happy over Kadima's entry into the government, he saw Mofaz steering the ship straight toward the iceberg. When Mofaz asked him to give up his position as chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee so that he could appoint Ronnie Bar-On, Dichter complied immediately. He understood Mofaz’s need not get into a conflict with Livni’s people. I will do anything I can to help you, Dichter told him.

It was actually during that meeting with Mofaz that Dichter was marked as homefront defense minister. Mofaz said that in several months, Kadima would receive three ministerial appointments: homefront defense, instead of Vilnai, who was moving to China; a minister without portfolio to replace Yossi Peled, who was moving to the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company; and one of the portfolios currently held by Moshe Kahlon. Give up the chairmanship of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee now, Mofaz said, and you will be appointed homefront defense minister later on. Dichter complied.

Dichter has already served in that position, for all practical purposes. During the Second Lebanon War, when Dichter was internal security minister, he ordered the northern district commander and the troops on the ground to take responsibility for everything pertaining to the civilian sphere. For that, Dichter was later criticized by the state comptroller in a pre-publication draft of the report about the failures of the war. The state comptroller determined that Dichter had stepped beyond the bounds of his authority.

During his meeting with the state comptroller, Dichter said that he had found the homefront essentially leaderless. Neither the Northern Command nor the Interior Ministry were functioning. The state comptroller was persuaded, and changed the criticism to praise in the final report.

Now, Dichter had two choices. He could remain in Kadima for another year while, as he believed, its officials would mostly be dealing with the question of who would form a faction with whom, and where each of them would or would not be in the next Knesset. Or he could flee straight to the warm embrace of Netanyahu and Barak, where he would continue to contribute his experience in defense for another year.

Dichter’s joining with Netanyahu and Barak came just in the nick of time. Vilnai’s decision to resign came shortly after Shalom Simhon’s attempts to be appointed chairman of the Jewish National Fund failed. But Vilnai’s decision is being carried out only now, as the whole system is intensely involved in the issue of Iran. The prime minister and the defense minister realized that they had to appoint a minister to replace Vilnai so that no one would be able to say that the government was looking for adventure while abandoning the homefront.

At first, they tried to find someone among the incumbent ministers. Yossi Peled was ruled out because he will be leaving in two months. Moshe Ya’alon was ruled out because Ahmadinejad will offer to dismantle Iran's nuclear installations on his own before Ya'alon and Barak will be able to sit together at the same table. Michael Eitan was ruled out because he has no experience in defense.

At the end of last week, Barak received the first signals that Dichter intended to leave Kadima. After a short consultation with Netanyahu, they decided that there was no better choice. The first meeting between Barak and Dichter took place that same weekend. Dichter promised to give his answer as soon as possible. During that same meeting, he said that he had no intention of causing a split within Kadima, but would enter the government by himself. Netanyahu and Barak, who still did not know what Dichter’s answer would be, put out feelers to people outside the political establishment, such as Uzi Dayan and Danny Yatom.

The guide to choosing a minister

On Monday, Dichter telephoned Barak. I’m in, he said. Dichter and Barak met at Barak’s home that evening. Dichter arrived at the Prime Minister’s Residence at about 11:30 p.m. The meeting there lasted for more than two and a half hours. The following morning, Dichter resigned from the Knesset and notified Mofaz and the secretary general of Kadima that he was leaving the party.

Dichter is not the tie-breaker when it comes to the decision on Iran. While four members of the forum of eight — Netanyahu, Barak, Steinitz and Lieberman — support attacking Iran, the other four — Ya'alon, Meridor, Begin and Yishai — are opposed. But the forum of eight is not a voting body. In the government and the security cabinet, Netanyahu will allow ministers to debate the issue, mainly so that they can protest, but the decision will remain with him.

Not everyone in Kadima called to congratulate Dichter. Many of its members saw his move as the final nail in the party's coffin, so to speak. Dichter had been one of Kadima’s high-ranking officials. Kadima had been his first political home, and his only one, until now. His departure from Kadima, particularly so close to the departures of Tzahi Hanegbi and Haim Ramon, does not bode well for the party's future. Some members of Kadima chose to criticize Dichter sharply. “From a public perspective, Dichter’s political career is as good as over,” said a Kadima MK. “Even though he resigned from the Knesset, he left for the sake of a job.”

But the people who have remained in Kadima are having a harder time than those who have left. After it already seemed that Haim Ramon would be able to keep his promise and get seven MKs together who would split off and form an independent faction, this move, too, appears to be fizzling. The MKs who are part of it are fighting among themselves, and the main part of the problem lies in Tzipi Livni’s hesitation.

At this stage, Livni refuses to commit herself, even to her most devoted admirers. How will she act as elections approach? She is not promising to establish an independent faction, and if she does, she is not promising to take any of them there with her. Some members of Kadima believe that there should be a split in any case, and afterward the factions can attempt to get along. Others say that there is no sense in doing this without a clear idea of what the next Knesset will look like. They say: Livni will go running to Lapid and leave us to our fate.

