On Monday night, Likud members could finally breathe a sigh of relief. After many months of tension and apprehension, most of them could let off a little steam before rolling up their sleeves and getting down to the business of running an election campaign. What was supposed to be a celebratory post-primaries after-party the wedding of Shlomo and Lea Ness daughter instead turned out to be a grim event. Just a day before the joyous event, Lea Ness discovered that she would in all likelihood not be returning to the Knesset. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been able to handpick the names on the Likud list, it is reasonable to assume that the list would look differently than it does now. It is a certainty that Netanyahu wanted to see Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz win a higher slot. He would have also liked to see Ofir Akunis capture a more attractive place. He is surely sorry to see Benny Begin and Dan Meridor miss the cut. On the other hand, there are quite a few Likudniks who were more than happy to see them go, chief among them Miri Regev. Still, Netanyahu could derive satisfaction from the final result. The Likud list shifted rightward, which is exactly what the party needs to prevent Naftali Bennett, Aryeh Eldad, and Michael Ben Ari from siphoning off votes from the factions hawkish wing. The battle for the political center is no more. There is no center, and all the empty chatter suggesting otherwise is meant solely to lure voters from the Right to the Left. Tzipi Livni is a good example of this. Her views on Israels diplomatic situation, which she has spelled out in endless speeches that she has delivered over the course of the last four years, are somewhere between Labor and Meretz, but in the eyes of many she still represents the center. That is why Livni did the smart thing when she said that she would recommend to the president that the leader of the left-wing bloc be tapped to form the next government. In doing so, she placed herself exactly where she belongs on the political map, on the Left. The Likud list has positioned the ruling party in its rightful place on the Right. If anyone had any doubt after Avigdor Liebermans Yisrael Beytenu party merged his list with that of Likud, along came the primaries to erase any remaining uncertainty. These elections are much clearer, the fault lines much more apparent, a situation similar to that of the 1970s, when right was right and left was left. The Likud against Labor, and vice versa. Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, who captured one of the coveted top slots on the party list, says that a more hawkish slate of candidates will only benefit the Likud. The entire public has sobered up, he said. Nobody lives under the delusion that conceding parts of the Land of Israel will bring peace. The list that the Likud picked is an accurate reflection of the position staked by a majority of the public. Like Netanyahu, Yaalon expressed sorrow that Meridor and Begin did not make the list. I worked with them quite a bit during this past term as part of the Forum of Nine ministers, he said. They will be sorely missed during the next term. Yaalon sees himself as the partys leading candidate to take up the post of defense minister, though he is careful not to say so publicly. The Likuds right-wing flank expended great effort to boost Yaalons prospects and make him a near shoo-in for the defense ministers job. Still, Yaalon knows there are no guarantees. In years past, whoever agreed to take up the job of education minister or finance minister was thought to be risking political suicide. In this past term, the Forum of Nine proved to be the ultimate graveyard for ambitious politicos. Aside from Netanyahu, Yaalon, and Lieberman, who emerged unscathed, Meridor and Begin were not as fortunate. Ehud Barak, another forum member, announced his retirement, Eli Yishai was removed from his perch as Shas top dog, and Steinitz was knocked down the party list. Eighteen months ago, Lieberman convened a press conference immediately after his partys failed attempt to form a parliamentary committee of inquiry to probe funding of left-wing non-government organizations. During the news conference, he bitterly attacked the feinschmeckers of the Likud who kept sabotaging his legislative proposals. He aimed his wrath specifically at three people: Begin, Meridor, and Michael Eitan. Now, Lieberman can certainly be pleased. Hes still in, while the feinschmeckers are out. Despite the result, Netanyahu still wants to see Begin as a minister in his next government, even if he needs to appoint him from outside the party. He knows, however, that this option may not be available to him. It all depends on how the political stars are aligned after the elections. If the Likud-Beytenu list wins a large number of Knesset seats, Netanyahu could begin his third term in office free from all pressure and appoint whomever he wants to whichever post he wishes. A victory by a slim margin would limit his room to maneuver. Begin and Meridor lost primarily because they were completely wiped out among the grassroots activists in the field. For four years, they were barely seen in the field. Matters are slightly more complicated with Eitan. He actually made an effort to reach out to party activists, but his decision to stand out among the crowd and assail the prime minister for the merger with Lieberman cost him dearly. This was, of course, a legitimate position to take, but the average Likudnik appears to think that Eitan crossed the line. A closer look at the voting breakdown in the Likud primary reveals some startling facts, chief among them the deal cut by Haim Katz. When his name was called through the loudspeaker at the Trade Fair and Convention Center, party members began jeering. Katz did not attend the proceedings, and he certainly knows why. There is tremendous anger toward him. By dint of his position as the chairman of the Israel Aircraft Industries labor union, thousands of registered Likud voters are at his beck and call. But this doesnt tell the whole story. According to Likud officials, Katz began to run into problems when he started to trumpet the deal he cut for himself. It had gotten to the point where Katz was inflating the importance of the arrangement so disproportionately and outlandishly that it defied logic. He gave people the sense that whoever wanted his support would benefit handsomely. Not only did he offer to promote candidates, but he also promised to wipe out adversaries. The results of the vote, however, tell an entirely different story. The ballot boxes used by Katz are mostly in places like Rishon Lezion, Ness Ziona, Ashdod, Hadid, Shoham, Petach Tikvah, and Yehud. The employees of IAI were shuttled to these destinations in rented cars and buses. The results in these localities provide a glimpse into the names of the people Katz wanted to boost. Tzion Finyan won considerable support in these areas, but he did not win enough votes to crack the slate. The same holds true for Lea Ness. Meanwhile, Carmel