Blue and White discuss the possibility of strengthening Gideon Sa'ar: They are clear that tackling the Likud under his leadership will bring Gantz to the prime minister • The only thing that is growing is suspicion • Netanyahu is struggling to make the lemon primaries lemonade • And why the Prosecutor's Office is disapproving of the Ohana candidate - who has since retired

• Will the Rebbe's prophecy come true, contrary to all estimates? Netanyahu this week at a conference in Kfar Chabad

The polls are the second largest party, but most of the attention is now directed to the Likud-led primaries. The possibility that Netanyahu would be defeated, or at least embarrassed, has succeeded in igniting the imagination of many in the political system who have long wished for this day. The contest for Likud leaders has long crossed the party's borders. Various elements have already begun to stir in the inner arena, with the intention of shaping the consciousness of those with the right to vote in Likud.

Discussions on the Likud primaries also reached the top of the blue and white tier this week. During the discussions at the party headquarters, there was a need to help Gideon Sa'ar's candidacy. The possibility that Storm will be elected Likud opens for new-minded members of Gantz who have been blocked as long as Netanyahu is there. Gantz never said he would not sit with the Likud. The opposite: In the last election campaign, the huge blue-and-white billboards claimed that they are facing a secular unity government. The disqualification is that of Netanyahu personally. If Saar were in his place, a government would be formed within a few days, and Gantz would have fulfilled his dream of becoming prime minister.

During those talks, it was estimated that if faced with the Likud-led Likud, blue-and-white would win a significantly higher mandate. This will ensure that Gantz is first in the rotation as prime minister. Also, no rotation is required: Netanyahu created a bloc bloc with the right-wing factions and ultra-Orthodox parties, much of which was based on the personal commitment of the party leaders to Netanyahu. It is not certain that a storm will succeed in establishing such a bloc, with such loyalty, so that the government's mission of train may be easier for Gantz, without having to rely on partnership with the Likud. This will save him the need for rotation, and he can serve for four years.

bear hug

But as the idea fascinated blue-white heads, leading them to sail to the barren districts, when they returned to reality, they found themselves facing the central question: How on earth could Gideon Sa'ar actually be helped?

With the Likud's main opposition party moving forward, the ground for cooperation was fertile. Much of the party's surface power was based on Likud territory, and it remained subject to many pressure and influence. But between Blue and White and the Likud there is virtually no interface. There are several blue-and-white councilors, under whom Likud deputies can be pressured; But as far as national primaries are concerned, their degree of influence is small to nonexistent.

Going between the drops. Gideon Saer // Photo: Yossi Zeliger

Another proposal that came up in white and blue is to brief journalists for Gideon Sa'ar, a move that will contribute to strengthening his image in the general public and among the 160,000 functionaries. But this idea is also considered problematic. In the party led by Gantz, they noticed that the media, at least for the most part, was mobilized anyway for his benefit, so intervention could be more harmful than helpful. Should the Likudniks discover that Storm is their favorite candidate? Only it lacks white and blue. Even so, the level of suspicion of anger increases as antislavery elements - for example, political commentators who have never been in favor of the party - embrace it to the point of suffocation.

More cautious than right-wing candidates who received overt support from Netanyahu's mischief, just because they challenged the prime minister. Many before him faced the same dilemma. The sudden hug from the media is warm, caressing and addictive. Every statement against Netanyahu becomes a headline; Each conference is presented as a success; Every household - as the beginning of a makeover; And a little Teflon covers negative publications, marginalizing them and almost eliminating them from the discourse.

But there is also a price. Likud voters have a well-developed sense of smell. Interpreters' assessments of their degree of thought independence - are usually suicidal. When the party's regular slanders become honest candidates of a particular candidate, the level of doubt there increases. That's why Saar goes between the drops: enjoys the grip of the left, but doesn't stop for a moment with the right.

Netanyahu did not want the primaries in the Likud and made efforts to cancel them. Only when he realized that the damage of getting behind a procedure that would leave him in office would outweigh the benefits, he agreed. Now, a week after his campaign got underway, the prime minister didn't seem to have changed his mind. He scours the area as it has not scorched for a long time, holds dozens of conferences a week, meets with tens of thousands of activists and enjoys the support of worship. The people come to conferences as Likud supporters and come out of burnt, groupies fans. The activists refer to Netanyahu in biblical terms. Older women spread their hands over his head and gently greet him with tears of excitement; men testify that every Saturday they mention his name - Benjamin Ben-Zila - in front of the open ark and wish him good luck.

