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Our Bibi, their Bibi
By Yossi Verter
Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu 

Ehud Barak sat on the dais at the Dan Panorama Hotel conference hall on Wednesday, grinning from ear to ear. Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had regaled him with Bolshevik praise: "You're strong, the strongest, you're stronger than anyone." But when Barak took the podium, the smile turned to a scowl. He didn't speak, but virtually sprayed out his words, and many of the points he made were indisputable.

A perusal of the new Labor Party constitution - ignoring the laments of its opponents - reveals a perfectly reasonable document, which resembles the Likud's constitution and is less anti-democratic than Kadima's. The debate about it at the Labor Party convention seemed to take place in a parallel universe. Up there speaking was the person who led the party to the worst defeat in its history and perpetuated his grip on power by democratic means. He kept repeating the same mantra: We will lead the country again. People who don't know Barak might have thought he was joking, but those who do realize that he actually believes this. Since 1992 Labor has been in a free fall, losing seats. Now it has a new constitution, but still has no voters.

In private conversations, Labor ministers refer to their leader as "our Bibi." They complain among themselves that the original Bibi - Benjamin Netanyahu - is more attentive and more likely to involve them in party affairs than the "compatible" version they have at home. In recent years, they have been quick to become enamored of prime ministers from the rival parties.
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Barak is a wildly popular defense minister. In the Netanyahu government he wears the mantle of the sane security chief, the responsible adult. That's how the nation wants him: with Bibi. Why shouldn't they run together in the next election, as No. 1 and No. 2? The differences between them grow less discernible by the day. Our Bibi, their Bibi. Or is it vice versa?

Getting the message

They sat for three hours in his vast apartment late Tuesday night, taking in a breathtaking panorama of Tel Aviv and beyond. On the table were sushi and Bacardi Breezers. But the atmosphere was fraught and suspicious. Bitterness, too, was palpable - both in the host, Barak, and his guests: Social Affairs Minister Isaac ("Buji") Herzog, Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman and MK Ophir Pines-Paz. All four of them would actually like to lead Labor in the next general election. But a certain article in the constitution under consideration stated that the primary for party chairmanship will take place just before the general election, in effect giving Barak a seven-year term in that postion - from June 2007 to the next scheduled elections and even afterward until 2014.

Things would work out the next day: The compromise would be found. But on that night, in that famous luxury residential high-rise, they spoke from the gut.

"We came here with clean hands and good will," Herzog said to Barak. "Look at us - your Nos. 2, 3 and 4 [referring to the order of candidates on the Labor slate in the last elections]. But you don't listen to us. You don't respect us. You don't talk to us. You don't let us back you up. Get your act together. Start working with everyone, not just with your cronies. An American peace initiative might be on the cards - give us a way to stay together."

Barak mumbled that he wanted to cooperate, but that the amendments to the constitution were a necessity. "Do you think it's easy with the incessant attacks on me?" he said to his guests. "What haven't I been accused of? Of being Saddam Hussein, of being Hugo Chavez."

"Look," Herzog told him, "we want to turn over a new leaf, but you are not showing us any consideration. That article in the constitution blocks us from running. Let's say that on the eve of the next elections, you are not exactly taking off in the polls. Give us, each of us sitting here, an opportunity to try his luck. The way you are enshrining your position for all time, you become a party leader who cannot be replaced."

"If I think there is a problem, I am mature enough and responsible enough not to cling to the post," Barak replied. "But you, Buji, where do you come off pontificating to me about party leaders who can't be removed? For three years you were almost an idol worshiper of a prime minister who was also party leader and could not be removed because of his party's constitution - even after he already admitted on television to certain improprieties, verging on the criminal. I didn't hear you pontificating then about the need for a replacement."

Ophir Pines-Paz suggested to Barak that he postpone the convention, but the party chairman was having none of it: From the moment he struck a deal with Ofer Eini, the powerful chairman of the Histadrut labor federation, Barak knew he had the convention in his pocket. Once again, like on the eve of Labor's entry into the government and during the budget debates, Eini proved to be the key player. In order to placate him, Barak visited him at home in Be'er Sheva on Friday; they also met on Saturday evening and on Sunday night, in the Defense Ministry.

Eini got Barak to drop an article that eliminated primaries for MKs, another that would have allowed the chairman to raise for consideration any subject he wanted in any party framework, and without prior notification, and also the proposal that would permit the leader to place two candidates of his choosing in each group of 10 in the party's list for the next Knesset. Eini, say people who know him, knows how to talk to Barak.

