On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he wanted elections in September and would dissolve the government on Tuesday. On Tuesday, however, he announced that Mofaz and Kadima would join the governing coalition, giving it the largest majority in Israeli history, 94 of the 120 votes in the Knesset or parliament, and there will be no election soon.
What this means for policy toward Iran was not fathomable. It appeared that Mofaz and Netanyahu didn’t know either. Netanyahu merely said that he and Mofaz would be discussing Iran.
Mofaz will become the Number Two person in the government as first deputy prime minister.
The dramatic change in the government had nothing to do with Iran. In policy terms, it was driven by a court ruling against the draft exemption given ultra-orthodox students, an issue that had riven the cabinet that includes ultra-orthodox parties. Those parties are no longer relevant given the new, broad coalition. In political terms, Mofaz was probably driven into the coalition because polls showed his party would probably lose half its seats in an election now.
The Kadima party came out of the last election with the largest number of seats of any party, 28 of the 120 Knesset seats. But it was outmaneuvered when it came to forming a cabinet by Netanyahu’s Likud party with 27 seats.
Just five weeks ago, Mofaz defeated Tzipi Livni to take over the leadership of the Kadima party, but he has not yet had time to change the party’s image with the public and reverse its fortunes. As deputy prime minister, he will have ample opportunity.
Netanyahu announced that the new coalition will focus on four topics: ending draft exemptions for the ultra-orthodox; reforming the political system to try to achieve more stability; protecting the economy; and advancing the peace process with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu did not mention Iran as a central issue. It was also significant that he mentioned the peace process. Netanyahu has essentially pushed the peace process to the back burner, while Mofaz has argued that it should be central to any government. Netanyahu’s list brought it back to the front burner.
On Iran, Netanyahu promised “serious and responsible” discussions with Mofaz. That indicated they had no joint Iran policy as of now.
Mofaz, who was previously chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces and later minister of defense, has criticized Netanyahu in recent week for his loose talk about a possible attack on Iran. He has said Iran is a threat, but a threat to the entire world and not just to Israel, and that Israel should let the United States and Europe take the lead on handling Iran. For the past decade, that has been the policy under all Israeli governments—including Netanyahu’s—until just the past few months.
Many political analysts have suspected that Netanyahu cranked up the war talk a few months ago for political reasons, chiefly to deflect attention away from the Palestinian issue. If that is true, there would no longer be any political need to flog the Iran issue now that bringing Mofaz into the government has returned the Palestinian issue to the front burner.
It will now be necessary to watch the Iran rhetoric over the next few weeks coming from Netanyahu, Mofaz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Mofaz’s shift to enter the government was stunning. On March 3, as he was running for leadership of the Kadima party, he wrote, “I won’t enter Bibi’s government. [Bibi is Netan-yahu’s nickname.] Not today. Not tomorrow. And not after I lead Kadima on March 28.”
That suggested to some that Mofaz could reverse his position on Iran and join Bibi’s rhetoric about the need to wipe out Iran’s nuclear threat.
And one member of the cabinet, Environment Minister Gilan Erdan, said the giant new coalition would be ideal for leading Israel off to war against Iran. “An election [in Israel] won’t stop Iran’s nuclear program,” he said. “When a decision is taken to attack or not, it is better to have a broad political front that unites the public.”