The curse of being No. 2 - Haaretz

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Wed., November 14, 2007 Kislev 4, 5768

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The curse of being No. 2

By Yoel Marcus

tags: Kadima, Olmert, Labpr, Barak

Way before the botched campaign known as the Second Lebanon War, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak used to meet for heart-to-hearts on the subject of how to put Barak in charge of the Labor party, after which Olmert would make him defense minister. Later, Barak's victory in the Labor primaries was achieved by a hair's breadth, on the strength of his promise that after the Winograd inquiry was wrapped up, presumably by the end of the year, the country would go to general elections.

Now that it turns out Olmert has no intention of calling early elections, and is even on the road to recovery thanks to the political initiative in Annapolis, it has begun to dawn on Barak that he is liable to remain Olmert's No. 2 until his term runs out.

Barak is also watching with a sinking heart how his own popularity, as the man who can supposedly restore Israel's power of deterrence, is going downhill. Despite his military reputation, Barak has not succeeded in bringing home the three abducted soldiers, halting the growing barrage of rockets from Gaza, or stopping the mass exodus from Sderot and other towns in the region.

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He is looking on glumly as Olmert climbs back on his political feet, makes political decisions as he and his chums see fit, and invites the chief of staff and top generals for personal consultations, going over the defense minister's head.

For a long time, Barak went mute on anything related to the political process. It became a national obsession: Why isn't he talking? Then came the next stage: Criticism of the Annapolis initiative that seeped out through his "confidants." At the memorial rally for Yitzhak Rabin, Barak broke his silence. "Being prime minister is a mission, not a job," he declared, in a blunt attack on Olmert.

The mutual mudslinging between insiders from the two Ehud camps is the symptom of a well-known syndrome in Israeli politics - the syndrome of politicians who lose the race for prime minister and have a hard time fitting in as No. 2.

In most democratic countries, the winner of the election takes up the reins of government, and the loser goes home. Margaret Thatcher went into the House of Lords; John Major sits on advisory boards; Tony Blair agreed to be an international envoy for the European Union. That's the way it is in parliamentary governments: The loser doesn't sit on the new prime minister's tail. He goes home.

The custom in Israel, where the winner takes the wheel and the loser slides into second place, in name or practice, is an invitation for trouble. This curse has been around since the establishment of the state.

It goes back to Moshe Sharett, who saw himself as David Ben-Gurion's No. 2. He disagreed with Ben-Gurion's policies and worked to undermine him, collaborating with the doves to keep the government from voting in favor of reprisal attacks. The Rabin-Peres governments gave us the "tireless schemer" saga, as one served as prime minister and the other as defense minister. We had Ezer Weizman, who helped Menachem Begin get elected but worked against him after the Camp David Accords, publicly referring to him as "the deceased." There was Benjamin Netanyahu, who severed all ties with the chief of staff, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, because the surveys showed that if early elections were called, Lipkin-Shahak was a favorite for prime minister.

As chairmen of their parties, Barak and Olmert are honing in on the same public sector - the moderate right. At some point prior to the next election, Labor and Kadima will probably form a single bloc. In this bloc, which Olmert will lead if he manages to extricate himself from the inquiries against him, Barak has no intention of being No. 2, even as deputy prime minister or defense minister.

Maybe that explains the statements emanating from the Barak camp that "Olmert is using his cancer diagnosis as a calculated means of boosting his image," or "Olmert's willingness to discuss 'core issues' at Annapolis is a product of the same hasty judgment that led him to launch the Second Lebanon War." Barak has been quoted in the media as saying: "I empathize with Ehud, but I empathize more with the state." His associates never tire of saying: "We need to be sure that the decisions are being made by an honest prime minister."

This unspoken battle between the two is at its height. What happens next depends on Annapolis and whether the country goes to an early election. At the moment, though, it really doesn't matter what they say about each other. Who gets to be No. 1 and who gets to be No. 2 is just a question of election math. Or as Henry Ford so memorably put it: "The question of 'who ought to be boss' is like asking 'who ought to be the tenor in the quartet.' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor."

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