Rejoining Likud, Meridor rules out deal with current PA leaders

Former party 'prince' warmly welcomed by former nemesis Netanyahu; Kadima calls him 'air freshener' and 'decoration'.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
dan meridor 224.88 (photo credit: Knesset Web site)
dan meridor 224.88
(photo credit: Knesset Web site)
A diplomatic agreement cannot be achieved with the current Palestinian leadership, the Likud's latest acquisition to its roster of Knesset candidates, former finance minister Dan Meridor, told The Jerusalem Post following his press conference at the party's Tel Aviv headquarters. Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu brought back Meridor to the Likud to beef up the party's left flank, less than a week after the return of former science minister Bennie Begin boosted the party's right. While Begin will be utilized to attract voters from parties to the right of Likud, Meridor will be used to attack Kadima and win back the Likud's former voters in the center of the political map. While Meridor spoke in favor of efforts to reach an agreement with Syria that could break its axis with Hizbullah and Iran, he sounded skeptical of efforts to reach an agreement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, even as Kadima leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was meeting with him in Sharm e-Sheikh. "A peace agreement is not possible now, unfortunately," Meridor said. "I don't see a Palestinian leadership that can answer Israel's minimum demands on the issues of Jerusalem and refugees. But we should still seek agreements with the Palestinians that amount to less than full peace." Meridor, who openly supported Kadima ahead of the last general election, said the Kadima-led government failed in its handling of the Second Lebanon War, which he said would not have broken out had he been a member of the cabinet. He also bashed Kadima for what he called its "wild attacks" on the judicial system via Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann's reforms. "Kadima has been a big disappointment for me," Meridor said. "A government that led a war that was such a failure and a battle against the courts is not fitting enough to continue to serve." Meridor was confronted at the press conference with anti-Netanyahu quotes from his past, which were supplied to the media in advance of the event by Kadima. The quotes came from a time when Netanyahu and Meridor were totally at odds, following Meridor's June 1997 departure from Netanyahu's government. "Bibi is a liar who makes lying an art," Meridor said at the time. "The more you know him, the less you can tolerate him." Meridor stressed that the past was behind him and that now he thought Netanyahu was the best possible leader to handle the security, diplomatic and economic challenges Israel was facing. He revealed that Netanyahu had been regularly consulting with him on such issues over the past two years. "We had differences that led me to resign from the government and I still think it was the right thing to do at the time," Meridor said. "But now I am looking at the future," he continued. "I saw Netanyahu's functioning as finance minister when he had the courage to do things that were right for the economy that his voters, didn't like. This, I think, is the true test of leadership." Netanyahu, who wore the same wide grin on his face at Meridor's press conference as he did at Begin's last week, praised his newest acquisition as skilled, experienced and clean. He appealed to Likud members to vote for Meridor in the party's mid-December primary after the latter agreed to join the party without securing a reserved slot on the Knesset list. "I am convinced that Dan Meridor will succeed [in the primary]," Netanyahu said. "It's important that he get the support of Likud members, and I am sure he will." In a message to the Likud's current MKs who are starting to worry about their roles in a prospective Likud-led government, Netanyahu said "the new people are joining the already excellent faction that we have in the Likud." Netanyahu was less welcoming to former Likud MK Pnina Rosenblum, who announced in a separate press conference that she would also seek a place on the Likud list. Unlike Meridor's event at Likud headquarters, the cosmetics queen had to hold her event at a rented hall at Beit Sokolow, down the street. Rosenblum expressed confidence that she would return to the Knesset and that her presence on the Likud list would bring thousands of votes to the party. She recalled that when she formed her own party for the 1999 election, it received more votes than the Shlomzion party Ariel Sharon ran with in the 1977 election. "Meridor and Begin have made great contributions but I think the socioeconomic issue must be advanced more than the diplomatic issue, and I believe I have what to say on this issue as someone who came out of poverty," Rosenblum said. Kadima officials mocked Meridor, calling him an "air freshener" and a "decoration intended to hide other people in the party." They predicted that Meridor would not get elected to a realistic slot on Likud's list because he was not supported by the two strongest constituencies in the party: "the hawks and the hacks." "In Kadima we have a list with many proper people who came from outside politics three years ago," Livni told Army Radio. "In the Likud, there are people who I have a difficult time finding anything in common with and we'll have a difficult time finding anything in common with each other." Kadima received a boost of sorts Sunday when former finance minister Avraham Hirchson, who is facing multiple criminal charges, announced that he would not run for the next Knesset.