Toward the end of last week, when Eini realized that Barak wasn't getting the message, he instructed one of his stalwarts in the Histadrut, a certain Nahum Asad, to get convention delegates to sign a petition demanding a secret vote on the constitution. On Monday, Barak's people started to get hysterical phone calls from grass-roots activists: "Asad is enlisting delegates for a secret vote!" Barak saw what was happening. On Sunday night, in a long meeting with Eini and with Ben-Eliezer in his bureau, Barak surrendered to Eini on all fronts.

Ultimately, Asad was asked to drop the petition. Herzog and Braverman heard that Eini had struck a deal with Barak, but not on the article determining the date for the party primary - so they did it themselves. Herzog not only extorted an earlier date from Barak, he also wrapped up the commitment in binding legal language.

Four MKs, four opinions

Who hasn't left the party since Labor was created, Barak wonders in private conversations, citing the names of David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Shimon Peres, Aryeh Lova Eliav, Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid, Haim Ramon. So, if Amir Peretz and Eitan Cabel leave, too, as they're threatening, it's no big deal. We'll survive.

Meanwhile, it's hard now to envision Labor MKs Peretz, Pines-Paz, Cabel and Yuli Tamir uniting around something other than hatred of Barak. As soon as they become an independent faction, they will be at one another's throats. The DNA of the Labor Party will stick to them. One of the four wants to join Meretz, another wants to join Kadima, a third is dying to establish and head a new party, and a fourth has conceived the following plan: to move as a unit - together with those MKS contemplating departing Meretz - and join Kadima as its left-wing branch. Four MKs, four opinions.

All their importuning to Labor MK Shelly Yachimovich to join the foursome has been in vain. Without her they do not have a viable faction and will not get party funding (unless the Knesset's House Committee allows them to split without the requisite fifth MK, whom they need to constitute one-third of the party). Yachimovich is in the same place as Ofer Eini. The alliance between them is immeasurably stronger than anything she had, still has or will ever have with Peretz, Tamir, Cabel or Pines-Paz.

Barak will be sorry to see Pines-Paz leave, as he considers him a figure with public status. I have regard for Peretz, too, he says, and I even like Cabel a little, despite his off-the-wall fulminating. Barak makes no mention of Tamir. Still, Barak would part with this trio without batting an eye. The only way they reach orgasm is by fighting with me, he said this week. They're a bunch of impotents who refuse to respect the decision of the majority. Furthermore, says Barak: I asked people to go through the constitution of Likud and Kadima and take the best things from both. They are strong, big parties that comport themselves well. I am not Hammurabi, and the constitution of the Labor Party is not the Code of Hammurabi. This is a draconian constitution? I posted the articles on the Internet and they were there for three months. Dozens of reservations were received. What kind of intimidation is this?

Good week

It was a good week for both Bibis, ours and theirs. The prime minister concluded the Knesset's summer session with his self-respect restored, and his coalition, too. He pushed through his two bills, the land-reform law and the so-called "Mofaz law," with a majority of almost 20 MKs.

Netanyahu discovered the efficacy of threatening people. Just two weeks ago, after being forced to hold off on a vote on the land-reform bill in the Knesset, he was on the brink of losing control of his coalition. On that fateful evening he announced that he would fire every minister or deputy minister who did not vote in favor next time, and wonder of wonders, they all voted in favor. All the "values" disappeared as soon as a ministerial portfolio was at stake. A week after the deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai (Labor), absented himself from the first vote, explaining that he could not betray the memory of his father, Zev Vilnay, the noted Land of Israel researcher, by voting for the bill - he voted in favor without blinking.

But even though the Israel Lands Administration law passed big-time, Netanyahu's bureau did some serious soul-searching in the wake of the original fiasco. To their credit, they blame only themselves - not the Labor Party, the National Religious Party nor their own Moshe Ya'alon.

"We did poor political work," says one of Netanyahu's aides. "The legislation was framed badly and we didn't talk to partners, we didn't coordinate positions, we didn't try to soften the opposition beforehand. The problem is Uri Yogev [Netanyahu's economic adviser], who is responsible for this law. He drafted it as though we were operating in an environment free of politics and politicians. With a little forethought, the same reform could have been passed with a lot less opposition. If it had been a bill about religious conversion, wouldn't we have talked to Shas? To United Torah Judaism? In this case, we talked to no one."

This was Netanyahu's best week since he took office four months ago, with the possible exception of the week of his Bar-Ilan University speech about a two-state solution. Now he has a week off, a trip to Britain and Germany, the Jewish holidays, followed by October and then swine flu. Indeed, Netanyahu's bureau is preparing for the flu; we will soon hear about their ideas on the subject.

Yesterday the prime minister visited the gay-lesbian youth club in Tel Aviv, which was attacked last week. The visit was a simple act, humane and necessary. True, it was a few days late in coming, but as Leah Rabin told people who came to pay condolences after Yitzhak Rabin's funeral: "Too bad you didn't come earlier, but it's good you came now."
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