Tel Aviv train line going nowhere as PM battles to stay on track - The Jewish Chronicle

As the sun set over the Knesset on Wednesday evening, Yair Lapid still had no idea whether he would become Israel’s new prime minister within a few hours.

It was supposed to have been a simple procedure, once he and Naftali Bennett had announced the previous Monday that their coalition could no longer govern. The coalition and the opposition were to quickly agree on the election date and vote to dissolve the Knesset. Under the terms of the coalition agreement, Mr Lapid would then replace Mr Bennett as prime minister at midnight. But it turned out to be far from simple.

First, the opposition employed delaying tactics, in the hope of enticing enough coalition members to support a new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, without the need for elections. By Monday, when it became clear there would not be enough defectors to form a new majority, the dissolution process began to roll. Then the parties, both in coalition and opposition, began bickering. There were still laws to pass at the last minute and the parties began vying over which of their favoured pieces of legislation would get through.

The main sticking point was the “Metro Law”, aimed at giving the government-wide, sweeping powers to push ahead the planning procedures for an underground beneath Tel Aviv and the outlying cities. Plans to build a Tel Aviv underground go back nearly 90 years to the days of the British Mandate. But breaking the ground on Israel’s largest transportation project has never been so tantalisingly within grasp. Nor, as anyone who has spent hours in traffic jams in Israel’s second city knows, so urgently needed.

The plans, the funding, even the original draft of the Metro Law were already prepared by the previous Netanyahu government. And yet, Mr Netanyahu’s opponents were anxious not to allow the outgoing government to get any of the credit for passing it. They also wanted to leverage the legislation to get a more favourable election date.

Telavivians don’t know when they will finally be able to go underground. If the law can’t be passed before the Knesset’s dissolution, the project will be delayed for at least six months before a new government can get to work. And son of Tel Aviv, Mr Lapid, doesn’t know when he can start his new job.

HOUSE SWAP

Yair Lapid at least knows where he will spend his first night as prime minister. The living arrangements of his two immediate predecessors were the cause of much controversy and he’s determined to avoid that.

During the Netanyahu years, the intimate goings-on within the prime minister’s official residence on Balfour Street were revealed in a string of lawsuits brought by former employees claiming abuse by Sara Netanyahu, as well as in media exposés, State Comptroller reports and even police investigations into the alleged misuse of funds for the residence’s upkeep.

Upon becoming prime minister last year, Mr Bennett tried to avoid all that. He preferred not to uproot his young family from Ra’anana and besides, the residence was to undergo a long-overdue refurbishment. But his decision not to move to Jerusalem caused its own set of minor scandals, including tens of millions spent on security modifications around his home, making his neighbours' lives hell, and allegations of overuse of a government-funded takeaway account.

Mr Lapid will serve as caretaker prime minister while fighting an election. He wants to make the next few months as scandal-free as possible, and is planning on moving immediately into the secure zone on Balfour Street, so that no changes need to be made around his home in North Tel Aviv. The official residence is far from ready for new occupants, so he intends to stay meanwhile in an adjacent building, which is in use by the Shin Bet security service.

But nothing is simple when it comes to Jerusalem real estate. Reports on television that he would be staying in Villa Salameh on Balfour Street caused many locals to raise an eyebrow.

Built in 1935 by the Arab-Christian businessman Constantine Salameh, the elegant building is considered Jerusalem’s most opulent private home. Certainly fit for a prime minister, but also the subject of several lawsuits, including by heirs of the Salameh family disputing the expropriation of the building after Israel’s independence. As right-wing critics of the government were quick to point out on social media, this was hardly the humble flat that Mr Lapid’s staff had been briefing he would live in. Left-wing critics were lambasting him for living in “a Palestinian home.”

It soon transpired that the original reports were only half-right.

Mr Lapid would be living in a different Villa Salameh, this one built by a Hana Salameh, over which there are no legal disputes, and which has indeed been used for years by the Shin Bet as a place for the prime minister’s bodyguards to rest.

There are lot of unique things about Jerusalem. Among them, it is probably the only city where one small street has two separate homes with the same name, as well as the prime minister and his staff living in them.

PMs residenc Credit Yaakov Saar GPO

Seat of power: The prime minister’s official residence on Balfour Street, Jerusalem (Photo: Yaakov Saar)

BIDEN HIS TIME

But Mr Lapid will very soon have even more pressing problems than his accommodation. The reports that the talks on the Iranian nuclear agreement are to resume in the coming days were followed by the surprise arrival of negotiation teams in Qatar on Tuesday.

The round of talks was held in Qatar to address the financial issues between Iran and the United States (though the Iranians and Americans didn’t engage directly) and ended inconclusively on Wednesday night. However, the fact that they took place in a country which is close to Iran was an indication that the Biden administration, while taking a tougher stance than many expected, is still trying to return to the JCPOA.

GettyImages-1405803111

International relations: President Joe Biden (Photo: Getty Images)

Israeli analysts believe that the chances of a deal remain at most 50-50, but this is higher than they thought in recent months. They have been surprised by the fact that the Iranians have come back to the negotiations, despite the American refusal to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps from the State Department’s blacklist of Foreign Terror Organisations.

The possibility of a return to the nuclear agreement puts Mr Lapid in a bind. Assuming he is prime minister by then, he will be hosting President Joe Biden as he arrives in Israel on 13 July and will want to present to Israeli voters a much healthier relationship with the Democratic administration than his opponent Mr Netanyahu had with Barack Obama. On the other hand, any sign that he is acquiescing to a possible Iran Deal will be used by his opponents as proof of his “weakness” and unsuitability for the role.

Israel’s security chiefs are not making his job any easier. In recent days, the IDF’s military intelligence branch and Mossad have been briefing against each other in the media over whether a return to the Iran Deal would be preferable to having no deal altogether. Military Intelligence’s assessment is that a return to the deal, with all its flaws, would at least give Israel a period during it which could prepare its defences and focus on priorities other than Iran’s nuclear programme as well. Defence Minister Benny Gantz shares this view.

Mossad’s position, which is also that of outgoing prime minister Naftali Bennett, is that due to the “sunset clauses” in the JCPOA, a return to the deal would not give Israel sufficient breathing space, while allowing Iran, through sanctions relief, to rapidly increase the financial support of its proxies encircling Israel: Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

As foreign minister over the last year, Mr Lapid has kept out of this debate. His position, if he has one, is unknown. As prime minister, and with a presidential visit looming just two weeks away, he won’t be able to sit on the fence.

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