Former Jerusalem mayor and Likud candidate Nir Barkat wants it noted that he is a team player. Despite the waystations in his life that have resulted from his unusual personal achievements, he repeats the word "team" when he talks about the astronomic economic success that made him the wealthiest politician in Israel, with an estimated personal worth of 500 million shekels ($140 million); when he sums up his time as mayor of Jerusalem, a city in which he says "exists every possible conflict in Israeli society"; and even when he reveals how lonely it is at the top.
"It's all teamwork," he says.
One can guess at the dramatic effect his army service had on the teamwork, and the military slang that pops up every few sentences reminds us that this is an Israeli politician. But don't let that confuse you. Barkat is a rising star in the Likud, having finished ninth in the party primaries. If you listen to senior Likud officials, or to political pundits, next month Barkat could find himself at the helm of the Finance Ministry in his first term in the Knesset.
At age 60, the gamble that Barkat will wind up as finance minister is similar to the one the Barkat brothers made in 1993, when their company BRM invested in Check Point. They invested $400,000 in exchange for 50% of the company's stock. Barkat served as head of both companies in their early years. Check Point became one of the world's leading information security firms and BRM's investment led to hundreds of millions of dollars of profit. The rest is history. The change in his financial status shortened his route into philanthropy and then public service.
Speaking to Israel Hayom at the Mamilla outdoor shopping mall outside the Old City, Barkat's pride in the city he led for 10 years is unconcealed.
"Tourism is something I learned needs to be moved on from Jerusalem to the rest of the country because it's an engine for change. We need to attract the international audience to places like Eilat or Samaria, and in doing so bring more places into the tourism field, which isn't happening today," he says.
"Of course, as it did in Jerusalem, that will totally change the face of the places we reach, and that's a mission I've taken upon myself."
Throughout the day Israel Hayom spends with Barkat, that is a recurring theme: if something works on a municipal level, there's no reason it won't work on the national level.
"I always tell young people who want to get into politics that first of all, they should get their own houses in order. … In my work as mayor, on a salary of a shekel a year, no idiot would dare to approach me with offers of bribes or anything like that. I'd like to remind you that my two predecessors ended up in prison, and I ended my role in a municipality in which everyone tracks the corruption as pure as the driven snow."
When we arrive at the Dan Hotel for a conference on education – a subject near to Barkat's heart – he not only shakes hands but also hugs most of the people he talks to. That warmth serves as a contrast to the large entourage that surrounds him daily, which creates a certain distance between him and others.
Barkat's primary campaign proved that when needed, the businessman can kiss cheeks of campaign workers with two-day-old stubble.
"For the first time, I was exposed to the wisdom of the masses," Barkat says.
"When I heard about other Knesset lists and how heterogeneous they are compared to the Likud, and how the Knesset needs variety, I refer everyone back to the Likud list. Let them take a look and see how varied it is. We have all kinds of people. You can talk about deals and lists and everything is right, but when you look at the top places, you see that the [primary] election was done wisely and reflected the voters' conscience. That was a great experience for me and I learned a lot about the people of the Likud," he says.
In the afternoon, we are on Highway 1, heading for the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. From there, we'll seek out a bar in the heart of the Tel Aviv "bubble" on Rothschild Boulevard and Nahalat Binyamin Street. Barkat says yes, he's heard the rumors that if Moshe Kahlon and his Kulanu list don't make it past the minimum threshold, he'll be finance minister. But he keeps telling the media: "Wherever the prime minister wants to put me, I'll be there. If, God willing, I'm a minister, I'll be happy to serve the Likud and the nation anywhere."
Barkat does not try to hide his disappointment at some of Kahlon's actions, such as not knowing how to make new areas attractive to draw home buyers to them, or not developing high-tech and industry in the right places.
"We have the Negev and the desert, where companies can be developed that address precisely the relevant issues. Having Intel in Kiryat Gat is a wonderful thing, but it actually doesn't create anything unique for the place. I learned that in the Finance Ministry, functionaries know how to operate based on the path that is laid out for them. If you change paths, if you open their chakras and tell them to think vertically rather than horizontally, enormous changes can be made, I have no doubt."
"Right now I'm busy with a study on how to promote Israel's peripheries in the north and south. As far as I'm concerned, one of the biggest challenges is how to close the gaps between them and the center of the country, and we must close them. If we don't, 20 or 30 years from now we could lose those areas."
Barkat speaks politely about his political rivals and all the burning issues in the city, but when the conversation comes around to Benny Gantz and the Blue and White party, his diplomacy vanishes for a moment and the prepared statements are nowhere to be heard.
"I look at it from my world. If Benny Gantz, who lost $50 million he invested in his company, were to come to me as an investor and ask me to invest money in him, would I? So politically, if a person wastes $50 million and doesn't manage the money like he should have, how exactly does he plan to manage billions of shekels of public money that belongs to the state? Would you give someone like that billions of the public's money?" he asks.
At the Museum of the Jewish People, at a meeting devoted, naturally enough, to Diaspora Jewry, Barkat encounters educator, activist, and bereaved mother Miriam Peretz, whom he already knew, as well as Meretz Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg.
Barkat skips from question to question easily: Women of the Wall, the LGBT community, Diaspora Jewry – he has an answer for everything.
Some say the last part of his time as mayor of Jerusalem was mostly devoted to laying the groundwork for entering politics with a big bang. Given the applause with which he is greeted, it seems to have worked.
"It's all about passion," he tries to explain.
"Getting into activity at the national level is first of all because my passion moved in that direction. … I always told my daughters, first of all, go with your passions. You'll make a living later on and things will work out. And now that I've finished my municipal role, my passion is now for something new, so I moved on to a new goal. As I said, wherever the prime minister asks me to go, I'll be there."
Barkat claims that his success in Jerusalem is also the prime minister's, who made the city a priority and funneled significant amounts of money into it.
"In the campaign, of course, Bibi doesn't have the time or the inclination to air economic theories public, not when we're in such a close election battle. We need to send a single message, focus on what's important and stand behind the prime minister to achieve our goals," he says.
Although most of the day has been wonderfully organized, it seems as if we're going to be fashionably late to our final engagements. Barkat, a staff sergeant in the reserves, asks for a probe into the reasons for the delay. Then he hits the gas. As a finisher of the Dakar Rally, one of the toughest and most exhausting car races in the world, he manages to make up for lost time.
If anyone thought that Tel Aviv would receive a stranger from Jerusalem with suspicion, it very quickly turns out that the bar is lively and applause fills the room when Barkat enters.
"At the end of the day, I'm coming to the Knesset with my hands clean to serve the public [on a salary of] a shekel a year, just like I did in the Jerusalem Municipality. Will they want me? Will they like me? If they're happy with my work, I'll stay. If they don't want me to, I'll do what I love to do – go fishing in Tiberias."
