Yesterday at 9:00 am, two hours before the official opening of the event to form his sixth government, Binyamin Netanyahu knew one thing for sure: he had succeeded. At the end of this long day, he will arrive at the President’s house already as the Prime Minister of Israel. No more “past”, “future” or “destined”. The journey was long, arduous and at times even delusional – but in the end he succeeded – and this historic moment is going to be caught on the camera lens of the Prime Minister during the traditional photo session at the President’s residence.
Netanyahu did not have a clear answer to the rest of the obvious questions, not even two hours before the start of the big event. What will the photo taken at the president’s house look like? What will be the full composition of the ministers of his new government? After all, a day earlier, on that tense Wednesday, the day of distributing the files – not everything worked out as he expected.
Israel Katz left slamming the door when he heard that after weeks of tense waiting, passing overt and covert messages, and above all after publishing a long and meticulous post of reassurance on his Facebook page – all he was offered was half the term as foreign minister, plus the second half! Dodi Amsalem, too A senior official, who also has support and power among Likud members, slammed the door even before Katz. Gila Gamaliel, who in recent weeks mounted an entire campaign in favor of her return to the Ministry of Environmental Protection, did the Amsalem act (“Not the requested case? So nothing!”), refused the alternative case (social equality, which immediately after her refusal was handed over to one of the campaign’s beneficiaries – Amichai Shikli) and shut herself up in her house with disappointment and rage.
Morning of the swearing in of the government – and a number of senior Likud officials were sitting in their homes at the height of tension, at the height of anger and uncertainty. Not that their gloomy mood particularly worried the incoming prime minister. As a veteran of the system once said: “Politics is not a GMC.” And yet, Netanyahu was fully aware of the fact that this time he was not able to put the puzzle together without leaving wounded people on the ground. The group of disaffected people inside the house is not an immediate threat to him, but it is capable of making it difficult and damaging in the long run longer.
The victims of the partition
The political industry does not tolerate empty spaces. Left disgruntled in the field? You have created a hostile camp. Netanyahu completely knew what he was doing when he insisted on including in the package of laws that were approved before the formation of the government the “law of splitting from the faction”. The Likud chairman’s determination to immediately close the loophole left in the law by the previous government indicates his awareness of the fury that will follow after the distribution of duties.
Not that they had a choice – those victims of the partition – whether to vote for or against the amendment of the law, the whole purpose of which is to make it difficult for them to threaten the tough boss. Maybe in their hearts they hoped for a miracle, maybe they trusted their strength within the party. One way or another, the law was amended, the threat of a split was reduced, and the group of the disillusioned consolidated into a camp within the faction. Netanyahu will have to face this internal challenge along with a long list of other challenges – from within and without – that will accompany his government from the first day of its term.
To observers from the side it is probably not so clear the nature of the internal threat created with the distribution of the cases within the Likud. After all, this is political life and these are the rules of the game. The ministerial cake has always been smaller than the size of the expectations and the amount of expectations. The last time Netanyahu formed his government, this asymmetric equation ended with the creation of the water portfolio, the higher education portfolio and a series of other delusional inventions that provided perfect material for the satire sketches. After all, Netanyahu is not a political novice and is not new to the position. Already in 1996, when his first government was formed, he had to postpone the inauguration ceremony by a few hours because of the Ariel Sharon-David Levy crisis. Even in 2015, the inauguration date was postponed more than once – then because of the on-duty crisis with Sylvan Shalom and Gilad Erdan.
Past experience shows that internal crises in Likud bothered Netanyahu quite a bit, but did not do much harm. This time – if no miracle solution to the crisis with the “victims of the partition” is found – Netanyahu is expected to experience not the most sympathetic moments in the faction meetings, and perhaps also in the plenum votes.
On Wednesday of this week, when the Likud faction gathered for a yeshiva for the first time since the elections, the “dudes of uncles” (according to the internal Likud nickname) Dodi Amsalem and David Bitan presented a trailer for the future to come. They came loaded and ready for battle. Amsalem asked to speak, Yariv Levin tried to limit his words and was kidnapped. Yoav Kish – then not yet the Minister of Education, but a rank-and-file MK waiting for the good news – intervened and took a double whammy.
Until today it was mainly the role of Bitan, who cannot be appointed to the position of minister because of his sentence, to be “the one who has nothing to lose”. Starting this week, from that tense conversation in Netanyahu’s office, his good and old friend Amsalem also joined the “There’s nothing to lose, so there’s nothing to keep quiet” club. Of all the anger and resentment that has arisen, Amsalem’s anger should worry Netanyahu the most. Even in the eyes of the pragmatic Likud members, Amsalem is the soul of the movement in Ha-Ha-Kheeda. The man who is perceived as the most authentic, the most real, and the most representative. Unlike others, for whom the insistence on a particular file can be interpreted as a desire for honor or dominance, Amsalem’s insistence on receiving the trial file or The position of Knesset Speaker or nothing – appears to be an insistence on the principles.
out of the picture
Already seven years ago, right after he was first elected to the Knesset, Amsalem did not stop talking at every opportunity and on every stage about the necessity of reforming the judicial system. His announcement during the election campaign that he would only want to serve as Minister of Justice was initially seen as another bombastic statement, the whole purpose of which is to win headlines. Those who thought that it is not really serious and not very real and that “it will be fine” were wrong. But with Amsalem, as with Amsalem, there are no subtleties and double meanings. He did not accept – so he remained outside the traditional picture in the president’s house. It is not clear who lost more: Amsalam himself or the incoming prime minister. Somewhere, in the middle of the long negotiation process, an interesting meeting took place in Netanyahu’s office between him and David “nothing to lose” Bitan. Bitan came to talk about the friend, about Dodi Amsalem. So in Netanyahu’s immediate environment, debates still developed as to whether to give Amsalem the position of Speaker of the Knesset or whether to try to lure him with the respectable package of a financial portfolio plus some fat addition.
“Give him the case file, you will benefit from it,” Bitten told him. “My uncle is a very brave person. He will be able to promote reforms in the justice system without hesitation and without flinching. Even if he is attacked in the media and within the system itself, he will lead to the end. You will enjoy the result and, if necessary, you can claim that it is not you, but he who does Whatever he sees fit. And – my uncle is a soul, you’ll see, he’ll still make friends with all these guys from the top. They’ll still become friends. He’ll talk to them at eye level and be the fairest with them. He knows how to reach the hearts of the most complex people.” .
Netanyahu heard and seems to have been convinced. Only at the end of the campaign, the consideration he determined was not exactly the uniqueness of the specific person named Dodi Amsalem, but many other considerations. Amsalem remains hurt in the most authentic way, as only Amsalem knows. They will not split, the victims. It is likely that they would not have considered it even without the changes in the law. After all, they see themselves as the Likud, perhaps more than they see the authentic Likud at the head of their party in and of itself. So where will they go and why will they go? The camp of the disappointed will remain in the party, in the faction, in the Knesset. This is another challenge, one of many, that arose this week together with Netanyahu’s sixth government, which is Israel’s 37th government.
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