Along with the dissolution of the government and the dissolution of the 24th Knesset, the partnership of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, which has lasted for more than 15 years, will also disintegrate – a very rare phenomenon in political life.
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Yossi Werter, time’s political commentator, writes in his weekly column about the partnership that has crumbled this year and the expected future to the right.
They walked together in an unarmed land and in green fields … until Bennett entered the Prime Minister’s Office and saw things from there that he had not seen before. The role, as he admitted, changed him. You do not remain the same person, the same reckless, childish politician at times, with the burden of the world on your shoulders. He went through a rapid process of ‘concentration’, as happened to Ariel Sharon, Menachem Begin, Ehud Olmert, to some extent also Yitzhak Shamir (who did not dream of annexation and restrained himself in the Gulf War). Shaked remained planted in her place in the living space of the Jewish home, her soul.
“As the days went by, a wall rose between the two,” says Werter. “A regular ritual of a weekly four-eye meeting, which has survived for many years, has melted away. Appointments began to be canceled, or shortened. The whispers about the fact that the political adviser, Shimrit Meir, took Shaked’s place as a ‘strong woman’ in his environment, were not yellow gossip. That’s what happened. Between the moderate political and state route that Meir outlined for him, and Shaked’s right-wing and conservative excavations, he chose the former. A choice that has become strategic. The interior minister was left out. time after time. Sometimes really physical.
“You are not the same person I knew, Shaked angrily slapped him once, about six months ago. If you continue this way you will be left alone. Without your team, without partners. In that, it turns out, she was right. “
Werter recounts Shaked’s humiliation this week: “The intensity of the blow and the humiliation that befell her on Monday, when he picked up the phone to Morocco to inform her of his decision, could not be overstated. About ten minutes after that call at 6:41 p.m., the message came out to the media. He did not give her time to digest.
In the joint statement, alongside Lapid, after the exchange of compliments between them, the outgoing Prime Minister thanked with pursed lips ‘to my friends on the right’, and slipped quickly forward in his speech. He has been working with Lapid for a year. With Shaked, as stated, 15. But at the time of the separation, he made it very clear who the nice partner was in his eyes. “
According to Werter, “Assuming that Bennett does retire from political life, he will prefer to transfer his right into the hands of the friend and partner who will not disappoint him for a moment, Matan Kahana. Last weekend, before the announcement, a legal check was made to see if it could be done in light of the fact that Kahana is not number 2, but Shaked.
“Shit,” Shaked said this week. Right now, we’re running together. If Naftali retires and if I want to, the party will pass into my hands. Either way, the affair ended badly. Its options are scarce. This year it burned down from both directions. As she moved away from Bennett, Shaked approached the Likudniks in an attempt to produce an independent route. She did this mainly through her role as interior minister. Heads of Likud authorities received close treatment from her. She thought she was using them, but they used her more. “
time commentator states that “on the bibi right she is considered a traitor, a collaborator, who without her government would not have formed. In the center-right camp – Gideon Saar and Avigdor Lieberman for that matter – she was deleted. Her willingness to sit in the Netanyahu government at any time, makes her a waste of wedding. “Her dreams of returning to the Likud, at least now, are not worth the pillow they dreamed of.”
And what about the right? “The question of the right is deeper.” Says Werter. “Is there such a thing as an animal at all? They are an eclectic collection of many evenings, from Shirley Pinto to Abir Kara, Mashaked to Kahana. Its electorate, according to opinion polls, consists of a seat and a half of right-wing voters. All the rest are fragments of seats of supporters of Ganz, Saar, Lapid, Lieberman. The ‘right’ has always been an obscure Lego model. Heads swapped, friends too. “Amorphism is not a good trait for young parties, most of which are doomed to disappear anyway.”