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When he returned from Wye Plantation, Netanyahu could have used the moment to reboot his premiership. He had achieved an agreement that had the support of more than three-quarters of Israelis, a much higher approval rating than the Oslo Agreements. By continuing the peace process with the Palestinians, while driving a hard bargain and keeping an eagle-eye on security, he had done what the majority of the nation wanted. The right wing was threatening to bring down his government, but Netanyahu was leading Ehud Barak in the polls. He could have called on Barak at that point to form a national unity government that would implement the Wye River Memorandum, and work together on the permanent status negotiations. If he had done so, Barak would have had a hard time saying no. It was Bibi’s opportunity to secure two more years in power, followed by a likely second term.
Netanyahu, however, instinctively turned rightward, toward the 20 percent of the population that was against Wye—the hardcore Revisionists and settlers. They were his political tribe, and like them, Netanyahu hated the agreement he had just signed in the White House. He lost no time in trying to sabotage it.
Begging coalition trouble, he told the Americans he needed time to implement the agreement. It took three weeks just for him to present it to the cabinet and the Knesset. In the cabinet, it passed 8–4, with five abstentions. It passed the Knesset thanks to Labor’s votes. Netanyahu promised his ministers that each stage of the redeployment would be authorized in a separate vote. Any statement by the Palestinians, any lack of compliance, real or imagined, would be reason for more delay.
The slow pace of implementation failed to assuage the hard right. Former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir slammed Netanyahu, calling him “an angel of destruction.” “Who gave him permission to promise more parts of Judea and Samaria to the Arabs? How is he better than Rabin or Peres?” Shamir fumed. “He has a desire for power for its own sake.”1 Neither were they mollified by the construction permits issued for Har Homa. Ariel Sharon backed Netanyahu in public, but privately he urged the settlers to take advantage of the weak prime minister quickly, by illegally occupying hilltops throughout the West Bank.
The first stage was implemented in November 1998. The IDF dismantled a few disused outposts, pulling back from 2 percent of the West Bank, mainly wasteland. When Clinton arrived a few weeks later, Netanyahu explained that he needed time to get his coalition in order before the next redeployment. The members of the president’s team were enraged, but Clinton merely shrugged. By that point he knew he had gotten as much as he could expect out of Bibi and was clinging to the hope that he would soon be gone. Instead Clinton focused his visit on the Palestinian side, singing carols in Bethlehem and making an emotional speech to the Palestinian National Council in Gaza, saying, “I am honored to be the first American president to address the Palestinian people, in a city governed by Palestinians, for Palestinians.”2 At the Erez Crossing, he brought Arafat and Netanyahu together for their last meeting. It was an unhappy couple of hours yielding no results.
Clinton was still fighting impeachment and would soon have to order air strikes on Iraq and the Serbs in Kosovo. He had not given up on peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He had invested too much of his presidency into it. But he had given up on Bibi.
Many have criticized Clinton for being so patient with Netanyahu for two and a half years. He never blamed him in public or went behind his back to the Palestinians. But Clinton had succeeded in squeezing out of Netanyahu two signed agreements. Hebron and Wye may have been only tiny, incremental steps, but he had gotten an ideological Likud leader to withdraw from parts of the West Bank. The Oslo process had slowed down to a crawl, but it had not been derailed. The Knesset was preparing to vote for early elections. Clinton had reason to hope that Oslo would outlast Bibi.
BY THE TIME Clinton returned to his impeachment battles in Congress, there was close to a majority in the Knesset for bringing elections forward. Frantically, Netanyahu tried to hang on, but he had fallen out with the right wing in his coalition for signing Wye, with the moderates for not implementing it, and with pretty much everyone else over his own conduct. Even the loyal Yaakov Neeman resigned as finance minister on December 18, when Netanyahu failed to back him in acrimonious budget talks with the ultra-Orthodox parties. His government was going to fall either by an early election motion, by not passing the 1999 budget, or in a no-confidence vote. Netanyahu clutched at straws.
He reached out once again to David Levy, offering to give him Neeman’s position as finance minister in return for the five Gesher MKs supporting the government. But the deal fell through. Finally, he made a last-minute appeal to Labor to enter a national unity government. Had he done so two months before, when returning from Wye, Barak would have been put on the spot. By then, however, everyone—the Knesset, the media, the whole nation, it seemed—was simply fed up.
