JERUSALEM — No longer having a majority in the Knesset, Prime Minister Ehud Barak moved rapidly this week to shift public attention away from his political weakness to his gritty determination to stay in power.
Barak filled four cabinet positions, which had been held by parties that left his coalition, with members of his One Israel Party.
Almost immediately, the new cabinet members set about purging officials put in place by the previous ministers.
Dozens of aides, advisers, consultants, secretaries and drivers that were appointed by the former ministers were swept out. The new ministers are now putting in their own people — much to the chagrin of the former coalition partners that previously ran the ministries.
At the same time, government sources intimated that informal talks with the Palestinians are continuing with a view to resuming the peace negotiations broken off at Camp David last month.
And in a third step designed to shore up his power — or at least the perception of his power — Barak launched into high-profile discussions with possible new coalition allies with a view to shoring up his much depleted coalition.
The disposal at the ministries included the peremptory dismissal — it was billed a “resignation” — of the director general of the foreign ministry, Eitan Ben-Tsur, and the recall of Likud-appointed envoys abroad, among them the ambassador to France.
Barak, who took over the Foreign Ministry himself after the resignation last week of David Levy, plans to appoint a diplomat and close political confidant, Alon Liel, as director general. Liel served as Israeli ambassador to South Africa during the 1990s.
Levy reacted by claiming that Barak had “lost his senses” and was trying to ram through appointments while he still has power.
But Barak denied that he was “settling the score” with Levy, who resigned amid charges that Barak had conceded too much at Camp David.
“It is natural for the director general to change when a new minister comes in,” Barak said at a briefing Tuesday. “As for the ambassadors, their contracts were up, and they had known this for a long time.”
In the reshuffling of other cabinet assignments, Communications Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer took over the housing portfolio; Finance Minister Avraham Shochat assumed the Infrastructure Ministry; cabinet minister Haim Ramon took over the Interior Ministry; and Justice Minister Yossi Beilin assumed the religious affairs portfolio.
These ministries had been held by the three parties — Shas, Yisrael Ba’Aliyah and the National Religious Party — that bolted the governing coalition on the eve of the Camp David summit.
Barak and his team of ministers made it clear that there would be a price to be paid for these defections.
Moving into the Religious Affairs Ministry, Beilin ordered the transfer of a key rabbinical department to the Chief Rabbinate. This department, which is responsible for the appointment of hundreds of rabbis around Israel, has traditionally been a fertile source of patronage for the political parties that have run the ministry — most recently Shas.
Barak and his party are determined to create an image of business as usual, despite the premier’s perilous condition in the Knesset, where the coalition controls only 42 of the parliament’s 120 seats.
They are using the current three-month Knesset recess to reassert their control over the country and perhaps rebuild their coalition.
Meanwhile, the effort to resuscitate the peace process received a boost this week from Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who said there might be another summit after the Democratic Party convention is held next week in Los Angeles.
Barak said it is still too soon to talk about a new summit. “I have not heard about the convening of a summit, and I doubt that conditions are right for such a summit,” Barak said Tuesday.
Just the same, he confirmed reports that unsuccessful presidential candidate and 1993 Oslo Accord architect Shimon Peres is involved in backroom talks with the Palestinians about Jerusalem, the issue that scuttled the summit.