With the ‘Young Turks’ from the Likud snapping at his heels, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces critical political and diplomatic challenges
By LESLIE SUSSERDeputy Defense Minister Danny Danon521(photo credit: flash 90)
Ever since his new government was sworn in in mid-March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been doing his utmost to prove that this time round he is serious about peacemaking with the Palestinians.In background briefings he claims to be well aware of the dangers to Israel of a slide into a one-state reality with a Palestinian majority; in talks with Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni he said enough on the merits of the two-state solution to lure her into his cabinet as chief peace negotiator; Livni and Netanyahu’s close confidants National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror and Attorney Yitzhak Molcho have been plying the Tel Aviv-Washington line assiduously, working behind the scenes on a formula to restart peace talks; and, most importantly, Netanyahu has repeatedly assured US Secretary of State John Kerry that if the Palestinians would just come to the table they would soon see he means business.In early June, however, just before Kerry’s scheduled fifth visit to the region in as many months, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon put a damper on Netanyahu’s hard work. In a widely quoted interview with the web-based Times of Israel he insisted that a majority in both the Likud and the coalition opposed the two-state paradigm and would block Netanyahu if he went for it. Worse, he claimed Netanyahu had set conditions – recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and border negotiations without reference to the 1967 lines – he knew the Palestinians would not accept. In other words, Danon seemed to confirm what many in Israel, among the Palestinians and in the international community suspect – Netanyahu is simply posturing in the hope of winning the blame game when Kerry’s ambitious peace effort collapses.Danon is not alone. Even if Netanyahu is genuine, widespread opposition within the Likud will make it difficult for him to move on a two-state solution.Moreover, that is not the only party challenge he faces. Worse for Netanyahu, there is swelling grass-roots disaffection with his leadership per se. He is widely blamed for the party’s relative failure in the January election, the unpopular electoral pact with the mainly Russian immigrant Yisrael Beytenu, the moribund party branches and the non-functioning party institutions. The vehemence of the language used in rank and file attacks on the leader is unprecedented.“Menachem Begin, who left us a glorious movement, must be turning in his grave at the way the current leadership has destroyed it,” Gil Shmueli, a prominent 36-year-old Likud Central Committee member from Nahariya, tells The Jerusalem Report.In early June, Shmueli and other disgruntled party members took the unusual step of going outside the party and petitioning the Tel Aviv District Court over Netanyahu’s repeated postponement of elections to key party institutions. In a scathing 12-page ruling, the court ordered elections held by the end of the month at the latest. That forced Netanyahu to summon the electoral body, the 3,500-member party Convention, by June 30 – even though he does not have supportive candidates for the top positions, with the possible exception of former justice minister Tzachi Hanegbi heading the key Constitution Committee.Danon will be running for the highly influential post of Central Committee Chairman. His readiness to embarrass Netanyahu ahead of the ballot with tough talk on the Palestinians underlined both the prime minister’s weakness among the party rank and file and the need to go on record with uncompromising hawkish positions to get elected.The extent of the deeply-entrenched rejection of the two-state solution in the Likud parliamentary caucus and the coalition as a whole was further highlighted with the festive launching of the “Land of Israel” lobby in the Knesset on June 11. Although barred by Netanyahu from attending, at least five Likud cabinet ministers sent messages of support. The lobby, whose declared goals are accelerated settling of the West Bank and retaining all the land, is co-chaired by Netanyahu’s coalition chairman Yariv Levin and Hebron settler Orit Strock of Bayit Yehudi.The lobby has 39 registered members, just under one-third of the Knesset and well over half the 68-member coalition.Given these numbers, Netanyahu would have to press-gang several coalition MKs and squeeze every ounce of support he can from the opposition benches to get a twostate deal with the Palestinians through the Knesset. Otherwise, he might have to restructure his coalition, bringing in Labor instead of Bayit Yehudi, shake up the Likud or call a new election. All that assuming he really wants a two-state deal and actually gets that far.The anti-Netanyahu feeling in the party will make it doubly difficult. On the day the Land of Israel lobby got underway in the Knesset, hundreds of Likud malcontents gathered in the Gallery Palace complex in Holon to demand that the leadership “return the Likud to the Likud.” Most of the anger was aimed directly at Netanyahu.He was accused of being aloof and out of touch, ignoring the party rank and file, concluding an ill-advised electoral pact with Yisrael Beytenu behind their backs, and perverting the party’s socioeconomic ideology by authorizing a budget that would hurt the Likud’s middle-class and blue-collar constituencies. There were also questions about the NIS 67 million January election budget, given the minimalistic nature of the campaign. Most of all, Netanyahu was berated for losing over a quarter of the party’s strength in the January election.