“The right thing is to go for elections. This government has exhausted itself,” answered Barak. Netanyahu himself was exhausted from the struggle to stay in power. He had visibly aged since entering office, putting on weight, the makeup he perpetually wore on his face failing to hide the sagging pouches of tiredness.
On December 16 at a Hanukkah lighting in Metzudat Ze’ev, he announced early elections. Five days later, the Knesset voted to dissolve itself. Elections were set for May 17, 1999. Netanyahu’s first government had held together for only thirty months. And there were more splits to come before Israel went to the polls.
Defense Minister Mordechai, the star of the last election, again weighed his options. Relations with Netanyahu had been tense throughout the term. Mordechai treated the Defense Ministry as his birthright, not a post he was filling at the prime minister’s pleasure. He shot down Netanyahu’s plans to establish a national security council to oversee the IDF and intelligence community. As Bibi rowed with the generals, Mordechai invariably took their side, though he usually did so quietly, allowing others to take the flak.
Mordechai had expected to be the government’s point man on all security-related matters, but constantly found himself in the dark. Netanyahu used his own confidants, or sent Sharon on sensitive missions. Like the other senior ministers, he had given up on establishing a stable working relationship with Netanyahu. For months he had been holding talks with the two “princes” who had left Likud—former finance minister Dan Meridor and Tel Aviv mayor Ronny Milo. They had linked up with the recently discharged IDF chief of staff, Amnon Shahak, in a new centrist party with one purpose—to bring down Netanyahu. Mordechai was tempted to join, but loath to give up the Defense Ministry.
As in the previous elections, Mordechai was dealing with both sides. He simultaneously negotiated with the centrist trio, demanding leadership of the new party, should he join, while seeking assurances from Netanyahu that he would remain defense minister if he stayed in Likud. With the media closely following the Bibi-Mordechai struggle, Netanyahu preempted his defense minister.
On January 23, a government driver knocked on Mordechai’s door. He was inside with Meridor, Milo, and Shahak as the dismissal was delivered. Minutes later, Netanyahu was on television, surrounded by the remaining Likud ministers, reading out a long, harsh letter telling Mordechai that his “personal ambition is stronger than any other consideration.” It was an unprecedented humiliation. The second most powerful man in Israel was being fired live on television.
Netanyahu had intended it as a demonstration of strong, decisive leadership, destroying Mordechai’s credibility. It failed. Mordechai joined the new Center Party (Mifleget Ha’Merkaz) as leader and candidate for prime minister. The party’s electoral prospects were unclear, and the four men at its helm all felt they should be captain, but to Netanyahu they were kryptonite. Three top Likudniks, two of them senior ministers in his government, had joined his IDF chief of staff, all now devoted to eliminating Bibi. And they were far from alone. Every other week, another former member of Netanyahu’s government announced that he was founding a new party.
On the far right, former science minister Benny Begin founded Herut, using the same name as the historical forerunner of Likud, which had been led by his father. Ex-foreign minister David Levy relaunched Gesher, breaking away again from Likud. As did Netanyahu’s other partner from 1996, Agriculture Minister Rafael Eitan, who ran with his Tzomet party. Avigdor Lieberman, who had spent five years at Netanyahu’s side as Likud CEO and director-general of the prime minister’s office, launched his own political platform, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), aimed mainly at bringing together immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
It was a mad stampede out of Netanyahu’s Likud, with the “princes” in the lead. One thing all the new parties had in common was that they claimed to represent Likud’s values, unlike that unprincipled charlatan Netanyahu. Many who still remained in the party disputed his leadership.
Likud held its leadership primary on January 25. Netanyahu had hoped to be reelected unopposed, but Uzi Landau, the man who twenty-five years earlier had first introduced him to political activism on the MIT campus in Boston, announced that he would be running against him, to represent the true Likud. Landau dropped out of the race within weeks, however, to make way for the man who had launched Netanyahu’s career.
