Netanyahu is selling the premiership like cucumbers at the shuk - analysis

In recent days, it has looked like Netanyahu has learned too much from the Mahane Yehuda vendors, who compete with each other in lowering the prices for staples like cucumbers and tomatoes.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Updated: APRIL 26, 2021 22:14
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a purchase during his surprise visit to Mahane Yehuda market on March 9, 2015 (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a purchase during his surprise visit to Mahane Yehuda market on March 9, 2015
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives a hero’s welcome whenever he comes to Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda Market.
The vendors at the shuk (market) who adore him are part of his natural political base, making it a regular campaign stop in the elections that Netanyahu has repeatedly initiated.
In recent days, it has looked like Netanyahu has learned too much from the vendors, who compete with each other in lowering the prices for staples like cucumbers and tomatoes.
On the surface, it appears that Netanyahu has been offering a rotation as prime minister like it was just another cucumber.
In a bitter irony, he offered it to Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, just five months after he initiated an election just to prevent Gantz from becoming prime minister. Netanyahu obviously regretted the decision to shun the easy-going Gantz for an election in which his camp failed to win a majority.
He also offered the most powerful post in the country to Shas leader Arye Deri, who has in common with him both their longevity in politics and their criminal indictments.
Deri served 22 months in jail after being convicted of taking bribes as interior minister in the 1990s. The MK is facing another run–in with the law, as Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit announced in January that he would likely indict Deri for tax fraud.
Netanyahu checked with Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin about becoming prime minister, but quickly saw it would cause him too many problems in Likud if he sought to promote anyone in the party at the expense of all other potential candidates. Appointing a clear puppet to the post also would not help woo New Hope leader Gideon Sa’ar, whose support is the key to forming a government.
There has actually been both a rhyme and reason to Netanyahu’s offers in recent days, which were intended to lay the groundwork for his offer to Sa’ar and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett. In the offer, which will come as early as Tuesday night, Netanyahu will not reveal a preference between Bennett or Sa’ar, both of whom he abhors. He will let them decide which one would take the premiership.
The goal of his offer will be to at least remain alternate prime minister during his criminal trial. He and his family would remain living at the Prime Minister’s Residence on Jerusalem’s Smolenskin and Balfour streets as part of the deal.

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Sources in the Likud said the prime minister has realized that there is no other way for the pro-Netanyahu bloc to remain in power, so he is ready to bite the bullet.
Whether Bennett and Sa’ar will take the shot that Netanyahu offers is another story. They both reiterated on Monday that forming a right-wing government is their top priority, but it was unclear whether either of them actually meant it.
It could very well be that they were both bluffing and just using Netanyahu to improve their hand in their negotiations with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid. Bennett and Sa’ar are demanding that all the “ideological portfolios” go to their parties.
That means Sa’ar becoming defense minister, or at least justice minister, Yamina’s number two Ayelet Shaked becoming justice minister, or at least interior minister, and New Hope’s number two Yifat Shasha-Biton becoming education minister.
Preventing Labor leader Merav Michaeli and Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz from receiving the sensitive Education and Interior portfolios is a top priority for Bennett and Sa’ar.
What about the Health portfolio that Bennett demanded last time during the pandemic, which he used to build his reputation as a professional leader? He is pushing Michaeli to take it.
But if Yamina and New Hope form a government with Netanyahu instead, Bennett or Sa’ar could be prime minister, and the other defense minister. Shaked would be foreign minister and Shasha-Biton education minister with no problem.
Netanyahu is willing to pay such prices to remain at least alternate prime minister. He has spent enough time in the shuk to understand that it’s worth it.


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