If there is one political lesson learned within a year and a half of a governmental and constitutional crisis, it is that politics is meant for politicians.
To understand the chaos that is taking place here and it is not clear whether it will come to an end in the upcoming elections, one has to go back to April 2019. The election campaign that marked most of all the disgust of politicians, the desire to get rid of them and the race for the stars to be born.
Ganz, this week. A bad politician at best
(Photo: Contact)
The Labor Party then parted ways with Yitzhak (Buzi) Herzog; Naftali Bennett founded the New Right and brought in Alona Barkat as a reinforcement actress, who received preference over other members on the list; Bnei Gantz and Yair Lapid announced in every conversation they held that no politicians or former Knesset members would be added to their lists. Even with a politician with an impressive record and proven abilities like Tzipi Livni they did not want to produce a connection, and she retired.
This was the year in which Knesset candidates were selected through a Google search. “Successful Druze,” for example, as MK ‘Adir Kamel smells of the way a white brush came to her.
In 2021, change is imminent. After an ongoing power crisis, at a weekend in which almost completely blue and white disintegrated, and parties are emerging on all sides that do not pass the blocking percentage in any scenario, it seems that the upcoming campaign marks the return of politicians. The understanding that politics is a profession.
Examples are notable: Gideon Saar’s connection with Zeev Elkin and Yifat Shasha Bitton, Bennett’s and Bezalel Smutrich’s connection, the courtship of Livni and the fact that Sharon Huldai fought to attach Avi Nissenkorn, an incumbent politician and not an outside star.
Netanyahu, Saar, Huldai. Operate the floor of the political operators
(Photo: Amit Shabi Motti Kimchi Alex Kolomoisky)
Many people with a glorious record and good intentions have passed through the Knesset of Israel in the last decade. People who shone and were highly regarded in the military, academia, business, high-tech and elsewhere, but when they entered the Knesset, all this did not benefit them. On the contrary. They got lost somewhere between the Knesset regulations and the political sticks that characterize the arena.
“Politics is essentially what is between black and white. The ability to reach a compromise, to run systems of political operation. Mediators, associates, pressure groups. All this those who have not studied politics from the basics, just do not know.”
The recent battle between the Likud and Blue and White is a fresh and shocking testament to the importance of the necessary political understanding and skills.
Ganz is at best a non-politician, and at worst an unconventional politician in the bad sense of the word. When he and Netanyahu would talk to each other, those who know the two testify, it’s kind of like a conversation in which one speaks Chinese and the other Spanish.
To illustrate this, a senior politician said this week that “if Herzog had accepted Ganz’s cards, he would have formed a government.” The fact that Gantz did not identify the main problem on his list: Yoaz Handel and Zvika Hauser, who could have been replaced by other MKs in the second round, is another example of a weakness that stems from inexperience.
Ganz and others have put into the system in the last year and a half the feeling that politics should reflect what is happening outside. “This is a misconception,” says a senior official who knows the system from the inside. “It has different energy, different rules. Politics is essentially what is between black and white. The ability to reach a compromise, to run systems of political operation. Mediators, associates, pressure groups. All those who have not studied politics from the basics, just do not know.”
Politics, according to those who do it, is one that is conducted on two main levels: one around the leaders and the other around the political operators without whom it is impossible to conduct oneself.
They are usually people who grew up in a political environment, held a number of positions in parties until they were promoted to Knesset members, or were appointed to positions designed to strengthen the political conduct of leaders and parties – both coalition and opposition. Anyone who pretends to be a leader should make sure he has this operating mechanism, while he is busy with state affairs.
Netanyahu used to have Elkin and today he has Yariv Levin, Lapid had Ofer Shelach, Lieberman has Oded Forer, Livni had Yoel Hasson. Gantz was not like that. An operator who is both a politician and an influencer. With all the disgust and disgust from politicians, it seems that only the governmental and constitutional crisis that Israel has rolled into can only be resolved.