Six years after leaving politics, now at the age of seventy-three, Moshe Arens announced that he would be running against Netanyahu in the primary. Arens had never sought to lead Likud or become prime minister, but he felt responsible for his protégé’s actions and had opposed the Hebron and Wye agreements. He also quietly resented the fact that Netanyahu had not heeded his advice since becoming Likud leader. One of the very rare gentlemen of Israeli politics, Arens had barely ever criticized Bibi in public, and even then, he had kept it low-key. His surprise leadership bid had no realistic chance of success, but it was a damaging statement on Netanyahu’s leadership nevertheless.
Anxious to minimize the damage, Netanyahu offered Arens the Defense Ministry just vacated by Mordechai. The cynicism of Bibi’s offer was not lost on Arens. With only months to the election, he would only be a caretaker defense minister anyway. But his sense of national responsibility prevailed. He agreed to Netanyahu’s offer, but added that he would take the job only after the primary. On February 25, Netanyahu beat Arens 80–20. Two days later, Arens became defense minister under the man who had twice been his deputy.
Three years earlier, Netanyahu had run against the seventy-two-year-old Peres as a fresh young leader. In Likud’s 1999 campaign, a visibly aged Bibi was running with two septuagenarians, Arens and Sharon, flanking him as chaperones.
NETANYAHU’S CAMPAIGN TEAM in 1999 was like the negative image of the team that had worked so well three years earlier. Arthur Finkelstein was still on retainer and flying in for visits every few weeks, but the turbulent years had taken their toll on Netanyahu’s circle. They were no longer disciplined or receptive to Finkelstein’s direction. As it was, his style of campaigning was much more suited to an insurgent candidate, not a tired and discredited incumbent.
One of the two leaders of the original team, Eyal Arad, Netanyahu’s old UN press officer, had long ago fallen out with him. He had been frozen out of the newly elected prime minister’s team three years before, marked down by Sara Netanyahu since the “hot-tape” scandal as someone who may have known about Bibi’s affair. Now owning his own public relations company, Arad was working for the Center Party, his services at the disposal of Netanyahu’s nemeses.
Communications Minister Limor Livnat, who had led the team in 1996 with Arad, like many talented and attractive women around Bibi, had also fallen afoul of Sara. Still, because of her popularity in the party, Netanyahu had no choice but to appoint her to the cabinet. Like the other Likud ministers, Livnat was disillusioned by his leadership and entertaining an offer from her friends Milo and Meridor to defect to the Center Party. Her loyalty to Likud prevailed, but it took considerable urging from Netanyahu to get her to lead the campaign team again.
It was an unhappy band that gathered at party headquarters. As prime minister and a proven winner, Bibi was no longer content to allow the professionals to call the shots. Sara had to have her say as well. They interfered in the messaging and editing of broadcasts. Bibi, on Finkelstein’s advice, urged the campaign to go on the attack against Barak. Livnat believed Barak was still a Teflon general, and preferred to target their fire on other Labor politicians who would lead Barak astray leftward. Sara constantly demanded that they present the achievements of “the best prime minister” Israel had ever had—and of course showcase his wonderful family.
Despite the discord, Netanyahu was initially optimistic. Likud’s polling showed that 28 percent of those who voted for him in 1996 were not planning to do so again. But this time there would be more than two candidates for prime minister—in addition to him and Barak, Begin, Mordechai, and the Palestinian Israeli politician Azmi Bishara were all planning to run. With so many candidates from left and right, no one would cross the 50 percent threshold, and there would be a second round between the two frontrunners, most likely Netanyahu and Barak. Bibi believed that he could rely on his coalition of right-wing, Russian, and religious outsiders to put aside their misgivings and turn out in the second round to beat the left.
