Yuli Edelstein's body language is easygoing, his gait is spritely and his tone of voice is lively. The former Knesset Speaker is clearly a changed person.
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A month after dropping the bomb by declaring that he would run against Benjamin Netanyahu for the Likud leadership, he is sure that only he can bring down the current government and waltz into the prime minister's office – and he is convinced he can do so before the year is over.
His decision to challenge Netanyahu was not the result of tensions with the former prime minister, he says, but rather the result of his growing concern that the current government, which sent him and his Likud colleagues to the opposition benches, will become a "full-on left-wing government" when its leadership passes over to the alternate prime minister, Yair Lapid.
"With Lapid as prime minister, we will have an Oslo C because there will be no one to oppose it," Edelstein warns. "It will be the first time since Ehud Olmert that the left in Israel will have a prime minister. If we don't stop it, this will lead to unilateral diplomatic measures. The only one that can prevent Yair Lapid from being Prime Minister is Yuli Edelstein."
Edelstein, 63, lives in Herzliya Pituah with his wife Irina Nevzlin, 43, head of the philanthropic Nadav Fund, chairwoman of the Museum of the Jewish people and the daughter of businessman, Leonid Nevzlin. They live with two children, 10 and 13, from Irina Nevzlin's previous marriage, while he has two grown up children from his marriage to Tatiana, who died eight years ago from cancer.
When he was health minister, his final position in the previous government, he would sleep for only three hours a night. "The first thing I would do when I woke up was to reach out for my mobile phone and look at the morbidity figures," Now he doesn't wake up until the children wake up to go to school, and of course to take his beloved dog Kiki for a walk. Twice a week, he works out with a personal trainer at home, and also likes to swim in the sea close to his home. The love of his life is table tennis, something he is absolutely not willing to give up on. Prior to making the announcement that he would run, Edelstein took a short holiday in the north, "something I did not have time to do for many years."
Q: There is a new government, and last week it managed to pass the budget. Now is the time to announce your run?
"There is no big secret here. I came to a double conclusion: First that Netanyahu does not intend to resign from his position and is going nowhere, which of course is his prerogative. Second, that if I don't get the ball rolling, nothing will happen in Likud. I could have made an announcement a week earlier, or a week later. But I understood that I had to get things moving and to start working seriously in order to be elected as head of the Likud. It's true that I don't know whether the party primary will take place this month or in another three months but I believe that it will be held within the next year, because more and more people are coming to understand, especially now that the budget has passed, that if we in the Likud don't hold a primary and that I am not elected to head the Likud, Lapid's path to the premiership will have been paved, with all the inherent implications."
Q: That sounds like an attempt by you to divert the conversation to Lapid in order not to talk about the battle against Netanyahu.
"Lapid is not the issue. I don't have any personal problem with him, but I do with his path. I tried to be very consistent both in opposition and in the coalition. When Lapid was in opposition, he preached against political appointments, against coalition funds, and against the Norwegian Law. Now, as soon as he became alternate prime minister, all those things went out of the window.
"I know how to bring Likud back to power in the current parliament without elections. If that doesn't happen in the next year, Lapid will become prime minister and the situation will be completely different. Because right now, Naftali Bennett is sitting in the Prime Minister's Office without public support, and with a small party without a camp behind it. If Lapid becomes prime minister - and we are all praying that there won't be a war, a severe economic crisis, or a new wave of coronavirus - after a year, a year-and-a-half, the leftist bloc will be rejuvenated, while we, the nationalist camps, will be in a completely different situation.
"I want to return the Likud and the nationalist camp to power. I have the strength to prevent Lapid from becoming prime minister. He is now on auto pilot on the way to rotating the premiership and we in the Likud are doing nothing about it. There are parliamentary routes to set up a government headed by the Likud during the current parliament."
Q: How?
"The simplest way is a vote of no confidence in the government, with elements of the current coalition joining in - all of the parties and personalities of whom it can be said that it is not their dream to sit with Lapid in a government that at the end of the day will be managed by the Islamic movement. I believe we can find such elements."
Q: Is that just an assumption, or have you already made deals with parties that would be willing to dissolve the government and follow you?
"Nothing can be finalized before I am elected as head of Likud . As people like to say around here: there are no suckers left. You can't close a deal without a victory in the Likud primary, and only after members of the Likud Central Committee elect me can we head out on a new path. The glue that keeps the current government together is its desire to prevent Netanyahu from returning to power, and in practice to put him out of the game. That is not a good way to lead. It isn't a nice thing, but it is a fact."
Q: A fact that serves you well.
"After an intense period serving as Minister of Health, I could have opted to just to turn up at the plenum and raise my hand to vote, and the rest of the time to enjoy life and wait for the wheels to turn. But I am not here to be an MK and receive a salary. And in the meantime, the country is being managed by people who have no idea how to manage. There are people in this coalition who neither I nor 90% of the citizens of Israel have any common vision with regarding the future of the country. My intention of course is the Islamic movement.
