Israel’s Mass Coalition Fails to Sustain as Mofaz Zig-Zags Out

Many predicted Kadima’s Mofaz would bolt at first disagreement with Prime Minister

Israeli politics is like one of those roller coasters that go completely upside-down, so that you never know who’s going to be on top from one day to the next.

The latest spin came when Shaul Mofaz, chairman of the centrist Kadima party and a former army chief-of-staff, abruptly pulled out of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition little more than two months after bringing his imploding party into the government.

Mofaz said he left the government because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not move forward on a bill to draft the tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox seminary students who have been exempt until now. The Israeli Supreme Court had ruled that the law which has allowed the exemptions, called the Tal Law, is illegal and cannot be renewed once it expires at the end of next month. The issue is one of the most contentious among Israelis.

Netanyahu had formed a committee to draft a new law pursuant to the court order, but disbanded it just before it was due to issue its recommendations. Mofaz accused Netanyahu of giving-in to the ultra-Orthodox, who are strongly against joining the army in large numbers and absolutely opposed to conscription. The issue of equal service for all, including the ultra-Orthodox and Arab citizens of Israel, has become the focus of this summer’s socio-economic protests.

“This brings us back to the same difficult situation with the ultra-Orthodox,” Uri Dromi, a former director of the Government Press Office told The Media Line.

Many Israeli analysts say the move could mean the end of Mofaz’s political career. Mofaz, who was born in Iran, has made no secret of the fact that he would like to be prime minister. Yet, he is seen as flip-flopping in both his positions and his party allegiances.

“People just don’t see him as prime-minister material,” Yehuda Ben Meir, an expert on public opinion at the INSS think tank told The Media Line. “But he did leave over an issue of principle and that might gain him some credit.”

It is not the first time Mofaz has changed his mind. In 2005, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon abandoned his life-long affiliation to form Kadima. Sharon invited Mofaz to join him, but Mofaz refused, vowing he would stay in the Likud “forever” and would try to become the Likud’s leader following Sharon’s departure. He sent letters to all of the Knesset members in the Likud party faction, vowing he would never leave them. Yet, by the time the letters arrived, Mofaz had flip-flopped and joined Kadima.

Indeed, Mofaz was engaged in a campaign of calling Prime Minister Netanyahu a “liar” and vowing he’d never join the Netanyahu government at the time of the surprise announcement in May that made him Netanyahu’s vice premier.

This latest move to leave the government sparked new cynicism about Mofaz. Last May, Israelis went to bed convinced that early elections, for September, would be announced the next day. When they woke up, the elections had been shelved and Netanyahu had the largest parliamentary majority in Israel’s history, with 94 out of a possible120 seats. Mofaz’s exit still leaves Netanyahu with a majority of 66, albeit with a coalition faced with internal tensions.

The Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) bloc, headed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, insists that both the ultra-Orthodox and Arab citizens of Israel must also be susceptible to the same draft laws that require men and women to serve when they reach the age of 18. The ultra-Orthodox parties are threatening to could pull out of the government and spark early elections, which are currently scheduled for October, 2013, if that happens.

The move also leads to questions about the future of the Kadima party, which was meant to reflect the silent majority in the center of the Israeli political map. Kadima actually won the most seats in the 2009 election, although it was unable to form a coalition.

“The cause of equal service is a popular one, but I doubt that Kadima is the one to bring it about,” Uri Dromi said. “I think people will look for new venues. I think we’ll see a ‘big bang’ in Israeli politics.”

Dromi says that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was recently acquitted of two serious corruption charges – although convicted of the lesser charge of breach of trust and still facing other pending charges — could join broadcaster-turned-politician Yair Lapid  and, some speculate, Labor party leader Shelley Yachimovich, to form a new center-leaning alliance that would challenge Netanyahu’s right-wing, religious bloc. In this scenario, Kadima would fade away.

But other analysts say that it’s too early to sign Kadima’s death warrant.

“In Israel, we have a tendency to eulogize political parties too early,” Yehuda Ben Meir told The Media Line. “Remember, a few years ago, everyone thought that the Labor party was dead, and now it’s made a real comeback. As Mark Twain once wrote, ‘reports of my demise are premature.’”