But the early optimism soon gave way to creeping hysteria. In one of his first campaign rallies, Netanyahu entered the venue wearing a heavy bullet-proof coat, on the Shin Bet’s instructions. Bibi began whipping up the crowd against the left. “You know who we’re dealing with,” he told the baying Likudniks. Turning to a camera crew: “Channel 2? I thought you were Labor’s TV.” Back at the crowd: “You say there’s no difference?” He paused. “Is there anyone here who isn’t a Likud member?” As they crowed “No!” he theatrically shrugged off the bullet-proof coat. His diehard supporters lapped it up, but many Israelis, including Likud voters, were disgusted by the divisive tone.3
Meanwhile, Barak learned the mistakes of Labor’s previous campaign and what Netanyahu had done right. He kept most of Labor’s politicians out of the campaign itself, instead building his team from driven young activists and special forces officers from his time in the army. Clinton also learned from his mistake in 1996 and now kept out of the elections. But key Democratic operatives from the United States were advising the Barak campaign, including Clinton’s 1992 campaign manager James Carville (who had been introduced to Barak by Hillary Clinton’s mentor, the American Jewish peace activist Sara Ehrman) and pollster Stan Greenberg. Another foreign leader quietly rooting for Barak was British prime minister Tony Blair. Blair’s pollster, Philip Gould, also assisted the campaign. Barak closely studied Blair’s “New Labour” 1997 campaign, which had won a landslide in Britain, and modeled his own “war room” on Labour’s Millbank headquarters.
One key lesson Barak learned from Blair was the need to rebrand Labor, opening the party to communities who were not prepared to vote for “the left.” Barak’s version was unveiled in March—“One Israel.” To diversify his lineup, he had added two small parties whose leaders were promised cabinet positions and slots for their members on the joint list—the moderate, pro-peace religious party Meimad (an acronym for Medina Yehudit, Medina Demokratit, or Jewish State, Democratic State), and the biggest surprise, Gesher. David Levy, Likud’s longest-serving MK, the man who symbolized the party’s connection with the Mizrahi working class, had developed such a resentment toward Netanyahu that he was prepared to join Likud’s historical rival.
Levy had not converted, and many Labor members grumbled that he wasn’t that popular among his own constituency. But Barak hadn’t brought Levy in for his voters. He needed the veteran Likudnik to dilute Labor’s left-wing image. Besides, he cared less for Labor votes in the party ballot than Barak votes in the direct election for prime minister.
Barak’s campaign presented him as Rabin’s successor, in the “Mr. Security” role, not necessarily as a peacemaker. He remained vague on how he planned to continue the peace process, sticking instead to two popular policies.
On February 28, Brigadier General Erez Gerstein, commander of IDF forces in south Lebanon, was killed by a Hezbollah bomb, along with two of his men and an Israeli radio journalist. The next day, Barak promised that, should he be elected, within a year the IDF would pull back from the “Security Zone,” as part of a wider agreement with Syria and Lebanon.
Barak’s second campaign promise was “One Israel, One draft.” He would end the Haredi yeshiva students’ exemption from military service. He didn’t explain how he would change the policy, which had been approved by David Ben-Gurion; he just wanted to link the unpopular Haredim to Netanyahu in the voters’ minds.
Not that he had to try very hard. The 1999 election was the consummation of Netanyahu’s affair with the Haredim. Bibi had not changed his secular, hedonistic ways, but they had never expected it of him. Netanyahu had no interest in affairs of synagogue and state and was perfectly happy for the ultra-Orthodox hegemony to remain. Neither was the increase in benefits for Haredi education and large families a major price to pay in return for automatic support from the Haredi MKs and ministers in security and diplomatic matters. It was the perfect political alliance.
Netanyahu was prepared to anger his American supporters with his alliance with the ultra-Orthodox. Legislation they proposed would have marginalized the Reform and Conservative movements, to which most American Jews belong. It led to the unprecedented, until then, move by some Jewish federations to cut their donations to the United Israel Appeal, giving millions instead to Israeli movements promoting religious tolerance and pluralism—essentially funding critics of the Netanyahu government.
After a string of Supreme Court rulings challenging the legality of various regulations in favor of the ultra-Orthodox, including their exemption from military service, Netanyahu promised the rabbis that after the elections he would form a commission to examine the Court’s powers.
On the eve of the elections, the rabbis told their followers to vote “for the candidate whose party is closer to acting in the spirit of religion.” No one had any doubt who that was. The political leader of Shas, Arye Deri, was even more explicit, calling at campaign rallies to “Vote Shas and Netanyahu!”
On March 13, Deri was convicted of bribe-taking, fraud, and breach of trust and sentenced to four years in prison. With the verdict on appeal, he continued to lead Shas. Barak announced that should he be elected, he would not conduct coalition talks with Shas as long as Deri remained leader. Netanyahu failed to see how Deri tainted him and did not distance himself.
