At Tuesday's press conference announcing the new coalition deal
between the government and Kadima, opposition leader Shaul Mofaz was
asked how he could justify changing his position from having in only the
last days attacked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a "liar" and
one who runs away from solving real problems.
Mofaz made several
points in response. First he stated that the opposition leader, as a
function of his job description, "must raise issues and do his job." He
said he didn't want to allow others to "push off the Tal Law to after an
election." Rather, he wanted a "new Tal Law now and afterwords the
election."
Next he said that the prime minister told him that he
would "put behind them" recent negative statements that Mofaz had made
about the prime minister and that they would "look forward and put those
statements in the past."
Mofaz also recounted that his
predecessor as Kadima party leader, Tzipi Livni, had made a "historic
mistake" by not joining a unity government with Netanyahu and that he
was "fixing that mistake."
Above all, Mofaz justified his
apparent about-turn with the point that the new deal would empower
Kadima to solve the four main goals in its platform.
Mofaz continued with an emotional appeal to the public,
countering with his own question: "would you say no" if you were offered
a "historic opportunity" to do a "major change" and lead to a "new kind
of government in Israel."