On the evening of Jan. 18, Knesset member Eitan Cabel was sent to the home of Kadima Party Chairman Shaul Mofaz in Kochav Yair to offer him the safe 20th spot on the Herzog-Livni Zionist Camp list. Cabel also offered the former defense minister the opportunity to add another person from his party to the fourth tier of candidates. Thus ended several weeks of bizarre and rickety negotiations between Mofaz and the head of the Zionist Camp list, Labor Party Chairman Isaac Herzog. Mofaz rejected the offer as anticipated. After all, the offer was made with the intention that he would reject it.
The following day, Zionist Camp leaders Herzog and Tzipi Livni held a pretentious news conference to announce that Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin (res.) would be joining their group as its senior security figure. Yadlin, former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, was also a bold pilot, who participated in the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq 1981. He is the son of Aharon Yadlin, a former leader of the Mapai Party (the mother party of today's Labor), who once served as minister of education. Thus, he is undoubtedly a refreshing new acquisition.
In private talks, the leaders of the Zionist Camp and their representatives admitted that in the polls and surveys they conducted, Yadlin proved to be a far more attractive candidate than Mofaz. As the current head of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), he is the Zionist Camp’s candidate for defense minister, but even so, he will not appear on the party’s list, because he is unwilling to give up his enviable position except to serve as defense minister.
Only time will tell how much Yadlin will contribute to the success of the Zionist Camp in the coming elections. Herzog had been courting Mofaz intensely and even enthusiastically, with the belief that adding him to the Labor Party would succeed in attracting a new constituency of Mizrahi (of Middle Eastern origin) supporters from the periphery. But as soon as he sealed the deal to join forces with Livni, it became very clear that Herzog had moved his courtship of Mofaz to a back burner. The Labor Party leader suddenly had reservations, explaining privately that all the polls showed that Mofaz’s reputation had eroded.
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