The close connection with Shas damaged Netanyahu with another key constituency. The secular “Russian” voters saw the Haredim, especially the Shas Mizrahim, as backward, oriental clerics. In one of his sermons, the Shas spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadya Yosef, called the pork-eating Russians “completely evil,” warning that they weren’t even Jewish. Shas controlled the Interior Ministry, with its baffling bureaucracy for newcomers. The immigrant party Yisrael B’Aliyah ran a campaign in Russian calling for the Interior Ministry to be “under its own control.” Its leader, Natan Sharansky, who had once been Netanyahu’s close ally, had also become estranged. Sharansky suspected that Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party was actually a Likud satellite, coordinated with Netanyahu, to entice away his voters.
Barak calculated that he had nothing to lose by running an “anti-Haredi” campaign. The ultra-Orthodox were voting for Netanyahu anyway. But he could attract many of the 68 percent of former Soviet Union immigrants who had voted for Netanyahu in 1996. Barak’s campaign printed campaign literature in Russian. A sanitized Russian edition of a glowing new biography of him was printed in tens of thousands of copies, delivered for free to immigrant voters’ homes. Any connection to the old socialism of Labor was airbrushed out. The candidate was presented to the Russians as the tough “General Barak” who would have no patience for those religious parasites.
The campaign, emphasizing Barak’s military record, included a photograph of him from 1972, as a Sayeret Matkal commander, on the wing of the Sabena airliner that had just been captured from hijackers. Labor didn’t mention that the young Lieutenant Netanyahu had been wounded during the operation.
BY FEBRUARY, THE polls had begun to turn decisively against Netanyahu. On February 7, King Hussein died. The next day, as Netanyahu mingled with Clinton, Blair, and dozens of other world leaders at the funeral in Amman, they found it hard to conceal their relief at the thought of not having to meet him again. In early March, he made a rare appearance at the memorial service for Menachem Begin on the Mount of Olives. Herut leader Benny Begin edged away from Netanyahu and cut the service short. People were beginning to shun Bibi as they had after Rabin’s assassination. One of the more popular stickers of the campaign called on Israelis to vote for anyone, even a goat, “Just not Bibi!”
Netanyahu’s slogan didn’t try to appeal to moderates. It was “Just Netanyahu! A strong leader for a strong nation.” A negative slogan, “Ehud Barak—too much ambition, too few principles,” rang particularly hollow, as most voters saw it as an apt description of the incumbent.
As his numbers in the polls continued to shrink, Netanyahu’s rhetoric turned even more tribal. “The rich, the artists… these elites. They hate everyone,” he told Likudniks in April. “They hate the people. They hate the Mizrahis, they hate the Russians, hate anyone who is not them. Everyone who isn’t with them, Ethiopians, Mizrahis, Russians, everyone.” At a rally a few weeks later, he accused the media of working with the left to bring him down and led the crowd in chanting, over and over, “They. Are. Afraid. They. Are. Afraid. They. Are. Afraid.”
It didn’t work, but Netanyahu had been written off before, only to win. Some began to worry that Bibi was a “magician” who could read the Israeli public better than the pollsters. The “tom-tom drums” of the Likud tribe were calling the voters home. Netanyahu was still relying on a second-round showdown with Barak where he could work his magic. Labor was worried about this outcome as well, and the other candidates, Mordechai, Begin, and Bishara, were all under intense pressure to withdraw in favor of the frontrunner, Barak.
At the debate, Netanyahu scored a point when he got Mordechai to commit not to drop out of the race under any circumstance. Bibi had eagerly agreed to the debate, expecting to land another knockout like he had with Peres. Barak declined to participate, preferring to lose points for his absence than to give Netanyahu the opportunity to outshine him onscreen. Mordechai was hesitant to debate Netanyahu, but his partners in the Center Party, which had been losing votes to Labor for weeks, prevailed upon him to accept. Meridor and Arad, who had prepped Bibi for his debate against Peres in 1996, now rehearsed his opponent.
