The Battle For Kadima Is Just Beginning
May 29, 2012 § 1 Comment
Remember how I’ve been saying for months that Shaul Mofaz is going to eventually join Likud and that Kadima as we know it is going to disappear? It appears as if the maneuvering by all of the affected parties – Mofaz loyalists, Tzipi Livni loyalist, Likud members, etc. – is now starting in earnest. First though, a little background. Before 2009, if a faction of MKs wanted to break away from their party, they needed to have the votes of 1/3 of the party’s Knesset parliamentarians. In 2009, however, Bibi Netanyahu passed a bill through the Knesset that is known as the Mofaz Law, since its sole purpose was to entice Mofaz to leave Kadima, which at the time was controlled by Tzipi Livni. The Mofaz Law eliminated the 1/3 requirement and instead enabled a group of 7 MKs to leave a party, which was coincidentally the number of Kadima members who were reputedly unhappy under Livni’s stewardship and considering joining Mofaz and returning to Likud. Mofaz himself denounced the law and did not end up jumping ship, but the law is still in force.
Fast forward three years to the present day, and the situation in Kadima has been flipped. Mofaz is now in charge, and there is a group of Livni loyalists who are reportedly looking to leave Kadima. The Mofaz Law makes it easier for this group to do so since Kadima has 28 MKs in total, so they only need 7 dissenters rather than 10. In an effort to stop this from happening, Kadima MK Yuval Zellner, who is a Mofaz supporter, introduced what is being called the Confinement Bill, which would eliminate the Mofaz Law and restore the 1/3 requirement. The Kadima MKs who are upset with the party’s current direction have been pushing for the bill to be killed and at the moment its status is in limbo, although Mofaz himself has come out against the bill in an effort to keep the Kadima rebels placated and maintain party unity.
Yesterday, however, Israeli Channel 10 reported that a group of 7 has been formed and that they are looking for an opportunity to leave and form a new centrist party that will be headed by Livni and Haim Ramon, who was one of the original founders of Kadima and who quit the party earlier this month. Kadima has denied the report’s veracity but this move was pretty much preordained the day that Mofaz beat Livni in the Kadima leadership election. Kadima is a strange hybrid of clashing interests, having been founded by Ariel Sharon for the sole purpose of disengaging from Gaza and then morphing into a party concerned more with social issues under Livni’s tenure, and now led by a former Likud minister and general who is unconvincing as a champion of the lower rungs of society and who brought Kadima into a rightwing coalition. There is little chance that this party is able to hold together in the long term. Furthermore, Mofaz is going to have every incentive to rejoin Likud, either before the next election or immediately afterward when Kadima gets routed at the ballot box. Once the Livni faction breaks away and Kadima is comprised of more right leaning former Likud members, it won’t be long before Mofaz drops the charade. Joining the government was the first step, and I see no reason for the eventual reconciliation with Likud not to occur. Likud minister Dan Meridor recognized that fact this weekend in calling for Kadima to merge with Likud, noting that there is very little substantively separating the two parties at this point. So get ready for Kadima to split, with the larger group joining Likud and the smaller group forming a new party under Livni and Ramon. Kadima was doomed to eventually disappear the day after Israel pulled out of Gaza, and once it does it will make the Israeli political scene a bit more coherent.
A Rare Miss From Walter Russell Mead
March 29, 2012 § 1 Comment
WRM is one of my favorite analysts because he is uncommonly thoughtful and erudite and often brings up points that I would not have thought to consider on my own. His latest missive on the Kadima election, however, is an anomaly for him as it seems like he dashed it off without really considering what actually went on over the past few weeks in Israeli politics. He contends that Kadima dumped Livni in favor of Mofaz because Kadima voters want to compete with Netanyahu on Iran and other defense issues, and that by “wrap[ping] itself in the khaki” the party is moving to the hawkish right. This sounds plausible as a surface explanation if you just look at Mofaz being a former defense minister and IDF chief, but it ignores the scope of the entire primary campaign, during which Mofaz explicitly campaigned on social issues rather than defense issues. It also breezes past the fact that Mofaz is on record as advocating negotiations with Hamas and that he blasted Netanyahu today for advocating a strike on Iran that Mofaz deems premature at this point and described as disastrous and ineffective. Most devastatingly, Mofaz blew out Livni on the strength of the 25% of Kadima’s voters who are Arab Israelis and who voted for Mofaz at a 71% clip. I agree with Mead that Mofaz is likely to eventually join the Likud coalition, but this election was certainly not an effort on the part of the Kadima rank and file to become more hawkish, nor was it a referendum on defense and security issues. In fact, it was precisely the opposite. Like I said, WRM’s analysis is all the more surprising considering how high he has set the bar for himself with his work, so I am confident that he simply wasn’t paying terribly close attention to the Kadima primary.
Kadima Election Update
March 27, 2012 § Leave a comment
As I predicted, Mofaz has won. So now comes the interesting part, where Livni leaves Kadima, and Mofaz either brings Kadima into the Likud coalition, or challenges Netanyahu directly and then folds the party when it gets devastated in the next election.
Anyone Still Think That Both Livni and Mofaz Will Be Kadima Members By The End of Today?
March 27, 2012 § Leave a comment
This is starting to sound like a GOP primary in South Carolina. I can see why Mofaz’s camp might want to employ some trickery after what happened during the last Kadima leadership vote, and Livni’s protestations ring a bit hollow, particularly given her efforts to expel Likud supporters from Kadima only after she decided they were likely to vote for Mofaz. Personally, I am rooting for a Livni victory because she presents Israeli voters with a greater contrast to Netanyahu and a wider variety of choices is a good thing for democracy. I also think Livni is a symbolically important figure in Israeli politics given that she is a woman in a strongly male-dominated political arena, and more crucially she is one of only a handful of Israeli politicians not tainted by corruption or suspicion of corruption. I fear though that she is going to be the loser today, and there is no doubt in my mind that irrespective of who wins, the loser is going to leave Kadima and the party itself will not last more than one more election cycle. Livni and Mofaz are too different and detest each other too much to coexist, all the more so in light of the rhetoric used by both sides in this campaign. And unlike the Netanyahu-Shalom rivalry within Likud, which is in some ways much nastier, there is not going to be enough at stake given Kadima’s sagging fortunes for both Livni and Mofaz to stick it out. Silvan Shalom can hold out hope that he can eventually dislodge Bibi and become PM and thus brave the various insults levied at him by Bibi, but Kadima is past its peak and is rapidly approaching its nadir. Here’s to hoping that if Livni does indeed lose, this is not the last that we’ve seen of her.
