For months, former Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot, sat at home patiently waiting for the most opportune moment to enter Israeli politics. He saw his predecessors, Benny Gantz, Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon all taking on key roles in Israeli public life and he too wanted a piece of the pie. The appropriate moment arrived some four months ago when both Gantz and Yair Lapid began to ratchet up the pressure on him. Despite his offers, Lapid had no real chance.
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The head of the Blue and White party could readily employ the powerful magnet that is the brotherhood of ex-Chiefs of Staff. It was clear that one word from the ex-commander – having evolved together and shared an almost parallel and identical military career path – and Eisenkot would immediately report for duty. But in hindsight, had he known that this would lead to the current state of affairs, he might not have applied so much pressure on Eisenkot. Apart from possibly having prevented Lapid from gaining strength, it is doubtful whether the new acquisition has actually brought any benefit, and may possibly even have caused damage.
The State Comptroller's report on the Harpaz Affair should have provided at least an inkling of the Gordian knot that binds together the senior members of the General Staff Forum. Those generals often behave like common telltales in the market. After Gabi Ashkenazi showed that now-famous document to Eisenkot, he asked him not to tell a soul about it. Eisenkot succeeded in complying with this demand for a whole week before running off to tell some of his friends, including Col. Gabi Siboni, who eventually ensured that the document was published in the media.
The State Comptroller recorded a remark against Eisenkot and wrote that "The State Comptroller's Office notes that even had General Eisenkot thought that the Harpaz Document had already been widely disseminated, in view of the directive of the Chief of the General Staff Ashkenazi that the Harpaz Document was for his eyes only and he should do absolutely nothing with it, he should have avoided exposing a copy of it to additional persons or discuss its content with others." The State Comptroller stated that "By doing so, General Eisenkot contributed to expanding the circle of those party to the document, and he also contributed to the fact that senior officers and others came across unfounded information..."
Eisenkot planned his entry into the world of politics for weeks. And yet, the actual moment of the announcement was, to say the least, one of the least impressive ever witnessed in Israeli politics. He delivered a drab and tedious speech. He had weeks to choose which tie to wear at the event, and in the end, he came without one. He turned up with no spokesperson and lacking any social media presence. He had absolutely no presence on the general media as a whole. It's as if he came to grab the third-place spot on the party list and to warm his seat up from there.
This week, when asked about ideology, policy and economics, he avoided giving a response, claiming that this is not the right time for such issues. This might well be an order from above. His open support for the two-state solution had now dispersed the cloud of vagueness adopted by this "unholy alliance" party he joined on this issue, distancing right-wing voters who came to it after Sa'ar and Elkin joined, and later on Matan Kahana too.
But in essence, the greatest damage that Eisenkot has caused is his demand to change the party name. Blue and White was Gantz's trademark, ever since he joined forces with Lapid and together attained the status of the largest parliamentary party in the Knesset. The colors, the logo, together with the graphic language of the campaign – everything has been ready for three years since the party was founded. Gantz, who understood the value of this issue, was prepared to go to war over the name against Yair Lapid following the split in the party, and he beat him in the ensuing ballot in the Knesset House Committee. But Eisenkot demanded that the party name be changed to include the word "Mamlachti", a word hinting at national solidarity, to become the new "State Party". Gantz, who was so keen to steal him away from Lapid, agreed without an argument and simply gave up on the brand name.
Not only did the Head of the Blue and White party chairman's choice to go with Eisenkot fail to prove itself, but the same is also true of his move to draw in Sa'ar, to say the least. In practice, in doing so, Gantz has had to cede a number of seats in the next Knesset for parties and individuals who might not necessarily remain loyal to him during the next term of office, without them having delivered even one additional seat. He could have attained the number of MKs he has today on his own.
