Kahlon to focus on socio-economics, not diplomacy
Having won 10 Knesset seats, Kulanu head Moshe Kahlon plans to focus on social justice issues and will not push the Netanyahu government toward renewing negotiations with the Palestinians.
From the day he announced a time-out from political life around two years ago, Kulanu head Moshe Kahlon had not stopped thinking about this moment: the time at which he would join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a tete-a-tete and present his demands in the negotiations for assembling a government. On April 12, this actually came to pass, almost exactly as Kahlon had envisioned. Kahlon, who had left the Likud and founded the Kulanu party, returned as a winner. He is expected to be the strong man in Netanyahu’s fourth government and to have great political power, as his laundry list of demands has been almost completely accepted.
The previous dramatic encounter between the two behind closed doors in June 2013 resulted in bitter disappointment on Kahlon’s part. At the time, it became clear to Kahlon that Netanyahu intended to renege on the personal promise he made just prior to the previous elections and would not appoint him chairman of the Israel Land Administration. This promise was made, it seems, for campaigning purposes, to show the public that Netanyahu was committed to solving the housing crisis.
At that moment, Kahlon resolved to return to political life outside the parameters of the Likud. In private conversations, Kahlon talked about Netanyahu’s mendacity and the cynical way the Likud chairman manipulated him before the elections. He said that as long as Netanyahu remained in the Likud, he would not be a part of it. Kahlon promised that he would found a new, independent party that under his leadership would lead a social-economic agenda focused on solving the housing and cost-of-living crises.
Thus the one directly responsible for the founding of Kulanu is Netanyahu. The prime minister further inflamed Kahlon’s already high ambitions by triggering aspirations to prove himself and repair the injustice perpetrated by Netanyahu when he violated his promise to give Kahlon the Land Administration. Therefore, when Kahlon sat opposite Netanyahu as the head of a party with 10 seats that is vital to forming a government, it was for him the closing of a circle.