It was a lopsided and strangely compelling spectacle. On Finkelstein’s advice, Netanyahu largely ignored Mordechai, as well as the moderator, Nissim Mishal, choosing to focus instead on the empty chair representing Barak. This opened him up to constant attacks from a sneering Mordechai, who chuckled as Netanyahu spoke and belittled his achievements as prime minister. Mordechai claimed that Israel was more secure not thanks to Netanyahu, but because he and the security chiefs had reined in the prime minister.
“Keep your calm Bibi, keep your calm, I know these outbursts of yours,” he berated him. “I know in what military situations we could have been, and you know.” When Mishal asked them a question about negotiations with Syria, Netanyahu denied that he would ever retreat from the Golan. Mordechai interjected, “Look me in the eye, Bibi.”4 The prime minister was humiliated on live television. Mordechai hadn’t gained any points, either. He came over as too nasty. Barak, who stayed home, won the debate.
Even Netanyahu’s sole achievement, Mordechai’s promise to stay the course, turned out to be worthless. In the last days of the campaign, Begin, Bishara, and finally Mordechai on the eve of the election, all dropped out. So great was the desire, across the political spectrum, to be rid of Netanyahu, that the far right, the far left, and the center all gave Barak a clear run against him. Mordechai, especially, had served Barak well by running nearly to the end. Many right-wing voters who were disappointed with Netanyahu, but found it impossible to contemplate voting for the left wing’s candidate, first made up their minds to vote Mordechai. When he dropped out, some went back reluctantly to Netanyahu. Others, having already chosen in their minds the gateway candidate, found it easier now to shift to Barak.
IN 1996, NETANYAHU had built a coalition of underdogs and outcasts to achieve his breathtaking victory over Peres. He had then spent the next three years smashing that coalition to smithereens. His camp of outsiders had turned in on itself in a feeding frenzy. Bibi had satisfied no one. Not the settlers, the moderates, the old Revisionists, or the newcomer Russians. Only one section of the electorate remained true to Netanyahu—the ultra-Orthodox. In some Haredi neighborhoods, he received over 99 percent of the vote.
Israel’s first right-wing prime minister, Menachem Begin, so despised by the Netanyahu family, had spent decades building Likud as a warm home for both Revisionist veterans and Mizrahi immigrants. As prime minister, he had tried, unsuccessfully, to unify Israelis from all walks of life. Netanyahu instead played up the tribal divides. It had worked in 1996, when anyone who did not belong to the left camp was denied a place in the national mourning after Rabin’s assassination. But by 1999, Bibi had driven too many out of Likud, broken too many promises to his partners, and divided Israel too deeply.
It wasn’t a totally ineffective strategy. On May 17, Ehud Barak was elected prime minister with 56 percent of the vote. It was a handy majority, yet not quite a landslide. After all that had happened, Netanyahu still received 44 percent. And Barak had to run as a hawkish and centrist general, which is what he was, to win. At least half of all Israelis were still reluctant to risk their votes for peace.
Netanyahu’s concession speech, twenty minutes after the exit polls were out, even before the first real results began trickling in, was his best of the campaign. It was short and elegant. For once, he blamed no one. He of course thanked Sara, but he also thanked one more person—Ariel Sharon, the only senior Likud minister standing by him that night in the Tel Aviv Hilton ballroom.
He went back upstairs to his room. He wasn’t morose or disappointed. As a great believer in polling, Netanyahu had been aware for weeks that he was facing certain defeat. Mordechai dropping out a day earlier had merely confirmed it. Later that night, he stood on the hotel balcony with a few of his closest supporters, those who remained loyal to him, and analyzed what had gone wrong. He was taking a time-out from politics, resigning from the Likud leadership before anyone challenged him, and from the Knesset as well. He would make some money in the private sector, and before long, he would return. That’s why he had made sure to thank Sharon. Netanyahu planned to recommend him as temporary leader in his absence. At seventy, Sharon wasn’t about to be an obstacle to Netanyahu’s return. He would just be the old caretaker.
As Bibi summed up his lessons from the disastrous campaign, he assumed some responsibility. It wasn’t his policies or capabilities, but he was willing to take part of the blame for not having paid enough attention to the ministers around him. Politics, he admitted, was also about getting along with other people. But more than anything else, it had been the media who had brought him down. He vowed to change that next time around.