s Re
Backroom Smoke
Coalition building
becomes coalition
bickering,
/-
but Bibi stays
now.
AP/NATI HARNI K
above the fray for
Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife meet with residents of an Israeli Arab town north of Tel Aviv.
B
ERIC SILVER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
inyamin Netanyahu, nev-
er the most assiduous of
synagogue-goers, is so ea-
ger to be the prime min-
ister of all the nation that he
recently peppered a speech to Is-
raeli Arabs with "Baruch
Hashem" (praise God) a common
phrase among Orthodox Jews.
Between his recent victory
and his swearing-in as prime
minister, Mr. Netanyahu is en-
joying a discreet honeymoon —
but that seems about to end.
Huge questions, numerous
leaks and mounting pressures
await.
Will he evacuate Hebron? Will
he evict Palestinian institutions
from Jerusalem? How much will
he invest in expanding which
West Bank settlements? Will he
banish pork butchers and Re-
form converts? Firm answers are
hard to come by. The new mod-
el Mr. Netanyahu is a hawk
among hawks, a dove among
doves, traditional yet yuppie, a
tribune of the past and of the fu-
ture.
Like everything Israel's first
directly-elected prime minister
does, Mr. Netanyahu's reticence
is calculated. Rolando Eisen,
who hired him as marketing
manager of the Rim furniture
company before he went into pol-
itics, describes the politician's
driven, methodical way.
"He would focus on a problem
to the complete exclusion of
everything else, working 16
hour-S a day," says Mr. Eisen,
who has remained one of Mr.
Netanyahu's few non-party
friends. "He analyses, decides,
then executes, all with incredi-
ble energy. We were once
considering a 'satisfaction-or-
money-back' offer. He went to
the library and picked up 10
books on the subject."
In the meantime, Mr. Ne-
tanyahu has been letting aspir-
frig ministers stew in their egos.
Squabbling coalition partners,
who have nowhere else to go,
were inflating demands, then
floating them down to earth.
At the same time, the 46-year-
old prime minister-designate
was plotting a constitutional up-
heaval. As a man elected by the
people, the Knesset cannot un-
seat him without unseating it-
self. Potentially, he has more
power than any prime minister
since the founding father, David
Ben-Gurion.
Now he is going to test-drive
that power. Mr. Netanyahu be-
lieves that the new electoral sys-
tem — of which he is a vigorous
advocate — has given him an
unprecedented opportunity to
rule like an American president.
As such, he hopes to set up a
National Security Council and
transfer the budget division of
the Finance Ministry to his
"Jerusalem White House,"
which would also control the
"The thought of
consolidating
control of both
networks reeks of
something
unbalanced."
— Nahum Barnea
state-run Israel BroadCasting
Authority, the rival Channel 2
television station and the body
that controls development land.
If so, Mr. Netanyahu would
not be first among equals, but
the undisputed national leader:
defense minister, foreign minis-
ter, finance minister, communi-
cations minister and planning
minister. The titular holders of
those offices would be little more
than the prime minister's
agents.
Israeli commentators are
starting to sound the alarm.
"Here is a man who has nev-
er headed a government min-
istry in his life, who is seeking
to concentrate in his grip pow-
ers that have never before been
held by anyone in this country,"
the popular columnist Nahum
Barnea wrote in Yediot
Aharonot.
He added, "As for the broad-
casting authorities, the very
thought of consolidating control
of both networks in one hand
reeks of something unbalanced
and unhealthy."
Mr. Barnea was even more
disturbed that this influence will
be wielded by politically-ap-
pointed officials, particularly
Ivet Lieberman, the former di-
rector-general of the Likud who
is slated to run the prime mMin-
ister's office, and his colleagues.
"Their perceptions are pow-
er and party oriented, in the nar-
rowest sense of those words,"
Mr. Barnea argued. "It is doubt-
ful that Israel will profit great-
ly, if power is to be transferred
from the visible politicians to of-
ficials who lurk in the shadows."
But the boisterous Israeli sys-
tem of checks and balances is not
yet dead. The Cabinet will not
be a rubber stamp. The 120-
member parliament may not
topple Mr. Netanyahu without
facing new elections, but it can
make it hard for him to legislate.
With 66 seats, the incoming
government will have a more
comfortable majority than his
Labor predecessors, but its sup-
port will be spread thin. Mr. Ne-
tanyahu's coalition will embrace
at least six disparate parties.
Both religious and secular
coalition partners have shown
that they will not abandon their
principles without a struggle.
For instance, despite that Natan
Sharansky and his wife keep a
kosher home and don't answer
the telephone on Shabbat, the
former refusenik will fight for
his Russian immigrant voters,
whose Jewishness is not recog-
nized by Orthodox rabbis. Mr.
Sharansky wants to enable
them to buy pork, to be married
without a rabbi and to be buried
in an unsanctified grave.
Mr. Netanyahu's ultimate de-
terrent will be to force votes of
confidence. But it is a weapon
that has to be used sparingly if
it is to retain its credibility — es-
pecially by a young, first-time
prime minister who will again
need partners to win a second
tat in. ❑
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