"I am not willing to compromise with this reality. Public servants are supposed to change reality, not accept it."
Q: Why are you so confident that you can beat Netanyahu in the Likud primary?
"I have had a habit for many years of calling up members of the Likud Central Committee and branch heads to wish them happy holidays and happy birthday. I do it while I'm driving in my car, and I make several calls a day. Until about three months ago, they would ask me: 'How are you minister?' When I corrected them that I was a former minister, they would say 'In a few weeks you will be back in power.' But that is not how the conversation goes now. The Likud Central Committee members have understood that now that the budget has passed things have changed… They understand that the coalition is working like a machine and this is no short-term event."
Q: Netanyahu claims that Likud will return to power under his leadership.
"I heard Netanyahu speak at the conference of local authorities and say that the Likud, whether it takes weeks or even three-and-a-half years, will return to power. He said that, and I would like to add that we do not have the luxury to wait three-and-a-half years.
Q: Do you believe Netanyahu should step down?
"He is the only one who can make the decision whether to retire. He most likely believes that he has not said the final word politically. But after four times [in which he failed to put together a coalition] I can't understand that. Netanyahu has no plans to resign or to go anywhere. There are some people who are waiting for others to do their work and there are those who are taking the initiative and showing leadership."
Q: How do you plan to replace Netanyahu when the polls show that Nir Barkat is leading the Likud race?
"First of all, I admit that the battle will be a difficult one. I didn't announce my run against Netanyahu because I identified a political opportunity to score an easy win over a wounded lion. I made that announcement out of the understanding that this country, the Likud, and the nationalist camp are more important to me than anything else. Therefore, on the one hand, I say that I have to do the right thing. And on the other hand, I know that I would not go to battle against Netanyahu if I did not know that I could win.
Q: Gideon Sa'ar said very similar things and we all know how that ended.
"At the practical level, the media is trying to create a comparison between my run and that of Gideon Sa'ar. But herein lies the difference, one that you must pay careful attention to: Sa'ar decided to run against a reigning prime minister and the Likud has never deposed a reigning prime minister from the leadership of the movement; I on the other hand, launched my campaign after the prime minister was sent into opposition. Netanyahu failed to put together a government several times, and on each of those times the Likud did well in the elections. That is my answer to those that say 'Netanyahu will bring more seats than you.'
"With regard to the question asked in polls. 'Who would you prefer to see as head of Likud?', obviously Likud has been used to Netanyahu over the past 20 years and not to Yuli Edelstein, a name those being polled are hearing for the first time.
"In any event, there is no such thing as a poll among Likud voters. The people that will decide who will head Likud are the 130,000 people voting in the party primary. That is where I am concentrating my effort. The polls cannot check them; there are a lot of groups and a lot of families and a lot of influences. Just as there are in the Labor Party, which is a sister party."
Q: Labor is a sister party to Likud?
"When I say sister party, I mean that it continues to hold primaries, while in other parties someone sits down with a cup of coffee and sets out a list. In any event, when it comes to polls ahead of the primaries versus reality in the elections, the polls have never been accurate.
"When people are polled on the Likud headed by Netanyahu as opposed to the Likud under my leadership, there are two things that are true. Netanyahu will gain more seats, but I can form a government with less seats. A clear and concrete government without having to cozy up to the left-wing parties and the Islamic movement. A proper nationalist government."
Q: Do you feel a sense of relief following your dramatic announcement?
Since making the announcement, an enormous weight has dropped from my shoulders. Until then, every time I was interviewed – for example about the coronavirus pandemic – I was asked whether I would run, and I had to work my way around it. That isn't healthy. After my announcement, a lot of journalists said to me, 'Well, now at least you're all saying openly in your name what you have been saying behind closed doors.' I prefer that kind of transparency."
Rumors that he would run began way before his official announcement in a television interview about a month ago, and Edelstein relates that he received messages of support and goodwill from across the political spectrum, including in the Likud, and from both the opposition and the coalition. He reveals that about a month before announcing that he would challenge Netanyahu for leadership of Likud, 'a coalition MK' went up and asked him if it was true that he would run. "I answered him affirmatively and he asked if I had a chance. I explained that without a chance. I would not have run. He said to me, good luck and went off. But then he stopped and said 'one second, if you are elected, our coalition will fall apart.' Those were his words.
Q: Who was this anonymous MK?
"I won't reveal his name. But very few people have argued with my analysis. Likud MKs show loyalty to Netanyahu in the media, but in personal conversation, not one of them would say to me, you've lost it."
Q: If your plan doesn't work out and you end up finding yourself out of the Likud, will you set up your own party?
