Defense Minister
Yitzhak Mordechai,
left, faces Israeli
Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu
during a Cabinet
meeting in Jerusalem
Sunday.
Foreign Minister Ariel
Sharon is seated
second from right.

Netanyahu faces new hurdles with
opposition from Mordechai.

DAVID LANDAU

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

ro

rime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu has come out
swinging against his former
defense minister, but behind
the premier's confident veneer lurks a
fear that Yitzhak Mordechai will be a
formidable opponent in the race for
prime minister.
Two voting blocs led to Netayahu's
1996 defeat of former Prime Minister
Shimon Peres: the Sephardi and
Orthodox communities. He needs
these voters to win in May.
Enter Mordechai, who is heading a
newly formed centrist party after he
was fired by Netanyahu over the week-
end.
Born in Kurdistan, the religiously

1/29
1999

26 Detroit Jewish News

traditional Mordechai is the first can-
didate for prime minister in this year's
crowded election field who seriously
threatens to win over these twin
sources of Netanyahu support.
The threat is more likely, as centrist
officials have suggested, because disen-
chanted Likud voters can more easily
switch their allegiance to a centrist than
to a Labor Party candidate — particu-
lary given the long history of antipathy
for Labor among the large Moroccan
community and other traditionally pro-
Likud sectors in Israeli society.
When it came to describing
Mordechai and the other centrist party
leaders, Netanyahu did not spare the
vitriol this week, calling them a
"bunch of losers motivated by nothing
but personal ambition."
The description, part of a bare-
knuckled exchange of insults between

Netanyahu and Mordechai in the
wake of the firing, is important
because it exposes two problems con-
fronting Netanyahu:
• He called them losers, but opinion
polls show he would lose to their candi-
date should a runoff vote be necessary
• He called them ambitious, but
events proved otherwise this week,
when the leaders of the centrist group
— Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, former
army chief of staff; Dan Meridor, for-
mer Likud finance minister; and Roni
Milo, former mayor of Tel Aviv — set
aside their individual prime ministerial
ambitions to let Mordechai lead their
quest to bring Netanyahu down.
Netanyahu, who was easily re-elect-
ed leader of his party in a nationwide
Likud primary Monday against chal-
lenger Moshe Arens, insists that he
will win despite the setbacks and

defections dogging his campaign.
"The people are with us, regardless of the
media," the premier said Monday "The peo-
ple want a strong leader, a leader who decides
— and acts."
Despite his assured stance,
Netanyahu can hardly brush off the
vow Mordechai made this week: "I
will do anything and everything I can
to bring Netanyahu down."
This vow, in fact, is what unites all
the top officials in the still- unnamed
centrist party. Three of the centrists
— Mordechai, Meridor and Milo —
are prominent former Likud figures
Who know Netanyahu intimately and
served under his leadership before bolt-
ing the party. The fourth, Shahak, was
chief of staff for much of Netanyahu's
two-and-a-half years in office.
The centrists now need to hammer
out a credible platform that will be