To his credit, Sa'ar quickly understood that he really has nothing to contribute to the campaign, and so he opted to remain firmly backstage. At the beginning, he did actually try to fight for his place, after all he himself is a party leader with many years of experience both in the Knesset and government, much more than Gantz has. He tried to push his way into the campaign and to make his presence felt within the party HQ decision-making forums. However, Maayan Israeli, Gantz's personal advisor who runs the party HQ, showed him time after time just how superfluous to requirements she thought he is. Initially, this led to much friction and quarreling. Eventually, Sa'ar decided to sit it out and remain on the sidelines. He had, after all, already made his exit. From a candidate worth almost next to nothing in the opinion polls, he was awarded an entry ticket into the next Knesset, including for some of his best friends, and all this at Gantz's expense.
At the State Party HQ, there was hope that the recent IDF activity in Nablus and Gantz's militant interviews would give a boost to their faltering campaign. This however has not been the case. It is difficult to shake loose the public impression that many people believe Gantz to be one of the most ineffectual defense ministers ever, and that even the recent military action came after weeks in which he led a policy espousing that Israel should not be the one to fight the murderous gang known as the "Lion's Den", but rather this was the job of the Palestinian Authority (whose leader from Ramallah, Gantz invited to his house, in a strange, humiliating gesture showing him to be completely out of touch with reality).
Less class and greater effort
If we can learn anything from previous election campaigns, then on election day itself we will probably hear mainly about Benjamin Netanyahu. While the other candidates will come to vote and maybe go and visit one or two polling stations, and then during the afternoon already hunker down in tense anticipation of the results of the exit polls, Netanyahu will continue to make his way around the key Likud party sites, appear on live broadcasts and maintain a high media profile, until the very last minute. Netanyahu genuinely believes that election day itself has the power to change destiny. To bring about a last-minute victory, or alternatively a collapse in the case of anything but maximum readiness or proper functioning by the party mechanism.
On election day itself, Netanyahu believes that it may be too late to persuade people, but it is still possible to motivate them. For weeks now, he has been working with his staff, racking his brains, working out how to get the Likud faithful to actually get up and go to the polling stations. To date, the best idea they have come up with, apart from the Elector (election campaign management) app and cooperating with the other right-wing parties on sharing voting rate data, is the resurrection of the "Likudiot". This "cutting-edge" technology involves vehicles with loudspeakers driving around and calling for people to come out and vote. This is of course an idea from the 1970s which worked for two decades until alternative solutions were found. Netanyahu believes that what worked then will also work now, even if it involves a certain downgrade in terms of class.
In contrast to Netanyahu's past success in last-minute efforts to steal votes (and ultimately seats) from is satellite parties, this time it appears that the Religious Zionism party are fully prepared for this event and currently, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are successfully holding off this anticipated move. While Netanyahu attempts to smother them in his bear hug, to declare that they will be ministers in his government, and that the most important thing is the largest party in the bloc, the leaders of the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) parties are succeeding in maintaining their discrete posture, stirring up panic by claiming that Netanyahu will eventually prefer to go with Gantz rather than them, and of course countering Netanyahu's claim regarding the importance of the largest party in the bloc, by explaining that it is the bloc that determines the country's future rather than the governing party.
Netanyahu is concerned about the meteoric rise of the Religious Zionism party, especially amongst the young. An Israel Hayom poll conducted with the Maagar Mochot research institution led by Prof. Yitzhak Katz, has indicated a fascinating item of data: among the young (18-26 years old), the Likud and the Religious Zionism parties receive the same amount of electoral support (16%). In other words – a satellite party of 15 or less Knesset seats, receives a similar number of votes to a 30+ strong seat governing party among the young voters. This figure, which Netanyahu has also clearly seen in his polls, is a definite cause of concern for him.
The State Party's Red Line
While Netanyahu is more or less doing what he has done in all the previous electoral campaigns, Lapid has changed his policy and in fact made a complete U-turn. Last time, he understood that the key to success lies with the bloc. He thus preferred to remain on 17 Knesset seats, provided that the rest of the "just-not-Bibi" bloc parties, including those on the right of the political spectrum, should cross the electoral threshold. And it worked. They all crossed the threshold, and then Bennett formed a government of 61 seats and managed to oust Netanyahu from power.
