He’s known as Israel’s mobile-phone messiah for lowering cellphone rates when he served as the minister of communications. Soon Moshe Kahlon may send shareholders in Israel’s banks scrambling if he becomes the finance minister in the country’s new ruling coalition as expected.
A former member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, Kahlon became a power broker this week when the party he founded just months ago picked up 10 seats in the Parliament on a platform of reducing the cost of living by slashing bureaucracy and breaking up bank monopolies. Kahlon’s bloc provided the margin that gave Netanyahu control of a majority in the 120-seat Parliament.
Now, Kahlon is viewed as likely to moderate Likud’s neoliberal economic policy, even as he’s seen as unlikely to have much impact on foreign affairs. Still, that may be enough to make him a potent rival to Netanyahu, who’s been criticized as doing little to rein in high costs.
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Rachel Azaria, fifth on Kahlon’s slate of candidates, said she was attracted to his singular focus on socioeconomic issues. Azaria said she and Kahlon met after she had worked in Jerusalem to cut the cost of day care and chip away at the monopoly that Orthodox rabbis had on declaring restaurants kosher.
“For the past 20 years we’ve been discussing endlessly the security issues in Israel,” Azaria said. “But when you look at the reasons people are leaving this country, it’s the socioeconomic policy.”
Kahlon, 54, is the son of Libyan immigrants. He grew up as one of seven brothers and sisters in Givat Olga, a town north of Tel Aviv. As an adolescent, he caught and sold fish to help support his parents. He entered Parliament in 2003. As communications minister in 2012, he broke up a cartel that kept wireless carrier costs among the world’s highest. Tariffs for cellphones tumbled by 90 percent.
But Netanyahu saw him as a rival, and the two drifted apart. Later that year, Kahlon quit Likud and left Parliament, then spent two years consulting with academics and experts over how to apply the lessons of the cellphone reform to Israel’s other economic issues.
When Netanyahu called early elections in December, Kahlon was without a party. But he quickly created one and enlisted others to run with him. While Netanyahu invoked threats from Iran, the Islamic State and Hamas, Kahlon’s Kulanu (All of Us) shelved such concerns.
“How many times have you talked about Abu Mazen?” said one of his campaign videos that sought to highlight the imbalance between what affects people and what politicians talk about, using a nickname for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “How many times have you talked about your mortgage?”
Kahlon’s campaign promised to reduce waiting times for building permits and called for punitive taxes on developers who fall behind schedule. On banking, Kahlon pledged to split off credit cards from banks and reduce onerous fees on financial transactions.
In his quest for a kinder economic policy, Kahlon claims he’s restoring the traditional values of Likud, which rose to power in 1977 as a backlash against years of Labor Party rule in which Jews of eastern European descent dominated most levers of power. Jewish immigrants from Arab and Muslim nations found themselves in poor frontier communities with few job opportunities. Kahlon reminded his followers that he was the son of working-class immigrants.
He also won the support of former soccer star Shimon Charnuha, who played for the Beitar Jerusalem team, a favorite of Likud soccer fans. Charnuha appeared at Kahlon’s side at rallies and exhorted Beitar supporters to defect from Likud and vote for the new party.
In the days before Israel’s elections, Netanyahu promised Kahlon the Finance Ministry post should he form the next government. Shares of Israel’s largest banks slid 3 percent following the announcement.
Yet observers are skeptical that Kahlon will be able to effect real change in a Netanyahu-led government. His 10 lawmakers will be part of a 61-member coalition. And Netanyahu is likely to see him as a rival if his success is too great.
“If Netanyahu thinks Kahlon can take a big triumph and turn it against him later on, I wouldn’t put it past (Netanyahu) to block it,” said Niv Elis, a reporter for The Jerusalem Post who’s followed Kahlon.
“Only Bibi is the kingmaker,” said political commentator Tal Schneider.
The detailed approach of Kahlon’s economic policy stands in contrast to his agenda regarding the Palestinians. Officially, the Kulanu party’s foreign-policy chief is former Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, fourth on Kahlon’s slate, who favors a unilateral withdrawal from many West Bank settlements. In a news briefing in January, Oren stressed a “two-state situation” rather than a two-state solution. This willingness to concede some territory to the Palestinians makes Kulanu the most liberal among Netanyahu’s natural coalition allies.
But Elis doesn’t see Kahlon one day defecting to the more dovish Zionist Union, whose leader, Isaac Herzog, gained 24 seats, compared with Likud’s 30.
“I don’t think the electoral map at this point gives Kahlon a lot of leverage to say he quits the government and finds an alternative on the left,” Elis said.