Breaking up is (not so) hard to do

Unlike military munitions, the bombshells being dropped by Israeli lawmakers these days can’t kill anything except political careers. But like explosives, they still warrant front-page coverage, a sure-fire sign election season is in full swing (and will be until mid-March).

So goes it with Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, whose comments Saturday that he could see himself in a Labor-led government, and that his bromance with former bosom buddy and current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is over, earns his visage a place on two out of three of the main Hebrew-language dailies.

And so it goes with the Shas party, where the sudden apparent exit of former leader Eli Yishai has thrown light on internal party struggles kept under the carpet since the last election, beaming the internecine battles onto A1 of the same two papers — Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom.

Haaretz, whose left-leaning readership skews to neither of those parties, plays to its strengths, leading off with efforts within the Labor Party to bring aboard Kadima chief Shaul Mofaz and Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, best known for drafting a series of economic reforms in the wake of Israel’s cottage-cheese protests of 2011.

But the moves to bring those two into the fold are something akin to shooting a flare gun when compared to Liberman’s explosive charge, which may have taken some wind out Netanyahu’s campaign and deposited it squarely at the back of Labor-Hatnua.

Yedioth and the other papers package the story as a simple “Liberman versus Netanyahu.” But while Liberman’s admission that “it’s not ideal with Bibi” leads Yedioth’s coverage, the paper is also sure to note that the foreign minister is hedging his bets, also saying that he’s not campaigning against Netanyahu. “Yisrael Beytenu is not among those calling for ‘just not Bibi,’ in any shape or form,” he’s quoted as saying.

Liberman’s hedges didn’t stop Likud from slinging arrows of indignation against him, though, and Israel Hayom leads off with the “anger on the right,” apparent in those responses.

Under the headline “Liberman shows his cards,” the paper trumpets that “the front between Yvet Liberman and Benjamin Netanyahu has officially begun,” using Liberman’s nickname.

Echoing the official Likud statement that Liberman will bring a leftist government, MK Ze’ev Elkin is quoted saying that rightist voters need to take heed of his words. “Liberman said something very clear — whoever votes for him will get [Labor head Isaac] Herzog and [Hatnua head Tzipi] Livni as prime minister.”

The paper’s analyst Mati Tuchfeld writes that his takeaway is that Liberman wants to be prime minister at any price: “Only six years ago, Liberman left the Olmert government because the negotiations over transfers of land and powers to Arabs weren’t acceptable to him. But now, what does it matter if he’ll be in the same position with Herzog and Livni who intend to restart just where Olmert left off, if it means he’ll have a chance to be prime minister.”

A done deal?

While Tuchfeld is already peering into a dystopian future where a Labor-Hatnua government attempts to make peace, the party still has to make peace with itself.

Haaretz kicks off with a curtain-raiser ahead of a Labor central committee meeting Sunday night, during which the party will have to okay the merger with Hatnua, including a rotational premiership, as well as bringing Mofaz and Trajtenberg in and giving them high places on the party slate. While the merger has already been widely touted and is expected to sail through with a wide majority, the paper reports, there is still some internal criticism of the move.

“Already in the press conference we saw that the Labor Party won’t run under its name and its logo will disappear from the campaign,” an unnamed MK is quoted saying. “In addition, it’s clear today that Herzog will try to create a centrist-patterned party and not a leftist party.”

Of course, it’s not over till it’s over, which is the message Israel Hayom’s Dan Margalit has for those excited by the prospects of Yishai leaving the Mizrahi ultra-Orthodox Shas party, but could just as easily be the motto for the whole election season, which still have a very long 90-odd days ahead.

Margalit, who also writes about the possible split of Housing Minister Uri Ariel from the nationalist Jewish Home party, says that breaking away isn’t in the interest of either of them. “People in the middle of the Shas crisis and those involved with Jewish Home felt at a loss to prevent the breakup yesterday, but their job is to emphasize that the last word has yet to be said. Will Uri Ariel leave Jewish Home and Naftali Bennett, just to receive the pressure of the rabbinical council? Does Eli Yishai have the psychological fortitude to get up and wander alone through the Haredi Street, which is locked in on its leaders all year long? And to take orders from an Ashkenazi Lithuanian rabbi instead of the Council of Torah Sages left by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef? It’s not clear.”

To veto or not to veto

Just as Israelis are parsing every move for what it could mean for elections, so too, apparently are the Americans, according to Yedioth.

The tabloid reports ahead of a meeting between Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday that US calculations on whether to use their veto in the United Nations Security Council on upcoming Palestinian statehood bids involved adding up how much they dislike Netanyahu versus how much they want to see him out of office.

“The Americans were interested in ‘settling accounts’ with Netanyahu against the background of the nadir in ties between the two countries, including because of harsh comments made by ministers against [US President Barack] Obama and Kerry, and not use the veto. On the other hand, they aren’t interested in hurting Israel and fear if they don’t torpedo them, it will translate into votes in the upcoming election for Netanyahu, who can say ‘the whole world is against us,’” the paper reports.

And then there are those who see the whole election, with its campaigns and voting and promises and mergers and breakups, as nothing but a game of musical chairs where nothing ever really changes. Like Haaretz’s Gideon Levy, who noted in a curmudgeonly fashion that no matter who is in the hot seat, taboos will still remain taboo.

“Even the ‘most portentous’ elections, such as the one scheduled in March, are in fact child’s games, make-believe. The people vote, the government changes (or not), there’s the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ and the ‘chasm’ of differences separating them — but no one speaks about the two terrifying elephants in the middle of the room. No one dares. Right and left, Netanyahu and Herzog — it’s all the same,” he writes. “The Israeli occupation and the defense budget, the defense budget and the Israeli occupation. These two giant elephants that decide the state’s fate in nearly every sphere are off-limits.”