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.
