Netanyahu Offers Herzog Ministry Of Inferior

Few, if any, political figures are suited to the post of Minister of the Inferior as well as Herzog.

Jerusalem, April 7 – Prime Minister-elect Binyamin Netanyahu raised the stakes in ongoing coalition negotiations today by dangling the post of Minister of the Inferior before Opposition leader Isaac Herzog.

Most observers and political insiders believe Netanyahu’s actual aim involves a narrow, presumably more stable, coalition with right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties, rather than a national unity government with Herzog’s Labor Party. Herzog himself has repeatedly asserted that he intends to remain in the Opposition, and that any talk of a unity coalition is nothing but a ploy to pressure other potential coalition partners into softening their demands. All agree, however, that few, if any, political figures are suited to the post of Minister of the Inferior as well as Herzog.

During the campaign, the Labor leader was dogged by concerns about his relatively diminutive physical stature, long considered a liability in any campaign for national office in a highly visual era. That worry caused his campaign to avoid portraying him and his taller running mate Tzipi Livni standing on the same surface, lest the sight of her dwarfing him cause the electorate to think him unworthy as a leader.

Herzog then upped the inferiority quotient by openly worrying about his relatively thin speaking voice, recording a campaign ad that asked voters to focus on the real issues, not the superficial – but he used a more sonorous man’s voice-over for the ad, not his own voice, a move that left all other serious possible Ministers of the Inferior in the dust.

Despite his continual insistence that he intends to lead a fighting Opposition – a role that he filled with surprising effectiveness during the previous Knesset term – Herzog might be unable to turn down this plum of a position, especially in light of the fact that no other remotely worthy candidates for the post exist. Meretz chairwoman Zahava Gal-On’s sense of inferiority, while strong, is confined to her profound shame at being born a Jewish Israeli, and does not pervade her very sense of self. Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu has demonstrated the opposite problem, and has specifically expressed more interest in the Ministry of Defensiveness.

The ultra-Orthodox parties are officially uninterested in ministerial positions, which for other figures would be a telltale sign of fitness for the Ministry of the Inferior, but in their case makes them more suitable to the Ministry of Machiavellian Sociopathy. Unfortunately for those MKs, that ministry was absorbed into Ministry of Religious Affairs in 1999 under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and they will likely have to settle for chairmanship of the Finance Committee.

The remaining potential candidates would not be in politics if not for their need to gain validation from others, a key requirement in any Minister of the Inferior, but are overshadowed by Herzog, making this the only sense in which he towers over anyone.

Likud sources told PreOccupied Territory that Netanyahu intends to keep the post of Minister of Schadenfreude for himself.