It's been two weeks since Moshe Kahlon announced that he was leaving politics. Since then, the outgoing Likud communications minister has turned into a national treasure. Column upon nostalgia-filled column has been written about Kahlon, praising his popularist policies as the gladiator who took on the tycoons.
The Kahlon festival reached its zenith on Tuesday, when he was crowned as the new hope of Israel's center-left bloc in the upcoming elections, set for January 22, 2013.
According to the reports that started to appear on Tuesday evening and in all the newspapers on Wednesday morning, Kahlon's associates commissioned a poll by the Rafi Smith Institute predicting that a party headed by the outgoing minister would nab a significant chunk of the power of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
The poll predicted that a new party led by Kahlon would win 20 Knesset seats, and even as many as 26 if Kahlon runs together with Tzipi Livni on the same ticket. A link-up between Livni and Kahlon, it was explained, would bring about a revolution in Israeli politics, and would remove Netanyahu. Israel Labor Party Chairwoman Shelly Yacimovich hurried to jump on the findings, and announced that she was inviting Kahlon to run with her.
This is all well and good. But before we sew the final threads into the next center-left government, we should check Moshe Kahlon's positions in a number of marginal issues, such as the peace process, the occupation of the West Bank, the settlements and the rule of law. A quick Google search reveals that, to the same extent that Kahlon is a socialist, he also holds opinions that the most extreme right-wing members of the Knesset would be proud of.
Here are a few reminders:
Two months ago, Kahlon arrived for a visit in the Samaria Regional Council, as the guest of Mayor Gershon Mesika, who recently argued that recent "price tag" attacks – usually acts of vandalism by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and other targets, mainly in the West Bank - are a Palestinian provocation. Kahlon and Mesika visited the Itamar settlement, where, according to a report by Israel national news, Kahlon expressed his support [2]for the adoption of the Levy report [3]
on legalizing illegal West Bank settlements.
"This report is updated and important….we must adopt this innovative report….adopting its conclusions will strengthen the settlements," Kahlon said.
For those who might have forgotten, the Levy report rejected the claim that Israel's presence in the territories is that of an occupying force, finding that West Bank outposts are not illegal under international law. The report recommended the legalization of many illegal outposts.
Last March, Kahlon appeared at a political conference in Caesarea at the side of extreme right-wing Likud member Moshe Feiglin, who spoke about the evacuation of the illegal West Bank outpost of Migron, and his intention to stop the evacuation with a new law that would bypass the High Court ruling on Migron. In a video uploaded to YouTube, Kahlon is seenexpressing his support [4] for such a law, and said that he would not help Likud members in the primaries who did not support the initiative. "The law is above the High Court," Kahlon said, adding, "The High Court can rule however it wants."
In April 2011, a few months before the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, Kahlon met with young Likud members and expressed his support for annexing the West Bank, and applying Israeli law on the West Bank and its 2.5 million Palestinian residents. According to recordings from the meeting [5] that were broadcast on Radio Galey Israel, which serves the national-religious community, Kahlon said that if the Palestinian were granted statehood status at the UN, "We must annex all the territories that same day." He added that "You declared a state? No problem, we will also make a declaration. As children say – you started it."
In that same meeting, Kahlon said he supported the expansion of settlement construction in the West Bank, even outside of the settlement blocs. "There is construction outside of the blocs, and it is being built at an awe-inspiring speed. Should I tell you this is stopping? The answer is no," Kahlon said.
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