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

Comments

[Yehuda Erdman]

As Chair of Meretz/ Yachad UK my solution to the Lieberman "strategic threat" would be to sack him. There are enough nudniks already,and he is over the top anyway. More of an embarassment than anything else, and I would speculate Olmert invited hin because he wanted to give Peretz a fright.