The Jewish Chronicle Blog

Condemned by her own words

There's nothing quite as satisfying as watching a politician condemn themselves with their own words. Take a look at this clip from the Knesset's cable TV channel, in which Esterina Tartman explains that her two degrees, a bachelors and masters in economics, will help make her a good tourism minister. Two days later, thanks to an inquisitive Israeli press, it appears that Ms Tartman's educational boasts are as empty as an Israeli hotel during the bad years of the intifada.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Strategic threat

Israeli newspapers had fun this weekend juxtaposing photographs of cabinet minister Isaac (“Bougie”) Herzog in the company of top model Bar Rephaeli alongside pictures of hard-up pensioners receiving lunch at a soup kitchen. Mr Herzog, who only a year ago said the social affairs portfolio was his dream job, had to be dragged last week almost kicking and screaming away from his present job as tourism minister and into the social affairs ministry. To be fair to Mr Herzog, in his short time as tourism minister, he managed to secure extra funds for the ministry and he did show, unlike most of his immediate predecessors in the job, an understanding of the importance of tourism to Israel’s economy. However, and this is a fatal mistake for any Israeli politician, he seemed to be enjoying his job too much, attending one international travel fair after another and always, it seemed, in the company of glamorous models and film stars. Given the fact that he has lined up in support of Ehud Barak in May’s Labour Party leadership election, it should have come as no surprise that the present party leader, Amir Peretz, sought his revenge by moving him from the tourism ministry, where was catching too many favourable press mentions. Although Mr Herzog managed his own snub, by negotiating his move from the tourism ministry to social affairs directly with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and keeping Mr Peretz ignorant of his decision to accept the challenge, the real political story, as Ha’aretz’s astutue political commentator Yossi Verter, has noted, is that the cabinet reshuffle was the result Yisrael Beiteinu’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, threatening to pull out of the coalition if Yisrael Beiteinu did not get a second portfolio. This threat, said Verter, was a real danger to the stability of Mr Olmert’s government, concluding: “it’s not for nothing that Lieberman is the minister for strategic threats.”

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Back to 1938

When Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu recently talked of the historical parallels between today's Iran and Hitler's Germany, many brushed it off as just right-wing rhetoric. But over the past weekend, in two separate magazine interviews, two grand old men of the left, author AB Yehoshua and former Meretz minister and leading legal academic Amnon Rubinstein, talked of their growing pessimism concerning Israel's future. The interview with Professor Rubinstein, written by Israel's leading journalist of ideas, Ari Shavit, unfortunately was not translated by Ha'aretz (AB Yehoshua was interviewed by the Hebrew-only Yediot Ahronot), and so here's an excerpt from the interview. Asked whether he thought Israel's destruction was a possibility, Professor Rubinstein answered: "Yes. Destruction is a possibility. I believe in Israeli society. But when it faces such threats? And when the international community stands to one side? It brings me in my thoughts back to 1938/9. There is a link here, at least associatively. The West sees a danger and does nothing. And Jews are not regarded as worth thinking about. And there's antisemitism. After years in which I thought antisemitism had disappeared, it's returned. And you can see that it's something very deep, very satanic." Professor Rubinstein went on to say that he still sided with the left on the issue of the "disaster of the settlements" and the need to reach an agreement on a two-state solution with the Palestinians. "But the starting assumption of the Zionist left is that Israel is strong. My friends are always telling me: 'Why are you so worried, Israel is the strongest power in the Middle East.' But my assumption is the complete opposite. I see Israel as a weak state in the Middle East. I think Israel is weak and vulnerable... Israel is strong militarily, but it is weak in all other areas, demographically, diplomatically and geopolitically." Describing Iran as a strong, regional power, Professor Rubinstein warns: "For the first time since 1948, we are facing an existential military threat." The interview makes for uncomfortable, but obligatory reading.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Family tensions

Further proof of just how small a country Israel is, and how inter-connected its elites, comes in the story of Labour Party leader Amir Peretz's attempts to dislodge party colleague Isaac Herzog from his post as minister of tourism and put him in charge of the less glitzy social affairs ministry. Mr Herzog does not want to go, leading to jibes from Mr Peretz's allies that Bougie, as Mr Herzog is universally known, prefers to be photographed in exotic locations with top Israeli models such as Bar Rephaeli as opposed to pensioners from Sderot. But what makes the Peretz-Herzog feud even more personal is that the tourism minister's brother, Brigadier-General Mike Herzog, is the IDF officer in charge of Defence Minister Peretz's bureau. And to complicate matters further, Mr Peretz's chief political aide, Boaz Cabel, is the brother of another Labour minister and Peretz rival, Eitan Cabel. These two brothers admitted recently that the tension got so bad at one time that they did not speak to one another for three months.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Olmert returns to the attack

For those worried that Israeli politics has been going through an unusually quiet and restrained spell recently, best highlighted by Binyamin Netanyahu's dignified behaviour during last summer's Lebanon war when he put Israel's interests above narrow party politics, you can set your minds at rest: normal service has resumed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, still vulnerable due to the Winograd Commission into the handling of the Lebanon war and the various police investigations into different allegations of corruption, seemingly has decided that he might as well have some fun while premier, possibly because he knows the end might well be nigh. His appointment of Supreme Court critic, Professor Daniel Friedmann, as the new justice minister was, as Meretz leader Yossi Beilin so elagantly put it, the equivalent of sticking his fingers up at the judicial system. Meanwhile, his decision to demand that the Labour Party give up a prestigious ministerial portfolio in return for the Welfare Ministry that Labour says it wants, but doesn't really, has set the different Labour ministers busy squabbling. But the real sign that Ehud Olmert, the political bruiser is back, came yesterday in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, when a few well-aimed barbs at Mr Netanyahu concerning the Likud leader's negotiations with Syria when prime minister, and his release of Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin due to the failed Mashaal assassination plan, succeeded in ruffling Mr Netanyahu's composure, leading to an angry, old-style Bibi-type response. If indeed Mr Olmert is fated not to serve out his term, it looks like he'll go down fighting.

This post was written by Jeff Barak

Sometimes, one can be surprised by the openness ofIsrael’s secret services. Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet security service, gave a briefing yesterday to Israeli reporters in which he expressed his opposition to a major Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip, arguing that Israel must take into account “the day after” implications of any operation. "Let us assume that we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip, and we carry out there another operation like Defensive Shield [the major operation against Palestinian terror cells in theWest Bankin 2002]. Then what? It is highly likely that the Palestinian Authority will collapse, will be unable to provide services to the population, and we will have to set up anew the civil administration. On the other hand, if we do not stay there for long, and there is no one to impose order in our place when we depart, terrorist attacks will very quickly start again." All this makes perfect sense but one wonders why the head of the Shin Bet is making such policy recommendations public and not keeping his assessments within the confidential confines of security cabinet discussions. Could Mr Diskin already be preparing his defence for a future commission of inquiry into a large-scale IDF operation?

This post was written by Jeff Barak