By Roni Schocken
Congratulations to Benjamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz. I’ve been fond of Mofaz for a while now. Ever since he served as defense minister in Ariel Sharon’s government during the disengagement from Gaza, Mofaz has been building himself up as a serious politician and perhaps even a statesman. It was during the disengagement that Mofaz morphed into a political dove, and despite the takeover of Israeli politics by the right-wing settler movement, he has stood his ground.
Then in 2009, during a period of political stagnation, he introduced a gutsy plan for a peace process and when asked, did not rule out negotiating with Hamas. In his plan, Mofaz emphasized that “our control over another people, and the burden of responsibility and occupation, will come to an end in a clear and concrete way…” The plan also contains that magic number, the one that terrorizes Israeli politicians: ’67.
Shaul Mofaz, as a former IDF chief of staff, could have placed himself comfortably within the ideological zone of typical generals-cum-politicians – like Ehud Barak, Moshe (Bogi) Ya’alon and others – but he opted not to. In early 2011, even before the social protests, Mofaz began developing a plan for social-economic reforms with a team of eight young researchers from the economic, legal, and public policy spheres, led by Yishai Mishor. The plan called to increase in the employment of Israeli Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox, make higher education more accessible, offer housing solutions and a more equal health plan, and more.
In that plan, Mofaz did not shy away from slaughtering one of the most (un)sacred cows in Israel’s history: the defense budget. “As head of planning in the IDF, Chief of Staff, and Defense Minister, I have resolved that we can effectively decrease the defense budget by NIS 4 billion per year, without damaging the IDF’s readiness,” he said in an interview to TheMarker (Hebrew), an economic daily newspaper.
Quietly, step-by-step, Mofaz has also proved himself skilled at politics. In his first campaign for the leadership of his party, he lost the internal Kadima elections to Tzipi Livni by a slim margin. In the second recent round, he claimed victory in a knockout. While everyone eulogized him as the tragic future loser of the 2012 elections, he saved Kadima and himself, and prevented – together with Netanyahu – unnecessary elections, which ultimately would have maintained the status quo.
All the frustrated political opponents and journalists who feel “tricked” into believing that elections were around the corner are left with little to do but obsess about Mofaz’s “credibility” problem. He said he wouldn’t leave the Likud party, and he left. He said he wouldn’t join the Netanyahu government, and he joined.
But so what? Who cares if Mofaz is in Kadima or in Likud? What exactly is the difference between them anyway? What matters is policy, not politics, and Mofaz deserves credit as a politician with a clear-cut agenda. It’s only beneficial that as of today his agenda is now part of the coalition.
Up to now, former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni got the credit for being credible – because she did not join the Netanyahu government, refusing to give billions of shekels to the ultra-Orthodox. But Livni is the one who stole votes from the left with the Kadima campaign “Either Tzipi or Bibi” then did little as opposition; under her leadership Kadima was among the initiators of the “Boycott Law”; under her watch, Kadima initiated and helped pass a draconian amendment to the libel law and the selection committees law (which de facto prevents Arabs from living in certain communities) and let’s not forget the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. After repeatedly abusing and neglecting her role as opposition leader and misguiding her supporters, her bitter response to the Netanyahu-Mofaz move, would be outrageous, if it hadn’t been so insignificant.
Shelly Yacimovich and Yair Lapid are considered the two big losers from the coalition deal. But neither has a sincere or bold agenda anyway. As an MK, Yacimovich has not touched upon the occupation, nor the peace process, the anti-democratic legislation, nor the Arab minority in Israel. She is a social-democrat whose emphasis on the democratic side of the equation is marginal. It’s not clear how she will promote significant economic changes, since she is unwilling to confront her stronghold of support, the Histadrut. On the other hand, Yair Lapid brought no message at all to the table. Lapid is waning, without leaving a trace of policy or ideology on any issue.
Netanyahu and Mofaz can do great things in the coming year, ranging from legislating an alternative to the unsuccessful Tal Law for drafting Haredim into the army, through to the peace process, to which I believe Mofaz is sincerely committed. Yet the most significant change this duo can undertake is to break away from the suffocating grasp of the settler right, which is threatening to destroy Israeli democracy. This will be the real test for Netanyahu and Mofaz. The rest doesn’t matter nearly as much.
Roni Schocken is a candidate in the Tel Aviv-Berkeley LL.M. program (2012) and in the Harvard Business School MBA program (2014). He has clerked for the Supreme Court and served as the director of the government relations department in The Abraham Fund Initiatives.
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Jenny
is it Purim?
Rose
yes, is it a joke? if yes, why was not written at the end of the article?
Eyal
Roni Schocken, you have no idea what the word “credible” means.
Mona
I too thought the author was ironic and/or sarcastic. But apparently maybe he isn’t. Utterly bizarre.
Danny
The truth is that Shaul Mofaz is nothing – he’s neither a dove nor a hawk, neither for settlements nor for peace, neither a politician nor a soldier. He is what he needs to be at a certain point in time, which may be the complete opposite from what he was just a day earlier. Mofaz is the perfect partner for Netanyahu, who will use him like the political mule that he is, and then send him to the glue factory when he is of no more use.
max
@Roni, isn’t there a gap between Mofaz’s policy and his ability to execute? I’m told that there’s little success he could show in his government roles.
.
I’m glad to find a 972mag post that proposes a positive message – it’s a real 1st!
Presumably that’s not what people come to this site for…
Rowan Berkeley
After Mofaz ousted Livni, Ofer Shelah wrote in Maariv: “Mofaz is a focused man in a way that is almost superhuman. He has learned that there is always an opening, if not through the door then through the window, a lesson he first learned when he failed three times to be accepted to the army’s officer training course.”
Anthony
I’m sure similar things were said when Barak joined Bibi’s coalition – that he would help steer it towards the centre. But after 3 years of the current coalition it is clear he has not moved the Government’s position one milimetre either way. So unfortunately I am skeptical that Mofaz will do anything but give Bibi a bigger majority for his nefarious policies.
Larry Snider
I don’t know how much the new coalition will undertake. I read Krauthammer’s editorial about how it positions Israel to be ready if necessary to go forward with the military option against Iran. I hope, have faith and am willing to do my part if Mofaz has negotiated the opportunity to go forward instead on peace and initiate his phased plan.
Piotr Berman
Perhaps Mofaz and Kadima can “modulate” the government policy in a good direction, but from my perspective, the differences will be marginal. However, from the perspective inside Israel they may be important.
First, from my perspective, whether the government follows decrees of Supreme court on settlements or Tal Law makes very little practical difference. Within the scope of settlement enterprise, this means that a few settlers would be relocated against their will without any change in the overall trust of expansion and repression of villages in Area C that supports that expansion. But within Israel, outright defiance of the courts is a further step toward the model of democracy that was summarized as “No Man’s life liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session”. And 972mag contributors are on the list of people who can be directly impacted by such trend.
If people have no right to use computers to organize protests against the wall, perhaps they have no right to write supportively about such protests. Some MKs already characterized “radical Left” as traitors.
My impression is that the actual change is that some committees in the Knesset have a different composition now, to put a break on some projects of the “more enthusiastic members” of the ruling coalition. But Kadima is not truly in the government. It is a strange situation. My reading is that Likud needed a defense against itself. Kadima needs some time for Lapid’s movement to fizzle out. This is probably the essence of common interests.