Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon's smile is one of his trademarks but since the election campaign began there have been fewer and fewer reasons to smile. In an interview to Israel Hayom, he is still smiling – but less than usual. On one hand, he is sure of himself and thinks that the polls showing him hovering just at the minimum electoral threshold are wrong, but on the other, he is sending out a message that is half warning, half a plea: "If anything happens to me, there won't be a right-wing bloc."
This is Kahlon's seventh Knesset election, and it could have been a particularly easy one. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned him just before the party lists were finalized and promised him the moon if he joined forces with the Likud. Benny Gantz's people offered him half their kingdom, but Kahlon opted to go it alone and stare down the minimum threshold.
"Every time, we wind up with two warring blocs. This time, we need to find our place in the discourse between the two big blocs, the public's ear. Today the discussion is 'yes or no on Bibi,' 'yes or no on Gantz.' I need to get people listening to issues like housing, like the reforms to early childhood education we made. I know the ultra-Orthodox won't vote for me, and an Arab list voter won't vote for me, but there is a group of people who vote based on socio-economic issues. True, there are Bibi and Gantz, but there are also the everyday [issues] – housing, afterschool daycare, soldiers' welfare, the elderly, and more," he says.
Q: How many of these voters are there?
"I don't know how many, but there's great potential. We're the only socio-economic party that is above the minimum threshold. We need to keep doing what we started. To remain a right-wing, nationalist, socio-economic party, I didn't join either side."
Q: Does that mean you're in the right-wing bloc? Because you're considered someone who's in the middle and could go with Gantz.
"Right. I'm in the right-wing bloc."
Q: After the election, will you recommend to the president that Netanyahu form the next government if Likud wins?
"I've worked with the Likud government for four years. I've held this government together for four years. Without me, it wouldn't have had a majority. We worked together fine. We've had excellent achievements. The other side [Gantz's center-left Blue and White list] has already ruled us out. Avi Nissankoren announced that he would cancel the 'Mehir Lemishtaken' [Move-In Price] subsidized housing program, my flagship project. In other words, they rejected us before we even got started. We won't sit in a government that rests on an Arab bloc. It makes no sense. The current polls don't show Gantz able to form a government. So the answer is clear."
A winning team
If you ask Kahlon how he found himself – at least according to the polls – near the minimum threshold, you'll hear a resounding rejection. Kahlon aspires to restore his party to its former strength and is convinced that "we're far from the minimum threshold. We'll make it past by a lot. What is taking all the attention right now is the battle between the blocs. No one is paying attention to socio-economic issues. There are 30 days left to the election and I believe that we'll start gathering people around these issues and building up our strength."
Kahlon stresses that his not bringing anyone new into the party was a strategic decision. I decided that the group that was with me in the Knesset is a good, experienced one. Experience is one of the most important things in politics – we have three ministers. Committee heads. That's political power. This is an excellent team that's proven itself."
Kahlon thinks that because he will remain in the right-wing bloc, Gantz wouldn't sit with him in a coalition.
"They [Blue and White] offered me the world to join them. I refused so I could stick to the socio-economic path."
Q: They're leading in the polls.
"It's a group of people who united. Their agenda, other than replacing the government, is unclear. It seems as if even they don't know what it is."
Q: Still, they have three former IDF chiefs of staff.
"Each one is valued for who he is. I'm not a political analyst. I have a party that is 30-40% under strength and we're focused on that only."
Kahlon tells Israel Hayom that he isn't surprised that Nissankoren, head of the Histadrut labor federation, has joined Blue and White, and denies that he had any political alliance with him.
"That's made up. He grew up on the Left, and I'm on the Right. We led certain social issues together. That's all."
Other than his familiar socio-economic messages, Kahlon stresses that he is on the "sane Right, not extremist."
"Everyone knows me. I'm not a new arrival. There's no need to ask what Moshe Kahlon would do if he were [in the government] during the disengagement from Gaza or what his opinion is on making territorial concessions."
Q: Some polls are saying even a right-wing bloc won't be able to form a government. Does that disturb you?
"I'm the last bulwark of the right-wing bloc. If heaven forbid something happens to Kulanu, the bloc will crash."
Q: So you'll recommend that Netanyahu form a government after the election.
"I see myself as part of the bloc. There's no reason for me not to recommend Netanyahu. I've worked with him and I work with him now. We have a much better relationship than people think."
'Four exhausting years'
Israel Hayom spoke with Kahlon after Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit decided to recommend that the far-right party Otzma Yehudit be disqualified from running in the election, a recommendation that was narrowly voted down by the Central Election Committee on Wednesday.
"I'm not familiar with Mendelblit's decision. But in principle, as far as I know Mendelblit, I think he's a fair, professional person. As far as the merger with Otzma Yehudit, this is a democratic country and everyone can run for election and express his opinion. As long as it falls within the limits of the law, there's no problem."
