Battling Over the Inheritance
As the elections come close, no one from the Labor party,
including Barak himself, still believes that he has a chance
of winning the upcoming elections. Now all people are
wondering is how wide Sharon's margin of victory will be.
Recent efforts that have been concentrated on damage
control, trying to limit the extent of the defeat as much as
possible.
The Labor party is worried over the possibility of the worst
defeat since the early days of the country, when Ben Gurion
routed Menachem Begin hands down. Sharon is currently
leading in the polls with 50 percent, with 30-something
percent for Barak. The remainder are blank votes. Not
counting the blank votes, which are legally invalid, the
results come to more than 60 percent for Sharon and less
than 40 percent for Barak. This can no longer be called a
defeat or even a rout, but rather a humiliating
landslide.
Another question that weighs heavily on senior Labor party
officials is what Barak will do in the aftermath of the
elections. Will he announce he is taking a break, like
Binyamin Netanyahu did, or will he stay in the ring and try
to fight for the throne? According to best guesses, Barak is
no Netanyahu and he will not resign. His ego will not allow
him to do so, and furthermore Barak is convinced that he is
not to blame for the political situation that has come
about: According to him, he and his government took all the
right steps and made almost no mistakes. He implemented the
platform outlined by his party and by the Left, and he truly
believes that the real problem is the public, along with a
slight public relations problem, perhaps.
If Barak does not resign, many party members will call for
early primaries to remove Barak from his post. Some claim
Burg, Beilin, Ramon and the rest of their circle would
prefer that Sharon win by as big a margin as possible,
because the greater the gap, the better the chances of
ousting Barak.
In the event that Barak chooses to fight to maintain his
political standing, the main question is what will Foreign
Minister Shlomo Ben Ami do? Ben Ami has already announced
that he does not intend to run against Barak, but will
support him. The question is whether these sentiments will
remain after the defeat, or whether that also depends on the
margin of defeat, since a different set of principles
applies to a defeat of up to 5-6 percent and a defeat of 15
percent or more.
Recently Shlomo Ben Ami has spent long hours in meetings
with party officials, party field workers, heads of local
party offices and influential party members. In effect Ben
Ami has already begun his own primaries for the party
leadership. Are these preparations being made in the event
that Barak stays in the game, or only for a campaign against
Burg and other possible contenders? It is still too early to
tell.
Another matter of uncertainty is if Barak chooses to resign,
will he also resign from the Knesset, as Netanyahu did after
his defeat, or will he remain a Knesset member, like Yitzhak
Rabin in 1977 or Yitzhak Shamir in 1992?
Barak has a big problem with the option of resigning from
the Knesset, since the next name on the One Israel list is
Gesher's leading figure, Motti Meshani. Gesher now consists
of two MK's, David and Maxim Levy. Meshani's entry into the
Knesset in place of Barak will automatically add another
Knesset member to Sharon's camp and will increase the number
of Knesset members in the event of a narrow coalition.
Certainly Barak would not like to see this happen even if he
is out.
Vilna'i in the Running
The names mentioned in connection with Barak's legacy are
Burg, Ramon, Beilin and Ben Ami, and perhaps Uzi Baram as
well. Last week Matan Vilna'i also announced that he intends
to join this list and will run for Labor party head.
Apparently Burg, Ramon and Beilin will not run against one
another. They are too close to contend against one another
in a direct run-off, and a split between them could work in
favor of their leading rival, Shlomo Ben Ami. This threesome
will have to decide who will run. The other two will offer
their support, with a place reserved for them in the upper
echelons of a future government.
In all likelihood, the candidate will be Knesset Chairman
Avraham Burg. He is currently the most popular of the three
and he has the best chances both inside and outside of the
party. Beilin, who is aware of his standing, will come to
terms with his selection without any problem. For Chaim
Ramon, however, this will not be so easy. As the former
senior member of the bunch, he will find it difficult to
watch Burg overtake him and get appointed party chairman and
prime ministerial candidate.
Tension between Ramon and Burg can already be felt. They
have already begun to fight over the spoils, but close
figures point out that the chances of them contending
against one another are extremely slim. Eventually one of
them will be chosen, with the scales currently tipped in
Burg's favor.
The possible compromise solution is that Burg would agree to
hold additional primaries before the next elections, just as
Sharon, when he was elected Likud chairman after Netanyahu
resigned, announced that primaries would be held before the
elections regardless. And a primary race was, in fact, held,
although Sharon was eventually elected without primaries,
since the only candidate who ran against him was Binyamin
Netanyahu, who withdrew his candidacy at the last moment.
Such a solution could put Ramon at ease, because if Burg's
standing deteriorates before the next elections and his own
standing improves, he will be able to replace Burg as
Labor's candidate for prime minister.
