This article was published by prominent journalist in Israeli and Russian newspapers. It deals with the next race for Israel's prime minister post:
Notwithstanding his landslide popularity, Arcadi Gaydamak will not run in the pending Israeli elections as leader of the party under his name, nor does he see himself in the prime minister's chair.
However, he is well aware of the fact that his name alone as well as his official support will gain any candidate substantial political success.
Gaydamak understands the Israeli political system extremely well and is acquainted with most party leaders and prominent politicians on a personal basis. He is well aware that his influence holds significant political weight that can be measured in parliamentary mandates. He is, therefore, not rushing to make any declarations.
Notwithstanding, in the forthcoming elections he will most likely support the Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Like most Israelis, Gaydamak was extremely disappointed with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his coalition, and now considers Netanyahu the most suitable figure to run for the prime minister's office. In his exclusive interview to Globes and Sputnik, Gaydamak stated that of all political figures, Netanyahu is, most certainly, the most acceptable candidate. In addition to his preference for Netanyahu, Gaydamak also speaks in the interview of his deep devotion to Zionist ideals, which longstanding tradition in his family, which has deep roots in the history of Israel.
Gaydamak goes on to point out that Netanyahu is an active politician, willing and able to learn from his mistakes in his previous premiership. Netanyahu, furthermore, can hardly be blamed for inconsistency: quite some time ago he warned of the Iranian threat and proposed a radical program to fight "Palestinian terror."
Of all active politicians, Gaydamak adds, only Netanyahu can boast any real achievements. He was a flawless finance minister, having literally saved the Israeli economy from the deepest crisis the country ever experienced. It is thanks to his reforms that Israel has today become attractive to foreign investors. Those who inherited his position in government move quietly along the path he had paved, though are clearly no match for him. They happened to be wise enough not to reject his course and are now profiting from the achievements furnished by the best finance minister in the country's history.
In my opinion, Gaydamak’s evaluation of Netanyahu's financial accomplishments is extremely important. If such a prominent and talented businessman has found no fault in Netanyahu’s performance, it stands to reason that his work as a minister was in fact impeccable.
Today, Gaydamak is more than popular. He is recognized on the streets, at stadiums, in restaurants; he is cheered and thanked for all he has done for the country and its people.
Around the world, most people do not generally favor the wealthy, feeling more disaffection and envy. Gaydamak, however, is a rare – I'm afraid the only – exception in Israel. Following his help to citizens of northern Israel during the second Lebanon war, his support to the city of Sderot and the facilitation of vacations for its residents' children, his popularity skyrocketed.
When a businessman becomes as famous as a soccer player, we can assume that there is little room for improvement. It seems, however, that Israelis have another criterion for gratitude. The billionaire himself does not see anything extraordinary in his actions; they are simply how he understands his civil duty. Regretfully, priorities of the state and public are different, and while Gaydamak won the right to be pronounced a war hero, the government lost the war hopelessly. Thirty-three days of inactivity and indifference buried Israelis' last hopes for their government. An ill-fated effort to create a refugee camp in the midst of the war revealed its cumbersome red tape and inability to care for its own citizens.
I see this as the moment the countdown began for the cabinet's resignation. Olmert's government has every reason to hate Gaydamak. After demonstrated in its own inabilities, the government then witnessed what sole individual, active and partial, was capable of doing.
Naturally, from the human point of view, the billionaire likes such treatment from the grassroots. However, when organizing its tent camp for refugees, he did not calculate the possible future political dividends. Arcadi says with a smile, that if Uri Geller is able to bend forks and spoons, he is able to change opinion of thousands of Israelis, a far more complicated task. From another standpoint, the impersonal act of Gaydamak only further underlined the authorities' incompetence and heartlessness.
Gaydamak does not try to conceal his disillusion and annoyance with Israel’s politicians. He also despises mass media yes-men. In particular, he sued a newspaper tens of thousands of dollars for claiming his help to the north had the goal of mobilizing public opinion to support him during the concurrent investigation into a suspected money laundering case. In spite of crying front page headlines and declarations from Yochanan Danino, head of the investigation team, Gaydamak had no doubt that the case was nothing but a farce about to be closed due lack of evidence. Desperately lying politicians turned to corrupt journalists, afraid of the businessman's rapidly growing political influence.
As Gaydamak put it, Danino is a typical product of the political elite's disintegration. Danino lacks any talents as an investigator – he built his career thanks to connections in the upper political strata. The likes of Danino act against interests of the country and its people. Colorless, barely educated appointees are extremely dangerous, for they can ruin careers of talented people, be they businessmen or politicians.
That is why we later became witnesses to a desperate fight led by Danino against the former Minister of Justice Haim Ramon. The latter had a program of the legal system's reorganization and, therefore, posed a lethal threat for the likes of Danino and should have been done away with by any means. It is worth mentioning that Danino not only fought Haim Ramon in head-to-head combat, he declared war on the so-called "Russian mafia". A dirtier ethnic card cannot be played.
In a number of communities the anti-Russian sentiment is strong, but such antagonism would have been long gone is not for someone from the outside willing to heat it up. The important thing is that the ethnic background of that "somebody" himself is secondary. The principal goal of the establishment is to eliminate any possible competition. It is a terrible thing when such people are granted wide powers by the state; one must feel absolutely terrified for such state. We are being ruled by a bunch of temporary favorites, who manage under the "after the deluge" principle. Who will survive such a deluge?
