Two days in politics are an eternity. Everything could change by midnight Monday. Right now, an election seems a certainty, as seen by the Likud's attacks on Gabi Ashkenazi and Avi Nissankoren, as well as the prime minister's visit to the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, but by midnight Monday, everything could be calm and peaceful, a least for a few months.
In the event that a compromise is reached and elections are held off, it will still be a victory for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Even if that means allowing a two-year state budget. The compromise would allow him another chance to call an election before he is rotated out of the prime ministership. The issue of law enforcement appoints touches on the core of the ideological conflict between the Likud and Blue and White.
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The former want to put power back in the hands of politicians, elected officials, whereas the latter want to preserve the existing situation in which power lies with functionaries and attorneys general who are not elected. Even if there is a compromise and Zvi Hauser's bill makes it possible for the state budget to approved three months from now rather than this Monday, the major issue will remain unsolved.
When it made the coalition agreements, the Likud gave up the justice portfolio and the reforms that it had begun to institute in the legal system and handed it all to Blue and White. Their insistence on a panel that will review and approve appointments is worthy of praise. Blue and White's refusal to establish the committee they promised to was taking away the little the Likud had left.
It's easy to portray a demand like this as stemming from the prime minister's personal interests, but truthfully, it represents the need of a large section of the public who believes that the current system is rotten to the core. The search committees and tenders perpetuate generations of appointments that had a certain political character and agenda, under a system of cronyism and backroom deals.
All anyone needed to see was senior justice officials justifying the promotion of Liat Ben Ari through a tender that had been put together for her, arguing that there was nothing unacceptable in the attorney general and state attorney appointing someone who they believed would be best for the position. Why should they be allowed to do what others are not?
True, many people think that the legal counsel and experts in the various government ministries have a special halo that causes them to make decisions that are strictly objective and unbiased, but there are many others who think that is not the case. They think that elected officials, who put themselves up for re-election once every few years (or months) will do a better and more transparent job when it comes to making appointments. So even if we see a compromise by midnight Monday, we must not compromise on that basic rule.
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