SARAH HONIG
Sequel stooges have just banded together in mutually advantageous
alliance to fortify governing coalition of Jewish state.
Photo: Jerusalem Post Archive
It’s official. A brand new Three Stooges remake is well
under way. The sequel stooges have just banded together in a mutually
advantageous alliance to fortify the governing coalition of the Jewish
state – the ultimate setting to best suit their zany misadventures. For
one thing, it’s quite compatible with the ethnicity of the original trio
– brothers Moe and Curly (born Horwitz) and Larry who was a Feinberg.
But more important is the fact that there’s nowhere like Israel’s madcap
political arena to accentuate the knucklehead anarchic antics of the
jerks-of-all-trades (as yesteryear’s screwballs dubbed themselves). With
them around there’s never a dull moment. They keep unsettling all and
sundry, themselves foremost.
Stepping into Moe’s shoes is
Binyamin Netanyahu even though he doesn’t sport a soup ball haircut and
even if he hasn’t exactly been poking at politicos’ eyes, whacking
sidekicks with skillets and crunching the noses of cronies with
neurotic, hyperactive zest.
But though deficient in Moe’s bully
brass, Bibi is nonetheless the uncontested leader of the new threesome
and their belated bond has only confirmed and boosted his primacy like
never before. For better or worse, Bibi is recognized both near and far
as the (for now) indisputable boss. He looks in charge, at the top of
his game and unbeatable. But could he be in for nasty surprises?
Tied
to him by a symbiotic fraternal attachment is Ehud Barak, playing the
petulant, unpredictable and smugly self-satisfied Curly. It doesn’t
matter that Barak doesn’t shave his head. He commands plenty of other
attributes to qualify him for the role of the rotund buffoon, not least
his pretentious parading as a key player in seeming oblivion of the fact
that he has entirely lost his political power base. That in itself
makes Barak as obviously unmindful of his ridiculousness as the
originator of the trademark chuckle, underscored by the inevitable:
“Nyuk, nyuk.”
Then comes the one non-brother, the add-on stooge –
Shaul Mofaz-come-lately in the role of pensive Larry. True, Mofaz
hasn’t quite mastered his alter ego’s puppy-dog look, but he does try
awfully hard to impress us as sincere and deep. And Mofaz is every bit
the nebbish bungler that Larry invariably was.
When Ariel Sharon
broke away from the Likud to found Kadima, Mofaz in a righteous,
upstanding pose sent out letters to all party central committee members
assuring them that he won’t take the expedient course because “you don’t
leave home.” But before the mailman managed to deliver the envelopes,
Mofaz expediently left home.
That was just the first in a long
list of mishaps, the latest of which included winning Kadima’s top slot
only to be dragged against his will, his bravado notwithstanding, to new
elections too soon. He next called Netanyahu a liar and vowed
vehemently never to enter a Bibi-led coalition. So what if, as we were
reading his lips, Mofaz deftly performed an about-face and linked his
fortunes to those of Bibi and Barak?
It was better than going it
alone on the campaign trail and slipping on the proverbial
banana-peel-to-end-all-banana- peels. The ensuing embarrassment would
have been far more mortifying than even the unkindest sight gag in the
meanest of burlesques. Like Larry, Mofaz opted to play it safe and
submissive. But for how long?
The one sure thing about the
Stooges is that in their universe nothing is for sure, nothing can be
taken at face value and nothing can be taken for granted. Therefore it’s
advisable not to bet on this new team staying united and operating in
the harmony they may exude for the short haul. The wild-eyed
knife-jugglers are waiting in the wings, sharpening their blades.
Now
that Bibi has saved them from the voters’ wrath and given them a stay
of execution, the hotshots in Mofaz’s rogues’ gallery aren’t running as
scared as they did before the grand coalition deal was announced.
Without a trace of contrition or humility, they now announce that their
goodwill is conditional, that Bibi must meet their timetables, and
perform as per their direction or they will pull the rug from under him.
Forgotten
is the dispensable detail that they were headed for an Election Day
disaster while Netanyahu was the unmistakable front-runner. It’s not
that they can bring Netanyahu down, but they can wear him down, besmirch
and badmouth him with expertise unsurpassed outside Kadima. Knocking
Bibi will become the new test for political pluck among the Kadima
blusterers.
Bibi may well rue the pact he struck. He may well
come out hobbled and battered and he’s “soitenly” not as irrepressible
as Moe was. Odds are he won’t be the same by the time his new partners
are through with him.
Their frequent flip-flops don’t recommend
them for trustworthiness. Indeed those who lied in the past are likely
to do so again. The ease with which they defended their zigzag into the
coalition foreshadows the ease with which they’ll proffer excuses for
trashing it – whether or not they actually leave. It’s easy to stay
inside the coalition while posturing in the mantle of the sanctimonious
opposition ideologue.