Shama Hacohen, who was most certainly on Katzs hit list, made the cut to a realistic Knesset spot. Katzs repeated vows to end Shama Hacohens political career touched off a mutiny. It turns out that a few hundreds IAI employees voted for Shama Hacohen anyway, guaranteeing him a spot in the next Knesset. In Shoham alone, he won 161 votes, most of them cast by Katz supporters. Not much has changed at the top of the party pyramid. Gideon Saar is once again first. Gilad Erdan remains very popular on the Right as well as with the public in general, but he was less active in party deal-making. Nonetheless, he held on to his No. 2 slot. Silvan Shalom dramatically improved his standing, vaulting to the third spot. Yisrael Katz rocketed to the partys top echelon, thanks not only to a deal he crafted with the other Katz but also because he proved himself a prolific campaigner in the field. After 14 long, frustrating years, Moshe Feiglin finally managed to secure himself a spot on the Likud slate. He initially tried to foment his revolution in the early 1990s, when he sought to lead a faction with a firm ideological bent and carve a niche for it in a mainstream political party. From the outset, he was considered a foreign element. Very few of his supporters, who registered en masse with the Likud, wound up actually voting for the party that they had joined. Feiglin himself never declared his intention to win a seat in the Knesset, though he never concealed his aspiration to win the party chairmanship and, by extension, the premiership. In the previous election, it seemed to dawn on Feiglin that his revolution would not occur. He achieved scant success in getting his people on the Likud slate. In the last four years, the only revolution to speak of is the one that took place within his Jewish Leadership faction. Feiglins dreams of leading the Likud were trimmed down to a more realistic goal of just making it into the Knesset. He was also forced to divorce himself from his army of candidates. The only candidate remaining is Feiglin himself. The director-general of the Jewish Leadership faction, Michael Foah, has been replaced by Shay Malka. Foah, meanwhile, was hired by former welfare minister Moshe Kahlon. Ideology and revolution have been replaced by politicking and backbiting. Within a short time, Feiglin underwent a metamorphosis from a bizarre candidate who flew in from the outside to one of the most sought-after vote contractors in the party. He has made deals with individuals whom in the past he would never dare approach, including ministers who voted in favor of the Gaza disengagement. He has also made deals with blocs of registered Druze Likudniks. The Likud may not be the same Likud, but Feiglin is also not the same Feiglin. Aside from Jewish Leadership, there were two other entities on the partys hawkish flank that made their presence felt on the grassroots level: the National Headquarters headed by Shevah Stern and Natan Engelsman, and My Likud, led by Gershon Mesika and Yossi Dagan. The three factions failed to put together a joint list, though a number of Knesset members did manage to win support from all three, enabling them to secure attractive spots. Danny Danon, who made it into the top five, Yariv Levin and Zeev Elkin all cracked the top 10 thanks to their support from the settlement groups. Tzipi Hotoveli outperformed veteran politicians Limor Livnat and Gila Gamliel to capture the slot reserved for women because of them. Of the candidates who defected to the Likud from Kadima, Tzachi Hanegbi was the only one who won a spot on the list. Hanegbi is in some respects a replacement for Meridor: a moderate who backed the disengagement plan. From Netanyahus standpoint, Hanegbi may even be preferable to Meridor, since the former is more inclined to support a military operation against Iran. On Tuesday, Lieberman will present the Yisrael Beytenu list. The date is no accident, for it comes two days before the deadline set for parties to submit their slates. Lieberman doesnt want to see anyone who suddenly finds himself outside of the list join a rival party at the last minute, a lesson he learned from the Yisrael Hason precedent. Hason made the jump from Yisrael Beytenu to Kadima before the last election. The thin criminal indictment due to be submitted against Lieberman could reshuffle the deck, but waiting for an indictment cannot be a viable work plan for either him or Netanyahu. The specter of criminal charges has been hanging over him for 10 years like a shadow that refuses to go away. If the indictment is handed down, hell deal with it later. In the meantime, he prefers to ignore it. Barak strikes Meanwhile, Ehud Barak picked the best possible time to announce his retirement from politics. He quits just after Operation Pillar of Defense, between the party primaries in Labor and Likud, and in light of polls which show his Independence Party winning between four and five Knesset seats. He is going out on top, even though its quite an embarrassing top for a man who was once prime minister and who held the defense ministers post for over seven years. Barak understood that this coming election could end up humiliating him. Even if he did manage to break the minimum vote threshold and enter the Knesset, his party would be irrelevant. It is reasonable to assume that political exigencies would compel Netanyahu to appoint somebody else as defense minister in Baraks stead. Perhaps Netanyahu made it clear to Barak that the odds of him retaining the defense ministers post in the next government are slim. From the day of its inception, the Independence partys staying power was highly in doubt. Its fate was sealed, however, the day that Barak took on Netanyahu just over a month ago. The man who brands himself the next defense minister cannot become entangled in a row with the man who is due to appoint him. Although Barak divulged no details of his future plans, it is reasonable to assume that after the elections we will not see him in any ministerial or public position. It seems that the goal of his retirement was mostly to tend to his private affairs. Barak is a hot commodity worth millions as an adviser in the defense industry. He can also command hefty sums for speaking fees. It is safe to say that after his exit from politics, there is certainly someone waiting for him outside. As for the other members of his party, their story is entirely different. His retirement hit them hard. Four Knesset members who followed him into the political wilderness never conceived of the possibility that the life raft he organized for himself held room for just one person. They should have known that Barak destroys political parties and leaves behind scorched earth and islands of ruin wherever he goes. A known hobby of his is to disassemble watches, though nobody has said whether he likes to reassemble them afterwards. The warning bells sounded loud and clear long ago for Shalom Simhon, Einat Wilf, Orit Noked, and Shakib Shanan, but they chose to ignore them.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו
