Imagine a bloody battle being fought by two great generals, both a little overweight, both past their prime and both blinded: by political survival and by each other. That is exactly the situation in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, this week.
Former army generals Likud party head and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Labor leader and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer are locked in combat. Their weapons: the 2003 state budget and the citizens of the country.
Both men are seemingly panicking because of serious internal leadership challenges.
Two men are vying against Ben-Eliezer for the chairmanship of Labor, in a vote which is less than a month away. Former Health Minister Haim Ramon is showing signs of finishing the campaign the strongest, while many still believe Haifa mayor Amram Mitzna will be the surprise package.
It means Ben-Eliezer has to do something to save his own career and do something fast. The state budget bill is the perfect tool for his purposes. He would dearly love to quit the government because of what he would paint as Israel’s failure to deal with Palestinian terrorism, endearing him to his party’s doves. However, as defense minister he is the person responsible on paper for that major shortcoming. Therefore, he is hoping the budget will provide him with the perfect excuse to resign from the coalition as a hero of the political left. As such over the last two weeks Ben-Eliezer has found a clause in the budget that he hopes will be his salvation.
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Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
(The Knesset)
He is demanding the Treasury redraft the budget, removing $150 million from the coffers of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza, and transfer it into spending on poorer parts of Israel inside the Green Line.
For Ben-Eliezer it works perfectly: the left is happy, the poor see him as their new savior and he avoids embarrassing questions about his performance as defense minister.
Would that be enough to defeat Ramon and Mitzna? Well, it does not take an Albert Einstein to see through the trick, but in Israeli politics anything is possible.
Now to the other general.
Not wishing to be outwitted by Ben-Eliezer, Sharon has already made it clear that if Labor votes against the first-reading of the budget bill tomorrow, he will fire the party’s ministers and either try to form a narrow coalition, or call early elections.
That too would suit Sharon’s own political interests. He is facing a challenge from his predecessor as party leader, former premier Binyamin Netanyahu. While it seems as though the country prefers Sharon over Bibi, the decision is made, at the end of the day, by Likud members. And they, according to the pollsters prefer Bibi. No fool, Sharon is rumored by senior Likud members to be considering changing party regulations to restrict the leadership vote to the 2,500-member party central committee. This month’s elections to that body may have given Sharon a stronger hand there.
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Ariel Sharon
(The Knesset)
In any case, calling early national elections would prevent Bibi running against him for party leadership, with no date yet set for the internal primary. Furthermore, Sharon calling the election having fired Labor would make him appear far stronger than Labor resigning and the coalition subsequently crumbling around him.
Sharon and Ben-Eliezer simply do not know which way to turn because of each other and because of their own political baggage, and as such are taking their frustrations out on one another.
This is all part of the fun of the fair that is Israeli politics, however, the generals are seemingly playing with the security situation and the pockets of the taxpayers for their own gain.
An election right now, would signal more uncertainty in Israeli defense and diplomatic policy and with the economy deep in recession and the international credit-rating companies ready to pounce, a failed budget is the last thing the country needs right now.