Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed candidates for the position of his political adviser. It was part of a comprehensive program to rehabilitate Netanyahu’s image in his own Likud party. Netanyahu wants to regain control over the mechanisms of the ruling party, control that he has lost over the past few years. He is looking for an energetic young candidate to run between the party’s branch offices and make the right political connections on his behalf. Most of all, the prime minister hopes that his new political adviser will help him to avoid any more embarrassments like the ones he suffered in his most recent battles within the party’s institutions.

Over the past few days, Netanyahu’s schedule has been devoted largely to his summit with US President Barack Obama at the White House. Nevertheless, as part of his rehabilitation program, Netanyahu also cleared some time on his busy schedule to meet with senior Likud activists for the first time since the last elections in January 2013. These are mostly confidantes of senior ministers from the Likud, whose support Netanyahu is eager to get.

The source of the the prime minister's sudden frenzied political activity is his belated realization that he has effectively lost control of his party. Since he wants to run for prime minister from the Likud in the next elections, Netanyahu realized that he must take back control of the party’s institutions and win back popularity among its supporters. But what bothers the prime minister more than anything else is when his senior ministers, headed by Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, accumulate popularity of their own.

As it turns out, Ya’alon walked away from his embarrassing incident in January practically unscathed, even though his derogatory and insulting statements about US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared in media outlets around the world. One year after the government was formed, Ya’alon is in first place in polls when it comes to public satisfaction with the various ministers. He reached this position almost immediately after being appointed defense minister and has managed to keep it in all the polls since then.