Advisers predict Livni and Netanyahu will battle it out

Livni and Netanyahu will go head-to-head; Barak will try to lay low.

By SHELLY PAZ
Netanyahu pouts like a chimp 248.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Netanyahu pouts like a chimp 248.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Although no one knows how the fight for the Prime Minister's Office will play out, the three main contenders' advisers have supplied a preview: Kadima head Tzipi Livni and Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu will go head-to-head, as Labor leader Ehud Barak tries to stay under everyone's radar. "The next general elections will be personal," said Eyal Arad, the man behind Livni's public image, after the foreign minister told President Shimon Peres on Sunday that her efforts to form a governing coalition had failed. Her advisers say they are prepared for a fight and they already know how the campaign will look. "The real battle will be between Livni and Netanyahu," Arad told The Jerusalem Post. He said Defense Minister Barak had no real chance to be the next prime minister. "The real choice is between Livni and Netanyahu. Livni represents the new politics at its best. Livni is responsible, she has good judgment, she is reliable, practical and a national figure, and above all, her hands are clean. "Netanyahu, on the other hand, represents the old politics, and joining forces with Shas and the extortion that we have witnessed doesn't score them any points," Arad said. He said he believed that Netanyahu's promises to Shas that it will be the first party he will work to bring into his future government harmed him, because these sort of promises appeal to Shas's voters and not to Kadima's and Labor's. Arad believes that recent events have strengthened Livni's image in the eyes of the voters who are wavering between Livni and Netanyahu - 100,000 people all together, according to his numbers. Barak does not seem to draw any fire at this point. "Right now, Barak is a secondary battlefront. If things come to that, Livni's judgment and responsibility will tip the scales in her favor," Arad said. At Likud headquarters, Barak does not seem to be a threat to Netanyahu, either. "Labor and Likud are not in a conflict as they used to be in past elections, at least not politically," one of Netanyahu's close advisers told the Post. "We plan to bring some Kadima people to the Likud and our campaign will argue that Netanyahu is the only leader who is capable of bringing the State of Israel to an economic safe haven." According to Netanyahu's adviser, Likud's campaign will exploit Livni's failure to form a government. "If Livni failed in the political negotiations, how could she manage the state's burning issues? The fact that she refused to take Jerusalem off the negotiating table shows her amateur political skills, and her taking pride in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 [that ended the Second Lebanon War], which is a complete failure in the eyes of the most senior military commanders, shows all of us that she is not the right person to lead this country," the adviser said. While Likud and Kadima are busy sharpening their blades, Labor is preparing to concentrate its attacks on Netanyahu. "We will expose Netanyahu's two-faced image. He keeps claiming that his actions brought prosperity to Israel, but he is the one responsible for the upcoming economic crisis, the death blow to the disappearing middle class, the harm to retirees and the ruin of the higher education system," a senior Barak adviser told the Post. "Netanyahu's considerations are always political and populist. He keeps changing his opinion in accordance with the situation. Besides, Netanyahu as prime minister was willing to negotiate over the Golan Heights, so he is the last person who will refuse to negotiate over Jerusalem's future when the time comes," the adviser said. When asked how Labor planned to overcome Kadima at the ballot box, the adviser said: "It is always better to go with the original pair of shoes, rather than with a fake pair."