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Hirsh Goodman: The Next Prime Minister

Is the new Netanyahu, whom we have seen as a hard-working, brave and effective finance minister these past 18 months, prime ministerial material?

The August 15 cabinet session at which the budget for 2005 was voted on and passed by an overwhelming majority of ministers was a scene of verbal violence. What was really being debated, in a brutal and confrontational way, was not any particular allocation but the future leadership of the Likud -- and, given the state of the opposition, probably of the country as well. Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accused Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Ehud Olmert of stabbing the nation in the back by undermining him all the time; Mofaz responded in kind, reminding Netan-yahu he provides the country with security and accusing Netanyahu of endangering the future of Israel.

Olmert hit back with a flow of invective that was described as venomous by one of those present.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, the fourth contender, remained silent. He was not attacked by Netanyahu, with whom he is now allied over the battle to keep Labor out of Sharon�s new coalition, but the wheels in his head were turning.

Where does all this infighting leave Shalom? Hopefully not in a position to be this country�s prime minister. He was a disaster as finance minister in the first Sharon government and has been an embarrassment as a foreign minister. He has denuded key Israeli embassies of professionals, replacing them with diplomatically incompetent amateurs, as he did in London; by being unable to keep his mouth shut he derailed serious diplomatic advancement with several Gulf countries and exposed tentative and secret talks with the Libyans, closing them down; he took his wife Judy along on a state visit to Egypt, a traditional Muslim country, wearing a top with spaghetti straps, cut to allow her midriff to be as exposed as possible.

Shalom is a minor party manipulator with good political skills. He should not be prime minister. Ever.

Shaul Mofaz, on the contrary, is a serious man and a successful defense minister. He had always made his political ambitions clear, even when in uniform, and stepped right out of the army into the upper echelons of the Likud with hardly a day in between. That is why he should not become prime minister in the near future. Like Ehud Barak, though he is in politics he remains in a general�s mindset. As Barak so brilliantly displayed, generals can�t run a country. The Knesset does not take orders. Democracy is a compli-cated business where it takes kissing babies, not a court martial, to get things done.

Mofaz has never been a Knesset member, he has no idea of how things work in the corridors of power. In four or five years� time he may be ready to be a successful prime minister, but not now. He would find himself eaten alive by the political wolves quicker than any of us could imagine.

As for Olmert, the man is ruthless, a political yo-yo and opportunist, a person with no principles other than advancing his own interests, who always seems to be un-der a cloud of possible corruption -- probably the worst possible example of what happens to basically decent young people when they enter politics and develop a voracious appetite for power and influence.

If Olmert becomes prime minister, Israel will be in the hands of the most dangerous politician ever to be at the helm of this country. His political avarice, it seems, knows no bounds.

So it all seems to rest with Netanyahu, once Sharon decides to hand over the reins, if he ever does, or if the party decides for him, which is a far more distinct possi-bility. Is the new Netanyahu, whom we have seen as a hard-working, brave and effective finance minister these past 18 months, prime ministerial material? Has he, like Rabin before him, internalized a series of hard lessons that have made him wiser, more politically effective, more honest and imbued with more integrity than during his first disastrous term?

The answer seems to be an unequivocal yes. His performance as finance minister has indeed been impressive. He has taken on issues that could only hurt him politically because he thought they needed to be corrected, he has shown political skill in getting his agenda through, he has broken down core opposition with deter-mination and he has placed this country�s economy back on track under the most difficult of circumstances.

What remains worrisome about Netanyahu, however, is where he stands politically, which is far to the right of Sharon or any of the other contenders. He is against the Gaza withdrawal and against a national unity government. He wants to retain all the territories and has harsh suggestions for how the Palestinians� problems should be resolved, with none of the solutions entailing the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

He believes in the power of force, and sees the Arab world as implacably hostile to Israel. He doesn�t speak of conflict resolution, but conflict management.

It�s one thing to espouse these views as finance minister with confined responsibility. But not if he wants to lead the country.

Netanyahu has to show that he has matured and learned from his mistakes. Realizing that one cannot continue to occupy the Palestinians forever and be totally uncompromising on any solution other than one based on force while at the same time remaining an economically thriving democracy is, obviously, a lesson Netanyahu has yet to learn. Perhaps, like Sharon, he will learn it. Then we will have a serious candidate for the next prime minister of Israel.