Meanwhile, over at Olmert’s

Some of Kadima’s members have already given up on Livni and decided to pin their hopes on former prime minister Ehud Olmert. According to various assessments, this includes Haim Ramon, who is considered close to both of them. It has already been several weeks since he announced the establishment of a new political party, and nothing happened. In the latest attempt at a split, Ramon called his people and promised them that he would organize seven MKs to split from Kadima. That did not happen either. It is believed that Ramon, too, has given up on Livni and is trying to cultivate Olmert as an alternative.

But Olmert lives at his own pace. And living is something that he knows how to do — at least, if we judge by the verdict in the Rishon Tours and Talansky cases. Several weeks ago, he packed his bags and headed for the Olympic Games in London. Over the weekend he came back to Israel, said what he said about Iran at Ono Academic College, and went back to his legal matters. He still has the sentencing hearings and the sentence ahead of him. The Holyland case is not over either. Although Ramon and his friends are getting impatient, Olmert is still waiting.

The prevailing assumption is that Dichter is headed for the Likud. This is not the first time that his name was mentioned as one who might abandon Kadima and join the prime minister. But there are those in the Likud who fear a mass migration from Kadima to the Likud more than they fear Dichter.

Tzahi Hanegbi, who went over to the Likud two weeks ago, began bringing several of his activists from Kadima to the Likud. Some of them are recruiters able to bring over entire boxes of membership forms with them. Some of the registered members are not waiting and going over on their own. They understand that staying with Kadima is worse than riding a lame horse.

The fear of several Likud members is that Hanegbi and Netanyahu have reached an agreement whereby Netanyahu will do away with the 16-month period that new members of the Likud must wait before they are eligible to vote in party elections.

The mayor of Sderot has already gone over to the Likud with 1,000 members. Herzl Tovli of Rehovot is going over to the Likud with Hanegbi, bringing 500 more. MK Avi Duan, who — it is believed — will also try to go over to the Likud, is supposed to bring with him a thousand activists from Ramat Gan. The mayor of Safed, Ilan Shohat, is making his way to the Likud with a thousand more. Itamar Shimoni of Ashkelon, in the past one of Tzipi Livni’s people, is considering joining the Likud as well. He is considered a serious vote-getter, with 1,500 activists at his beck and call. Another major activist, Sima Navon of Beersheba, is considering making the jump with her 500 registered members. Another major activist who is hesitating is Levy Sheetrit, who is close to Hanegbi, and who owns Kadima’s building in Petah Tikva. If he goes over to the Likud, Kadima will mostly likely have to look for another building.

The right-wingers of the Likud could end up as the big losers in the wave of activists heading toward them from Kadima. According to MK Danny Danon, “We of the Likud have already had experience with people who bring over boxes of membership forms, including thousands from Jouarish, whose purpose was to divert attention to interested parties. They don’t have the slightest thing in common with the Likud. In the end, we’ll find Ahmed Dabbah coming to the Likud with thousands of activists from Deir el-Assad.” Danon intends to put up a fight about this issue in the Likud’s party institutions.

So while the Likud conference is still going on, its right-wing segment is waking up to another battle. After a struggle over the outpost arrangement law, the Ulpana neighborhood and Migron, the members of the Likud, including ministers and Knesset members, are going out to battle once again against the prime minister’s probable decision to shelve Edmond Levy’s report about the outposts and the fact that the GOC Central Command has not yet signed the document recognizing the Ariel University Center as a university.

Just several weeks ago, Netanyahu formed the Ministerial Committee for Settlement Affairs in a move possibly meant to bypass Barak. The Likud ministers who are members of it are already threatening to resign in protest. What began as a protest against the attorney general’s refusal to portray the report as the government’s position turned into a rebellion against Netanyahu himself.

But that is nothing compared to the fight in store for the prime minister if the GOC Central Command does not sign the document giving the Ariel University Center formal status as a university. MK Haim Katz wrote a letter this week to Defense Minister Ehud Barak that stated, in part, “Any interference in order to prevent or delay carrying out the decision of the Council for Higher Education in Judea and Samaria about making the Ariel University Center a university stems from improper political motives. ... The members of the Likud faction are of the unanimous opinion that the Ariel University Center will become a university not because of the kindness of any person, certainly not Barak, who does not represent the spirit of the Likud regarding settlement affairs.” Katz is planning to collect 600 signatures of members of the Likud Central Committee to force Netanyahu to hold a hearing on the subject and make a decision.

Netanyahu decided to postpone the budget hearings that were planned to take place in the cabinet next month until after the holidays. Despite the belief that the budget will pass, just before the holidays is not an appropriate time. The budget could be a tough one, with many cutbacks. Approving them against a backdrop of photographs of organizations distributing food to needy people on the eve of the holiday is not the best idea. The anger of Netanyahu’s people is directed mainly against Steinitz. He revealed, in the Knesset, the dates planned for passing the budget in the cabinet. Now, they say, it looks like a political problem.

But it is possible that there really could be a political problem. The enormous number of planned cutbacks could draw opposition from Shas and Yisrael Beytenu and even cause severe problems within the Likud. Officials of the Prime Minister’s Bureau are planning to pass it as an all-or-nothing measure. They are planning to make the rounds of each faction and ask: Will you vote for or against? If Lieberman or Yishai should vote against it, there will be immediate elections. But the assessment was and remains that now, not one of them is interested in doing so.

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