"I won't set up my own party. I was and will remain in the Likud. I plan to win and to lead the party. That is another difference between Gideon Sa'ar and me. With Gideon, from the start, it was clear that there was a personal issue and a personal battle with Netanyahu. With me, I would say that after the past year everyone understands that I have no personal issues or rivalry with Netanyahu. We worked together on the coronavirus. When I was Minister of Health, we would spend a lot of time together and appeared many times in press conferences together. Netanyahu and I know how to work together but Netanyahu's path back to the premiership is blocked. That is the reality."
Q: If you and Netanyahu get on so well, how is it that even though you sit side by side in the plenum, you barely exchange a word?
"I speak with Netanyahu all the time. We read the same books and magazines and we exchange reading materials and discuss what we have read. He consulted with me before making a speech just hours after I announced that I would run against him. Just recently, during the marathon of nighttime votes on the state budget, we had to keep each other awake. People shouted to me, 'why aren't you watching over Bibi who case the wrong vote six times.' They would shout out 'Keep an eye on him.'"
Q: Last week you had a face-to-face meeting with Netanyahu. What was said?
"The official answer is that the meeting between us dealt with ways to bring down the government. I of course will not leak what was said in a face-to-face conversation. We have worked together for 30 years and I think that during the coronavirus crisis we spent more nights together than with our families. In the meeting we did indeed speak about ways to bring down the government. Our conversation was friendly and we are on the same side. It is no secret that Netanyahu believes that he has the ability to regain the premiership, but I cannot see this happening… My decision has not made us enemies who are out to poison each other."
Q: Did you also speak about a date for holding the Likud primary?
"We did talk about the party primary as well, but there is no date. I can tell you that both Netanyahu and myself are willing to hold the primary whenever the Party Central Committee decides to hold it. I am working to bring the primary forward … and I am meeting with members of the Central Committee and explaining to them why it is essential, and realistic, to hold the primary in the coming months. It is the Likud Central Committee and no one else who will decide and I am doing everything to persuade them."
While he has received extensive support, Edelstein is also worried about some of the responses he has received since making his announcement. "I will tell you something sad that has occurred over recent weeks. Alongside the support I have received, people tell me all the time, 'Well done it was a courageous step. You are a courageous man.' Every time I hear that, I feel like crying."
Q: Why do you feel like crying?
"Because I have chosen to take a step that it is absolutely normal. It isn't like I stormed a terrorist cell with my bare hands. I had to remind myself that I am a senior member of a democratic party that after many years in power has gone into opposition."
"Do you really not understand why challenging Netanyahu for the leadership of the Likud is considered a courageous step?
"What have things come to if it is courageous for someone other than Netanyahu to be elected. Netanyahu is not threatening. In my life, I have experienced people who are far more threatening. I am a graduate of the gulags, and prisons where I was jailed with the sharks of the Soviet underworld who were with me in my cell 24/7. So, nobody in the Israeli political system should think that they can scare me.
"My relationship with Netanyahu was good on the whole. There were arguments as well, as the public can see. But I never acted out of hatred, jealousy, or a desire to hurt someone else. We will face off against each other, and I will not be throwing dirt at Netanyahu or any of the other challengers – should there be any. I will display my capabilities, my way, and my experience, and from my point of view that is enough.
Q: How have the other potential challengers readying for the day after Netanyahu – Nir Barkat, Miri Regev, Israel Katz, Avi Dichter – responded to your announcement.?
"I speak with all of them all the time. And there is no one from the Likud faction, certainly not among the senior potential challengers, that I cannot sit down with for a good conversation. I always remember and understand that the day after victory in the primary, I will have to work with all of them. It is important that everyone feels that their political path has not come to an end just because I won. They can be part of the leadership and I will talk with everyone."
Q: Why are you of all people challenging Netanyahu? You have never been a senior minister, or a minister with a security portfolio. You don't have big support in the polls. Is that a resume that is suitable for the premiership?
"I remember how someone who was not just a general but one of our most talented generals, Ehud Barak, managed to mess up the country within a year and a half. So, with all due respect to the most advanced military titles, they show nothing about compatibility for the premiership. There are no shortcuts on the way to the premiership and there is no knight on a white horse who will suddenly appear and lead the people toward the sunset. Not Benny Gantz who was chief of staff. What would he do for example if an MK refuses to vote for the budget? Would he sentence him to a week in military prison?
"I have 25 years of experience in the Knesset, seven years of experience as Knesset speaker. I know how to manage a coalition and I am someone who everybody will accept. During my years as Knesset speaker, and as a member of the Security Cabinet. I was exposed to the most sensitive security intelligence and I participated in decisions on these issues. Security is not just about how to deploy soldiers in an ambush; it is also about sitting with the President of the United States, with the President of Russia, or the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The army goes into action when diplomacy has failed."
Q: Are you trying to gain Netanyahu's support for the day after?