Matan Vilna'i did not decide to run because he believes he
has no chance of winning and becoming Labor chairman--
Vilna'i is not a complete fool. He is familiar with the
political map and he knows that with fierce opponents like
Shlomo Ben Ami, Burg, and even Uzi Baram, he has no real
chance.
So why has he announced his candidacy? The answer is that
Vilna'i is facing a tough problem. As soon as Sharon sets up
his government, assuming it is not a unity government,
Vilna'i, who is not a member of Knesset, will be left
without a job and will forced to seek employment. In such a
case, by the time the next elections come around he will be
entirely forgotten by the Labor party and his chances of
being chosen for a high and respectable place in the next
Knesset primaries will be reduced significantly.
The solution is to run for the party leadership. This will
fix him firmly in the heads of party members, will give him
publicity, and will keep him in the limelight for the next
several months. The results will be unimportant, compared to
the fact of his participation and the long-range
benefits.
Yossi Beilin also has problems of his own, since he is not a
Knesset member either. Unlike Vilna'i, Beilin, with his
strong character, has other ways of staying in the public
eye, and in any case, as the next elections approach, in the
primaries, Beilin's close friends, Ramon and Burg will make
sure to secure him a good, safe spot. Furthermore, if Burg
or Ramon is elected prime minister, neither one would leave
a wounded comrade lying on the battlefield and Beilin's
place at the government's table would be ensured.
But Beilin is looking for a way to exert his influence right
now, as well, and his goal is to become general-secretary of
the Labor party. If a new party chairman is chosen, and
certainly if the new chairman is Ramon or his friend Burg,
they will try to replace the current general secretary,
Ra'anan Cohen. In that case Beilin would become the leading
candidate, although Ra'anan Cohen, who would invariable try
to retain his post, would put up a tough fight.
Whoever holds the post of general secretary of the Labor
party receives an important bonus: His place on the Knesset
list is locked up in seventh place. He does not have to run
in the primaries, does not have to set up an election
campaign or political camps, does not have to chase after
bigwigs who command large constituencies and does not have
to spend money or expend energy. Straight from the general
secretary's office to a seat in the Knesset.
A peculiar party
The Meimad Movement, part of the One Israel Movement,
decided last week to grant its members freedom of choice in
the upcoming prime ministerial elections. A proposal to show
support for the movement's leading figure, Ehud Barak,
failed to receive approval.
The political system, by nature, is full of surprises. It is
a system of strange and unpredictable developments. But such
a bizarre and extraordinary decision has probably never been
seen in our neck of the woods, and certainly not for many
years.
Meimad is an inseparable part of One Israel, its
representative is a government minister, it does not
withdraw or yield its place, and yet in the greatest of all
tests, the elections, it has decided on a free vote. The
kind of decision that truly defies logic.
In fact everything associated with Meimad is enigmatic. Any
religious people, especially those who hold the title of
"Rabbi," who join the One Israel party--the party that led
the initiative for the secular revolution, the party that
ran a tremendous campaign against yeshiva students and the
Torah world, the party notorious for its left-wing, anti-
religious platform--commit an act that is beyond
explanation. Shatnez. So who are we to pick bones over
another decision, as peculiar as it may be? A strange party
makes strange decisions.
The figure who led Meimad's opposition against supporting
Barak is secretariat chairman, HaRav Yehuda Gilad. Meimad
chairman, former minister HaRav Yehuda Amital, is also
firmly against showing support for Barak. Amital lodged
harsh criticism against the partnership with Barak and
expressed his utter disappointment. "The partnership with
One Israel and with Ehud Barak is dead," he proclaimed.
The figure who seems to have trouble coming to terms with
the obvious need to part with Barak as quickly as possible
is presently serving as a government minister, none other
than Michael Melchior. Melchior was the one who tried to
gain approval for the decision to show support for Barak in
the elections, but his proposal failed to win a majority.
In a press release issued by Melchior the day after the
decision was made, he expressed apprehension over a Sharon-
led government, which "would contradict Jewish values and
risk the chances of achieving peace." Such outlandish
statements are not heard every day. The damage Barak has
caused to kodshei Yisroel and to Yiddishkeit
is virtually irreparable. What could be further from Jewish
values than the secular revolution Barak promulgated?
Sharon, even if he does not promote Yiddishkeit, has
no intention to harm it. A secular revolution or something
similar does not appear anywhere on his agenda.
But from Melchior's perspective, apparently everything
passed down from the throne is holy and is rendered kosher,
including pointless babble about a more severe blow to
kodshei Yisroel under Sharon than under Barak.
In the same press release Melchior also boasts about the
letter he received from Amos Oz, a Meretz supporter and
known leftist, in which he asked him to prevent Meimad from
withdrawing from One Israel. According to the well-known
saying, a man is measured by the company he keeps. In
Melchior's case, it seems, his words are clear.