This week, Netanyahu found time to reach the central meeting of Chabad devotees in Kfar Chabad. He was very excited about his encounters with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He described the first meeting between them, shortly after taking office as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. It happened at the Hasidic Midrash in Brooklyn, during Simchat Torah holiday in 1984. The Rebbe then talked to Netanyahu for more than 40 minutes.

Before the prime minister took the stage, a video was shown in the synagogue hall where Netanyahu was seen in his last meeting with the Rebbe, in 1992, when he was already a Likud MK. The Rebbe praised him for his inaugural address after his inauguration, noting Because "you will face 119, but you have nothing to do with it, because the Holy One is on this side." Today, when everything seems to be closing in and his forced retirement from political life is presented as ever closer, Netanyahu believes that the things he was told in Brooklyn 27 years ago were told about the period He also believes that the Rebbe's prophecy, contrary to all estimates, will come true.

Another strain

Orly Ben Ari-Ginsburg, who announced on Friday night that she was resigning for the State Attorney's Office, is a different attorney. For more than two decades, she has seen senior prosecutors work vigorously to change the state's face with the power entrusted to them, shifting their focus She saw - and did not join in the celebration - apparently she had learned, already, a lesson in the limits of corrupting power, on humanity's violation of public trust, rather than drifting in the winds of the Justice Department, she preferred to be careful. To maintain the framework in which she believes the Prosecutor's Office should Will, without exceeding the dangerous areas of partnership with elected officials running the country.

She paid a personal price for this position. She tried three times to take on a senior management role, and was rejected by her superiors three times. Despite an unqualified appreciation for her professionalism and function, which was immaculate, she made sure to leave her at her current rank and not ahead.

This happened not only because of her independence and unwillingness to align with the ruling junta in the prosecutor's office and in the justice system, but also, probably, due to the immaturity of the white tribe's leaders. Those who hold a level in the most elitist institution in the executive branch since the establishment of the state. Make no mistake: racism, unfortunately, is not just the case; The political system, the judicial system and other systems also suffer. But while many bodies have changed over the years - even for obvious reasons, to stave off criticism and increase public confidence - in all the years of the State Attorney's Office, the body whose ways are hidden and acting as a closed and closed clique has failed to overcome prejudice this time. The instincts for which the prosecutor's office has always acted as uniform and unambiguous.

The fact that, since its inception and until today, no non-Ashkenazi person on the fourth floor of Salah-Din Street has entered - it is probably only a symbol. Or maybe more.

Following the flutist Lightning

Ehud Barak was a special politician. One that has left a long trail of former politicians who are ready to follow him for meaningless political adventures and end up deserted and lonely to their fate, with no home and no foreseeable future. Now joining the extended list - which includes Shalom Simhon, Orit Noked, Einat Wilf and others - also Shapir and Yair Golan. The connection of the Democratic camp and Meretz - a promise that comes with counting votes - is almost certainly breaking down. Meretz prefers their friend who was ejected from the list last time, Issawi Fridge, over Shafir and Golan who did not deliver the goods. The party claims that the leak of Arab-Israeli voices from Meretz to the joint list, which was the result of Fridge's repression, caused tremendous electoral damage. The blow that Shapir, Golan and Ehud Barak failed to make up.

Shafir accepted a bid - shameful, as far as she was concerned - to win fifth place on the Meretz list, a bid that led her to threaten retirement and set up a competing green list. This is an empty threat: a statement about the establishment of a party like the announcement of a retirement from the political system.

Almost everywhere

Ayelet Shaked was again caught unprepared. Instead of announcing immediately that she is part of Naftali Bennett's new right, she is now considering primaries for the religious Zionist party, which is not sure that they will. It is estimated that Shaked will eventually return home to Bennett, a step that will allow religious Zionism to unite.

Ayelet Shaked was again caught unprepared // Photo: Amit Shavi

To date, they have done so through muddy battles and closing at the last minute, thus contributing to lowering public confidence in them and reaching the launch line of the election campaign torn and squeezed from internal struggles. For now, this time seems to be no different from her predecessors.

Amir Peretz is not interested in additional unions in addition to the one he carried out with a bridge headed by Orly Levy, but is already preparing the ground for political union in the event of a continuous scuffle in the polls and the danger of not passing the blocking percentage. Merger with Meretz, for him, is out of the question, certainly not when the package also includes a benign fall.

Peretz prefers union with blue and white. He already had a few preparatory talks with Gantz, but for now the two have decided not to wait and wait for the last minute, the polls to be then and the assessments to be made before closing the lists. Gantz also pledged not to go with Peretz in that case. If left unchecked, the Labor chairman may find himself suing Nitzan Horowitz, and may even swallow a benign fall on a unified list.