In the Prime Minister's Office, Ariel Sharon is beginning to
worry that Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may really
plan to resign from the government shortly before the
disengagement plan is implemented, according to a report in
the mainstream press. Netanyahu's staff firmly denied the
report, saying that he intends to remain finance minister
until the next elections, which are currently scheduled for
November 2006.
If at first the Prime Minister's Office felt some small
concern over the possibility of a resignation, now the staff
seems certain that Netanyahu is planning to lay a surprise on
them. For some inexplicable reason when politicians say `no'
they mean `yes' and when they say `yes' they mean `no.'
That's just the way they are. This applies to Netanyahu and
definitely to Sharon and the rest of the distinguished
members of the political establishment.
Netanyahu has two more important reforms on his agenda: a
reform of the banking market and capital market and another
tax reform. Once they are complete Netanyahu will have
essentially completed what he set out to accomplish in the
Finance Ministry during this term.
Both pieces of legislation are very weighty and complex and
they both stand to have a major impact on the Israeli economy
for years to come. Laws like this are not legislated in a
flash. Meetings have to be held over an extended period of
time to hear all of the experts, both for and against, to
hear all of the alternatives and then to set about
legislating.
Netanyahu wants to complete this legislation by the end of
the Summer Session of the Knesset, less than two months from
now, although the tax reform has not even been brought for
its first reading in the Knesset so far. The other law, based
on the recommendations of the Bachar Committee, has begun to
be discussed by the Finance Committee, but committee members
are already complaining that someone is trying to speed it
through—and these gripes are not necessarily coming
from the opposition benches.
The disengagement plan is scheduled to be implemented
immediately following the Summer Session, right after Tisha
B'Av sometime in the middle of August. All those who heard
Netanyahu's timetable for the completion of these two pieces
of legislation began to suspect that the Finance Minister had
something up his sleeve.
According to the original government decision the
disengagement plan must be passed in four separate votes,
each on a different phase of settlement evacuation. Whether
this will actually take place or whether Sharon will change
the rules of the game remains unclear. In any case when
Netanyahu appeared before the members of the Likud Bureau
three weeks ago he announced that the next time the
disengagement plan is brought before the government he would
vote against it.
Of course a minister is permitted to vote against any
proposal he objects to within the government, but this
announcement, together with his race against time to pass the
two reform bills, alerted the Prime Minister's Office. And
now that his staff has issued a denial, Sharon and his
supporters are convinced their concerns are founded.
Netanyahu could have ignored the rumors, scoffed at them or
issued a regular denial. But a sweeping denial—that's
another story. That raises suspicions. For things are usually
their opposite and the stronger a politician makes himself
out to be, the greater the implication that the opposite is
true. This is the law of the jungle that is called
politics.