All the while, Mofaz might not only benefit
from a breather, he may emerge rehabilitated (to say nothing of the
image enhancement which Labor’s Shelly Yacimovich is sure to derive).
The
bad press which greeted the trio’s premiere will only further motivate
Mofaz to second guess Bibi at every opportunity, malign him at every
turn and generally undermine him. His experience at saying one thing and
switching to its direct opposite without batting an eyelid is
practically peerless.
Moreover, he’s prone to doing it so
senselessly that he cannot be expected to be reined in by coolheaded
assessments. The more censorious commentators have a go at Mofaz, the
greater will be his inclination to curry their favor, which will be
really bad news for Bibi.
Therefore, it matters much that the
talking heads now talk about a replicated “stinking maneuver.” This
despite the fact that their comparison with the 1990 precedent just
doesn’t hold water.
Three years pre-Oslo, in 1990 – when Israel
was governed by the second unity coalition under Yitzhak Shamir –
then-foreign minister Shimon Peres behaved like a law onto himself.
Already then (and not for the first time) he furtively engaged in
unauthorized freelance negotiations. He pursued covert assignations with
Jordan behind Shamir’s back, in violation of every conceivable
democratic principle.
When Shamir rejected Peres’s ultimatum
(hatched with the notorious James Baker), Peres plotted to topple
Shamir’s government, which he did. To Peres’s exasperation, however, he
subsequently failed to put together a substitute coalition. Yitzhak
Rabin, who branded Peres “an unrelenting underminer,” dubbed this “the
stinking maneuver.”
The stinking maneuver of 22- years-ago
constituted an elaborate scheme to deconstruct a national unity
coalition. To apply the same catchphrase to the construction of a
national unity coalition is more than misleading. It’s deliberate
demagoguery.
Besides, it’s instructive to recall that back in the
day our Left-dominated media cheered Peres on and deprecatingly
rejected Rabin’s disapproval of the stench. Nothing was too foul to oust
a Likud leader – then and now.
That’s why the press has
resurrected Rabin’s harsh headline for the Peres sabotage. It’s not
because another stinking maneuver was perpetrated but because nothing a
Likud leader does can please most news analysts (unless, like Sharon,
the Likud leader grievously injures the Likud). The criterion isn’t
whether a coalition is formed or dismantled, but whether or not the
Likud is harmed.
The Left, which now decries the sudden swerve
away from early elections, griped endlessly about these very projected
elections because the polls unanimously predicted a Netanyahu landslide.
The bottom line beneath the multi-layered left-wing hypocrisy is that
whoever teams up with Netanyahu is bound to be whacked by hostile
opinion-molders.
Mofaz is well aware of this. His image is
important to him and he will defend it by making Bibi’s life hell – now
that Kadima no longer fears an inconvenient Knesset campaign.
Thus
it’s doubtful that lasting political peace was secured by sheltering
Mofaz from the electoral storm. If anything, Netanyahu will now be
subjected to much graver pressure from within his cabinet (in addition
to Barak’s) to sacrifice vital national interests to coax Ramallah
figurehead Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiations table.
Netanyahu’s
coalition partners at home will lean hard on him to deposit a hefty
down payment just to get talks going. Similar extortion will be applied
almost on every policy front – domestic, diplomatic and
defense-oriented.
The upshot is that the coalition itself will
become the future sparring ground. We will all in all probability
witness farcical hijinks in the hallowed name of peace and democracy.
Sullen-faced
Mofaz/Larry will scramble our brains, while supercilious Barak/Curly
will chortle prodigiously with characteristic Stoogian
self-congratulation. And, in a reversal of roles, Bibi’s/Moe’s shins
will this time be kicked, his nose tweaked and his head continuously
bopped.
All the while Bibi’s newfound coalition partners will
shout the old stooge adaptation of the solidarity slogan (first sounded
by Moe, Curly and Larry in their 1935 flick,
Restless Knights): “All for one! One for all! Every man for himself!”
www.sarahhonig.com
From
Samson to Judah Maccabee, Ze’ev Jabotinsky to Hanna Senesh, there is a
valiant history of tough and brave Jews who made tremendous marks on the
world. While the image of a Jew has not always been that of a “tough”
people, it is important that the world sees tough Jews. Owning a PR firm,
I help build brands and create personas – and as a proud traditional
Jew and Zionist, approaching two important Jewish holidays – Yom HaShoah
(Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom HaZikaron, (Israel’s Memorial Day
for its fallen soldiers), I offer this list in tribute.