Q: What is your opinion of Netanyahu's efforts to bring them into the right-wing bloc?
"This is politics, and everyone is fighting to carve out a place for himself. As long as it's legal, it's fine."
Q: Reports said you were invited to join the Likud. Is that true?
"I didn't agree to negotiate with anyone. If I joined the Likud or any other party, I would be burying my socio-economic agenda."
Q: So there were offers.
"There were offers to join Kulanu and the Likud. The answer was an absolute no. I didn't leave the Likud because of its diplomatic path or ideology, but over socio-economic issues. Everything I've done has been because I was independent. I want to be a Netanyahu partner, not a Netanyahu employee. If I was in the Likud, I couldn't have achieved so much.
"You need to understand – finance minister is the most important job in the government. He decides about the lives of every citizen in the state. I never looked for the easy path, not when I left the Likud, not when I established my own party, not when I took on the Finance Ministry, a portfolio everybody ran from. It's been four years of exhausting work, but when you see the results, I'm happy I was a part of it and I'll be happy to be part of it in the future."
As a former Likud MK, Kahlon believes that in the past few years, "the party has moved more to the right. Likud party members are more right-wing than its voters, and the Labor party members are farther left than Labor voters. So it's the party members, rather than the voters, who decide on the party's character. Party members took the Likud to the right and Labor to the left."
Q: When you say 'sane Right,' what do you mean?
"A Right that means governance, respect for the institutions of government, and clear national and socio-economic positions."
When it comes to the institutions of government, Kahlon is seen as having defended the Supreme Court during his last term, but this week he turned on the court over its intervention in the prices of dairy products. Kahlon explains that he is neither in favor of nor opposed to the Supreme Court, "but opposed to actions that attempt to bring down the institutions of government."
"I don't work like a robot. Everything is evaluated on its own merits. True, right now I have very stringent criticism [of the court] over its intervention in dairy prices. And still, I'm not in favor of bulldozing it. I'm in favor of doing a precise probe of where it intervenes and where it doesn't.
"On this matter, in the next government we'll bring a law on legislation to the Knesset that will define the boundaries between the Knesset and the Supreme Court, where a law can be rejected and where it can't. We've proposed a law like that a few times. In the next term, we will support the matter being regulated.
"There were many times when the Supreme Court's intervention was a mistake. They make mistakes, and we need to codify the relations between the Knesset and the court. In the case of dairy prices, a tax on third apartments, a tax on loose tobacco, they intervened every time. We need the law, which is a kind of override mechanism that will arrange the relations. It's vital to both sides."
'Not everyone has equal opportunities'
Kahlon is convinced that he will have another term in office, and it looks like he isn't worried about the minimum threshold.
"I assume that I'll be Israel's next finance minister," he stresses more than once.
Q: Where do you get your confidence?
"Netanyahu said he was interested in keeping this government in place, with all the partners and all the [same] roles."
Q: Given the attorney general's report, will you leave Netanyahu if he is indicted?
"The prime minister hasn't said he would continue to serve if he was indicted. Given that there were already cases … in which it was determined that a minister cannot remain in office after he or she is indicted, I assume that if an indictment is served, the prime minister won't be able to stay in office."
Q: Do you think he'll resign following an indictment?
"That's what I say, and I know what I'm talking about. I haven't heard him say, 'I"ll stay on after I'm indicted.' He's doing everything possible to avoid an indictment. And he knows why."
The attorney general's report reveals that Netanyahu allegedly asked the staff of the Walla news site to insult Kahlon and Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Kahlon admits that he was disappointed to learn of it.
"I don't think there was any reason to insult me. I was a loyal ally of his. But this is life in politics. I'm not naïve or fragile. I wouldn't have done it. I've never done anything like it – not against political rivals or political partners."
Q: And what do you say about Bezeq controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch, another suspect in Case 4,000, calling you 'an Arab'?
"That's contemptible discourse. Unfortunately, there is prejudice. The guy called me an 'Arab' – why not call me a 'Swede'? Why not call me a 'Brit'? The answer is prejudice. Not everyone gets equal opportunities."
Q: Have you ever felt prejudice based on your ethnic background?
"What Elovitch said, I'm simply not going to go into that. There is a phenomenon of prejudice – you need to make a decision about whether to foster it or kill it off. What Elovitch said referred to the fact that I am a Mizrahi Jew, and that's despicable."
Q: You said that one of your successes was the Move-In Price project, but there are a lot of complaints about how it was executed.
"It's a huge success, despite the complaints, and there will always be complaints. That's fine. It's the biggest program since the state was founded. People got a chance to buy homes. It influenced home prices, which suddenly stopped going up. In the past few years, housing prices rose 8-10% each year. This year, they were down 1.4% The bubble has been checked, in only three and a half years. No one believed it would happen."
Q: But rental prices rose.
"Every year, rental prices would go up 4-5%. This year, they only rose 1.9%."