"If he remains within the political system, then obviously, we will work together and I will make every effort to continue to seek his advice and his assistance. He has enormous experience. No one can take his achievements during the course of his career. The [American] Embassy in Jerusalem and recognition of sovereignty in the Golan Heights are real achievements. So, to anyone that says to me, 'With all due respect Yuli, people like you, but Netanyahu is Netanyahu.' I say stop comparing me with Netanyahu, compare me with Lapid."
Q: Are you following the Netanyahu trial?
"To be honest, I don't follow it on a daily basis. But I have seen some of the accusations against him fall apart due to lack of proof. When I say that I am not following it, I say that because we all know how slowly the justice system works and that the trial is likely to go on for many years. I hope that Netanyahu is found innocent. And I would like to note on that point, that everyone is innocent until the courts have found otherwise."
Q: Is there a connection, as MK David Bitan has claimed, between your declaration that you will run against Netanyahu and the move to pass a law that anyone indicted for serious criminal offenses will not be able to form a coalition?
"I believe that the law that Gideon Sa'ar is trying to advance is uneccessary. It will just amplify the feeling that Netanyahu is being hunted by all sides. As someone who has said that he wants a clean race, I think this only hurts me. This damages me far more than it does Netanyahu. If such a law were to pass, Netanyahu could then say, 'You can all see that everybody is after me and that this is a personal law. Give me a majority, and I will change that law.' If I had had coordinated things with Sa'ar as has been claimed, then I would have asked him not to propose such legislation."
Q: What do you think of the behavior of some Likud MKs in the plenum recently? Haven't they gone overboard?
"What I would say to those MKs is that you can make your position very clear, without being extreme. There is no need for shouting, screaming and cursing. We need to remember that we are being watched. Many Likud supporters have said to me that they are ashamed of this behavior. Many Likud supporters want to see a different style"
Q: How does it feel to see Knesset speaker Mickey Levy sitting in the seat where you used to sit?
"I let go of that role. I left it because of the gross interference of the High Court of Justice. [Which in March 2020 intervened at the request of Blue and White, the Arab Joint List, Israel Beiteinu, and Labor-Gesher-Meretz to force an immediate debate for the election of a new speaker. D.R.A] I resigned because I could not carry out the instruction of the High Court which were given without any foundation or legal authority.
"But if you are asking, I remember myself as Minister of Absorption. It was important to me to help new immigrants and I was in the office from eight in the morning to midnight. When Ehud Barak took power, I was forced to leave and then, and this is absolutely true, every time I saw Minister Yuli Tamir on TV in the role that used to be mine, I felt that I had caught my wife cheating on me. The Ministry of Absorption was mine and now it was having an affair with Yuli Tamir. How could this be?"
Q: Do you also feel that way when you see Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who has stepped into your shoes?
"I was 41 then, now I am 63. I have let go and I look forward and move on. I had the privilege of managing a crisis that was perhaps among the most serious that the State of Israel has ever faced. And I had the opportunity to save lives. I am not stuck in the past."
Q: What is your opinion of the way in which the present government is dealing with the fourth wave of the pandemic?
We gave them a country that was vaccinated and free of the pandemic, and we had even enabled people to remove their masks in closed spaces. The new government dismissed the professionals and acted arrogantly out of a lack of experience, and the result was that it didn't respond in time. There was a populist wave that led to unnecessary morbidity and death."
Q: Isn't it the case that the Delta variant changed the picture after you left office?
"I don't buy Bennett's theory that it's not coronavirus, it's Delta. It took the government seven weeks to understand that things weren't working. They waited too long and there were unnecessary deaths. I too would not have imposed lockdowns in a vaccinated country, but they should have reacted faster."
Q: At the start of the pandemic, after a press conference where you gave out pandemic guidelines to Israeli citizens, you held a birthday party at your house for your wife with a lot of people present. Looking back, do you regret that?
"Everything was done according to the guidelines. I would do the same thing over again, because I did nothing wrong. I always said that I wasn't asking people to stop living, just to stick to the guidelines."
Q: Your wife Irina is a candidate for the position of chairman of the Jewish Agency. Does that have any connection to the timing of your announcement that you will run against Netanyahu?
"The first time I heard that hypothesis, I laughed. After all, what I am saying is that I have the power to bring down this government immediately and stop Yair Lapid from becoming prime minister. After all that, Lapid suddenly falls in love with me and decides to help my wife be elected to the position of chairman of the Jewish Agency? It is unfortunate that this has been the response, especially from women, some of whom define themselves as feminists and fighters for women.
"They say about Irina that she is married to Yuli Edelstein and therefore she will implement his policy. That makes me sick. We are in the 21st century and a husband and wife can each have their own independent career. My wife is challenging for this position based on her achievements at the Museum of the Jewish people and in other fields. None of them thanks to the career of her husband."
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