“Bibi is not an asset for the Likud any more. He is a liability,” declared Shlomo Portal of Ashdod, one of the meeting’s main organizers.The grass-roots critics suspect that Netanyahu intends to go for a full-fledged merger with Yisrael Beytenu, which they bitterly oppose. They maintain the lesser electoral pact has already changed the face of the historic Likud and driven away huge numbers of potential Likud voters – mainly Sephardim from the development towns alienated by the heavy Russian immigrant presence in the new-look Likud-Beytenu. The critics, many of them Sephardim themselves, also complain that of the combined party’s 12 government ministers, only one, Silvan Shalom, is Sephardi.When they say “return the Likud to the Likud,” they mean restoring its ideological complexion – political hawkishness aligned with caring socioeconomic policies; reinstituting its organizational structure – reempowering the central committee and other key institutions; and regaining its traditional blue-collar mainly Sephardi constituency. “The Likud is in a state of ideological and organizational bankruptcy and its members want to see renewal,” says Shmueli. And, taking another swipe at Netanyahu, he adds, “The Likud is not just a political party. It is a deeply-rooted ideological movement which serves an idea, not a man.”Shmueli is part of a young dynamic ambitious ultra-hawkish generation hoping to leapfrog its way to power in the party.They will be challenging for virtually all the top party posts in the scheduled June 25 and June 30 Convention votes. Already they have a clutch of young kindred spirits in the Knesset, including Levin, 44, Danon, 42, Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin, 42, and Deputy Transport Minister Tzipi Hotovely, 34, to name just some of the under 45s who would almost certainly stand against Netanyahu in a showdown over a two-state deal.Indeed, for some young people in the Likud, Netanyahu is already history.For example, the unofficial “Likudnik” website headlines its home page with large letters asking who will succeed Netanyahu – as if the succession is already the burning issue of the day. It juxtaposes the subversive question with photographs of Labor leader Shelly Yacimovich, Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid and former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi in full color. Among them is just one Likudnik, Energy Minister Silvan Shalom in old-style sepia, implying that unless the party gets its act together, chances are it will lose power to one of the more colorful candidates.Given these party shackles, is Netanyahu likely to take a leaf out of Ariel Sharon’s book and break away from Likud to further a two-state agenda? In other words, take with him a like-minded Likud rump and form a new peacemaking coalition with Yesh Atid, Labor and the Haredim? Most observers reckon this is most unlikely. Netanyahu, they argue, is too weak, not committed enough to the twostate paradigm and lacks Sharon’s political courage.But there is another view doing the rounds in the Knesset, where some astute political insiders believe Netanyahu has enough clout to take peacemaking with the Palestinians forward and that he might well confound his critics by actually going for a historic compromise. “Netanyahu needs an agenda,” says Labor’s Yitzhak Herzog.His senior coalition partners, Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi, have grabbed just about everything else – the economy, equal military service, reforming the chief rabbinate – and for his political survival Netanyahu needs to make his mark elsewhere. And, the argument goes, the most promising avenue for that would be peacemaking with the Palestinians.In Herzog’s view, if he makes significant progress, Netanyahu would be able to carry both the country and his party, and cement his position as national leader.For now this seems like wishful thinking.The onus of proof is on Netanyahu and he has yet to make any dramatic moves. On the contrary, weak leadership on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides on the big existential issues does not bode well.Neither side seems to have taken a clear strategic decision for the two-state solution; and neither side has begun explaining to its domestic constituency why it is a historic imperative. On the Israeli side right-wing, anti-democratic and anti-peace forces in Likud are on the march. On the Palestinian side, more young voices are calling for equal rights in a single state.Twenty years ago in Oslo, after a century of conflict, the Israeli and Palestinian national movements launched a process of historic reconciliation. Now by default they could slide back to an all-or-nothing square one, a lose-lose situation for both.Unless Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas defy the odds, scatter their domestic critics and rise to the occasion.
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