Half an hour after the first reports emerged that Yair Lapid had forced Likud to surrender the education portfolio, the prime minister, accompanied by his wife, arrived at the parting ceremony for his most intimate partner in his last term, Ehud Barak. Netanyahu took the podium looking bowed and depressed. The cause was twofold: the coalition wringer he had been through, and the parting from the defense minister. The prime minister did not read from a prepared text. He spoke impromptu, looking squarely at Barak, his closest partner, the man with whom he ran the country, his comrade from the Sayeret Matkal unit, the only person he relied on in the past four years.
One can only guess what went through Netanyahu's head as he heaped praises on Barak: Who am I leaving behind, and who am I going to receive as partners. I'll be seeing you yet, he thought to himself, people like you don't say no when their country calls. If he only could, he would have broken out with cries of "Ehud, don't go".
Netanyahu's sour expression showed that he had begun to absorb what had happened: from today, instead of Barak, he gets two partners he despises and mistrusts, and whose every word he disbelieves. The unprecedented journey of humiliation that Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett put him through only further darkened the bad blood that in any case flowed between them. How symbolic was yesterday's event, marking the break between the previous dream term, and the term from hell that awaits Netanyahu from now on.
From the start, the superglue that held Lapid and Bennett together and led to the forced marriage was their revulsion at Netanyahu and the fact that they saw him as a common enemy. The hostility to Netanyahu was so great that it led to a blurring of the differences between two parties that had previously been bitter rivals.
So far we have only seen the curtain raiser. Bennett and Lapid are the great victors who have managed to wrest control of important portfolios, eject the haredim, determine for Netanyahu the size of his government and the number of ministers, and that is just for starters. Next week, the party will be over, the photographs with the president and the new suits, and married life will start in earnest. It will bring the budget, austerity measures, and reforms. From the moment they enter their ministries, each will try to wreck the other's plans. They will trip each other up, and make each other's lives a misery.
Lapid's first test will be passing the budget. It will be a short, sharp test. If he doesn't bring it off successfully, within four months Lapid will become the Amir Peretz of the Finance Ministry. In the next 100 days, Lapid will have to deal with tough austerity measures that will hit his supporters hard. It won't be easy. He will have to recruit political support and receive the backing of the prime minister, who will derive great enjoyment from seeing Lapid running around the Knesset Finance Committee and crashing in flames at the Ministry of Finance.
You don't have to be a great mathematician to realize that Lapid will not have the support of the socially-minded Likud Knesset members. Those who ended up empty handed and disappointed in the sharing out of portfolios will find it hard to put the sense of defeat behind them, and they will look for revenge on the minister of finance, who is largely responsible for the fact that they are not warming a ministerial chair, and on Netanyahu, who took them to just 20 Knesset seats. It's hard to see how Netanyahu will manage control them, or how he will impose coalition discipline on Reuven Rivlin, Silvan Shalom, and Tzipi Hotovely, especially as they belive that this is his last term.
In this term, Netanyahu will be a paper tiger, a prime minister heading the smallest ever faction. The Netanyahu faction within Likud will number eight members at best. Apart from Akunis, Steinitz, Edelstein, Hanegbi, Livnat and Erdan, all the Danny Danons and Miri Regevs will see themselves as freed of all commitment. Netanyahu will be a general without soldiers, a captive to his coalition partners.
Netanyahu's position is so serious that even the majority he boasts of in the government is without importance or relevance. He promised many of them upgrades, and all most of them got was more of the same or a downgrade. Netanyahu, they are saying, sacrificed those closest to him. O how they envy Moshe Kahlon.
Netanyahu is starting his third term from the weakest possible point. His main achievement has been buying time. He can only hope that within six months the peace process or the austerity measures will come between Lapid and Bennett. Meanwhile, Netanyahu can keep taking the despair pills until the Labor Party leadership contest. Maybe salvation will come from that direction.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 14, 2013
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