It happens to a lot of women. Your career takes off early, but you tie yourself to a partner. It can be a lack of self-confidence or a strategy – depending on the circumstances. It can be a wonderful partnership, but political relationships, similar to real estate, need to be sold off at the right moment and move on. If you miss your window, your asset loses value, even if it's just as good as it was a year ago.
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Anyone familiar with Ayelet Shaked's work in the Justice Ministry and Interior Ministry knows she worked hard and implemented a right-wing ideology. However, the number of people who were actually exposed to her performance over the past year doesn't equal one mandate. Why weren't her accomplishments publicized? Perhaps to keep the coalition intact; or perhaps because her partner was weak when it came to public relations. In actuality, in politics just as in life, the woman remains loyal and is also left to pay the price.
For several months, senior Yesha Council officials whispered in giddy tones: Tomorrow, tomorrow Shaked will resign. But one day passed and then another and it appeared that loyalty to a political alliance gone wrong was trumping considerations beneficial to Shaked and her constituents.
Behind the scenes, Shaked hadn't changed at all: Just as she appointed kippa-wearing judges by the droves to change the justice system from the inside, she also prevented Palestinian family unification when the so-called "citizenship law" failed. As interior minister, she kept in touch daily with settlement representatives and continued fighting for them against her colleagues in the government.
Shaked's natural place is in a party such as the Likud, but with people like Religious Zionist Party MKs Simcha Rotman and Bezalel Smotrich, who she worked with in Habayit Hayehudi. Likud voters would have welcomed her had she defected at the right time. Now even her constituents in the settlements won't rush to buy what she's selling again, despite her unwavering devotion to them.
Shaked received five mandates in recent polls. The last time she led a united right she was supposedly destined for greatness, but eventually crossed the finish line with just seven mandates in tow. Who will open their doors to this talent, who discreetly maintained ties with her old political home but on the main stage, in the spotlight, remained loyal to her senior partner instead of standing up independently?
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