Last update - 01:41 01/03/2007
Facing media onslaught, Tartman drops bid to become tourism minister
By Mazal Mualem
MK Esterina Tartman withdrew her candidacy for tourism minister last night, only four days after she was nominated, following a series of embarrassing revelations about nonexistent university degrees and a medical opinion that declared her incapable of working more than four hours a day.
Her announcement followed a meeting with Yisrael Beiteinu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman at which he evidently persuaded her that she would have to concede the job.
In her place, Yisrael Beiteinu nominated MK Yitzhak Aharonovitch, number eight on the party's slate, confounding expectations that Lieberman would choose MK Yisrael Hasson, who occupies the number two slot. These expectations were based in part on the fact that just this past Sunday, when Lieberman nominated Tartman for the ministry, he promised Hasson that he would get the next ministerial post to come the party's way.
The surprise decision prompted party members to predict that Hasson would now function as an internal opposition to Lieberman.
Aharonovitch, 56, is a first-term MK. Before entering the Knesset, he was a senior police officer, and he is one of the few Southern District officers who was praised in the Zeiler Committee's damning report on police malfeasance last month. He left the police in 2004 with the rank of major general after he was passed over for the police commissioner's job following two years as deputy commissioner.
Aharonovitch was the Southern District commander at the time of the incidents investigated by the Zeiler Committee, and he was among the 13 officers originally warned by the committee that its findings could damage them. However, he convinced it that he had acted properly, and the committee wound up praising his performance in the affair.
According to the Knesset Web site, Aharonovitch has a bachelor's degree in history from Haifa University.
Some party members speculated that Lieberman chose Aharonovitch over Hasson, a former deputy head of the Shin Bet security service, to keep Hasson from further strengthening his position within the party. The appointment effectively dismembers the Hasson-Aharonovitch axis, which party members had considered a potential threat to Lieberman.
However, others said they believe that Hasson may have been behind several of the embarrassing revelations about Tartman, and that Lieberman denied him the ministry as punishment.
Lieberman himself denies believing that Hasson was responsible for the leaks. But he was certainly the only Yisrael Beiteinu MK who spoke out publicly against Tartman as the revelations emerged, and party sources said that Lieberman did not like this.
Lieberman was on a visit to Russia when the revelations began emerging, and by the time he returned to Israel early yesterday morning, he realized that Tartman had to go. He quickly settled on Aharonovitch as her replacement, but wanted to give her a chance to make a dignified exit. So he backed her in his media appearances throughout the day and declined to announce her ouster, though he also refused to promise that her nomination would remain on the table.
Similarly, after she withdrew, he told both the party secretariat and the media that he had urged her to stay and saw no problem with her candidacy, but that she wanted to bow out and he had honored her wishes. He also sat beside her as she made her "j'accuse" speech to the media.