This time; however, Lapid has adopted a completely different strategy. The bloc is of no interest. His ability to form a government is in any case ranges from extremely unlikely to non-existent. The ultra-orthodox haredim will not go with him. Neither will the Likud fall apart as he might hope. Thus, his options have been narrowed down to two realistic scenarios: head of the opposition if Netanyahu reaches the desired goal of 61 seats. Or continuing as head of the transit government if this does not materialize. In both cases he needs to be the largest party within the bloc by a considerable margin from all the others.
Lapid believes that despite his plans to swipe the votes from the other parties in his bloc, both the Labor and Meretz parties will successfully cross the electoral threshold. He is confident that they have a sufficiently strong electoral base that will not let them collapse at the final hurdle. In other words, Lapid's campaign is actually based to a large extent on the very campaign of the two leaders of these left-wing parties, Zehava Gal-on and Merav Michaeli, who have chosen to cry for help and instill a genuine fear of not crossing the electoral threshold, in an attempt to rally their political base.
Lapid will not be able to form a government as he will need the support of the predominantly Arab Joint List party. Personally, he has no problem with this. Even following the recent statement of the List's MK Aida Touma-Sliman, who called the members of the "Lion's Den" terrorist group shahids or martyrs, lamenting their death at the hands of IDF soldiers. Neither, of course, do the Labor and Meretz parties have a particular problem with the Joint Arab List, if sitting together in a coalition were called for. But some members of the State Party – Sa'ar, Elkin, and perhaps even Gantz himself – have no interest in doing so. Having already been forced to crown Bennett and then Lapid as transit prime minister (nobody actually asked him or consulted with him), but crowning Yair Lapid as a permanent prime minister and then being asked to approve sitting together with the Joint List in a coalition, and all this just to remain Minister of Defense – this is far too heavy a price to pay. He doesn't need reminding that he already is Minister of Defense. He would clearly prefer remaining Defense Minister in a transition government than having to support a Lapid-led government together with the Joint List.
A non-right of way?
Three months ago, when she launched her campaign, Ayelet Shaked's chances of crossing the electoral threshold were already very slim. Her working assumption from the very outset has been correct: there are people on the political right who can't bring themselves to vote for Netanyahu, and certainly not for Smotrich-Ben-Gvir, and despite her political adventurism over the last year as part of the government with the left and the United Arab List party, they are prepared to forgive her and are happy at the opportunity she provides them with to vote for a moderate politician who is not automatically in Netanyahu's pocket.
Such voters exist both in the non-religious and national-religious sectors of the population. On the whole, they tend to be concentrated in specific geographic areas such as Givat Shmuel, Petach Tiqwa and Ra'anana, in central Israel. Shaked actually provides them with the only possible option, as they see it, to take part in the elections. Without her, they have no other options. Not on the right, and possibly only barely on the left with Benny Gantz, who was joined by Matan Kahana, until recently a party colleague of Shaked.
Shaked's only problem is that such people are few and far between. They amount to no more than two, possibly three seats, at the most. They are not sufficient to help her cross the electoral threshold, not by a long chalk.
Shaked, was hoping, and perhaps still does, that the person who might actually help her get past the finishing post, should he come to terms with the fact that she intends to stay the course and not pull out of the race, would be Netanyahu himself, but this has proven to be nothing more than a pipe dream. Netanyahu will definitely not help her and this is not just because of the bad blood between them. He simply doesn't believe that she is able to pass the post. Either with or without him. There is evidently a price to pay for belonging to a government that went back on its electoral promises, breaking faith with the wishes of its voters.
There were two right-wing parties in the outgoing government. As it currently appears, neither of them will go the distance.
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