In Gaydamak's opinion, the Jewish state, originally conceived as a democratic one, is now in a deep crisis, as a result of greedy people in power. Today, police does not protect us from crime and terror, the instruments in the hands of shady politicians and top oligarch strata. Honorable and wise traditions of Jewish history can only be nostalgically remembered. It is terrifying, says Gaydamak, when short-sighted and unintelligent people like Danino measure actions of their fellow citizens by their personal criteria.
"Everything I over the past year has been nothing but my desire to help people and has nothing to do with any political ambitions. Hereby I am asking to regard myself as a down-to-earth man willing to realize his natural need to somehow ease the pain and the suffering of others. This is the call of my heart. I plead guilty in one thing: this aspiration of mine does not match well with intentions to please Mr. Olmert and his henchmen. It is understood that the result was predictable: logically, the prime minister should have officially supported my actions and, having found the very kernel and analyzed my experience, made right conclusions. To say the least, his abilities are far greater than mine. Instead, the prime minister, who should have rendered me official support, now refuses to even say hello. Childish infantilism plus adult suspiciousness. He should have expressed his support for the campaign of helping citizens of the North and creation of the Nitzanim camp, even without mentioning my name. He failed to do even that. He kept silent and this is a kind of recognition of his definitive guilt. Then, I organized and carried out a campaign to help the Sderot people. And again, I hear nothing but empty accusations. So you can imagine the level of a politician, the prime minister, who hails his criticism on a modest charity campaign instead of offering any kind of the state program to protect Sderot. Poor children had several days to forget for a while their life under constant bombardment by the "Kassams" and this charity campaign provokes deep hatred from both the prime minister and the defense minister. So how about these two?! Whether they are worth anything or not – it is not up to me to decide. This is the work for the leading Israeli social scientists who feed us generously with their public opinion polls, including those among the Russian-speaking people".
Compared to Olmert and Mr. Perez, popular among 8% of Russian-speaking Israelis combined, all public polls show the record high popularity of Gaydamak. Certainly, Gaydamak is not a medium, but he expresses public opinion. It needs to be comprehended, this is not the opinion of the Jerusalem "Beitar" football or "Hapoel" basketball club fans, not the opinion of those who suffered in the North or in Sderot, not even the opinion of the Russian-speaking community. This is the opinion of an average Israeli. Be it Ashkenazi of Mizrachi, "Sabre" or new immigrant, whether belonging to the middle class or to the social bottom – the society demands changes.
"I am being constantly asked why not buying some mass media to influence the public opinion. I don't need that. When I criticized actions of the police, that was out of my personal experience. I do not have the slightest doubt that Danino's investigations against me are nothing but a display of his personal hatred towards me and his animal fear to suddenly find himself on the curb. But I can say that the likes of Danino from the honest Israeli policemen--those who patrol the streets, fighting crime and terror, risking their lives – they have aims and goals different from those that Danino’s type pursue. I can also distinguish heroic actions of our platoon or company commanders from weird strategy and tactics of our joint staff. Sure, I am not a professional military man, but even an ordinary civilian could see that our joint staff was far from its best. The problem is not that our Air Force commander regards infantry missions in a different way. The thing is that actions of Dan Haluz failed to show any strategic thinking. Whatever our prime minister may say to the contrary, I think we lost this war and this loss has far-reaching consequences in terms of the regional balance of forces. Primarily, Hizbullah had won the moral victory and in spite of the ridiculous balance: 5000 guerrillas against the entire IDF – the myth of the Muslim warriors and their invincibility lives on in all Arab countries. In reality, Hizbullah defeated the long outdated doctrine of our joint staff, whereby advancing along the IDF ranks and assuming high command posts are subject exclusively to the length of service, not personal qualities and achievements. I think Gabi Ashkenazi would be a good Chief of Staff. He served in infantry and proved himself an excellent commander. It is he who can guarantee security to Israel and reinstate the IDF's superiority across the region."
Talking to Gaydamak, I couldn't help asking if there is anything he actually disagrees upon with about Netanyahu, whether he supports the same extreme right position. Mr. Gaydamak explained: “In anything that concerns social defense of the citizens – I am a leftist. In what concerns international politics and longing for peace – I am a centrist. In economics – I am on the extreme right."
I presume this approach also defines Gaydamak's opinion for the candidate for the defense minister chair: he is for Ehud Barak. In the end of our conversation, I asked Gaydamak his opinion on the failed negotiations of the "Maariv" newspaper stock purchase. Ironically smiling he replied: "I've been holding talks with Ofer Nimrodi, who urged me to buy 50 percent of the "Hachsharat Ha-Yeshuv" company, the "Maariv" owner. If I had thought that "Maariv" is a cost-effective business with good management and considered it necessary to assume control over some of the Israeli mass media, I would have bought it. However, I do not consider "Maariv" a good paper, let us say more – poorly managed, I decided not to go for it. I don't need a paid tribune, all my thoughts and opinions are being constantly published anyway. I am not going to buy myself a loudspeaker and compete with other mass media. In my mind, all my opinions are being made public without any additional investment. This is not because all Israeli journalists and their bosses are so fond of me, it is simply because in a democratic country, the mass media, willingly or not, makes the public opinion, that I express, heard."
