Gilad Erdan.. Comedian as an Alternative to Netanyahu | Politics

Gilad Erdan may not have been a household name as Israel's outgoing ambassador to the United Nations before his sometimes risqué, sometimes clown-like, stances became a fixture at the UN building over the past four years.

This person was not known to many people in the Arab world when he headed one of the most dangerous and important Israeli ministries in the previous Netanyahu government between 2015 and 2020, which is the Ministry of Internal Security, which is now headed – by the way – by the extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, who changed its name to the “Ministry of National Security.”

When Netanyahu decided to send Erdan to New York to serve as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in May 2020, just two months after that year’s Knesset elections, many observers at the time saw his primary goal as removing him from the Israeli domestic scene; fearing him.

At the time, Erdan did not hide his intention to run for the leadership of the Likud party and present himself as an alternative to Netanyahu after what he considered to be major achievements in the Ministry of Internal Security, especially since he considered himself the greatest and most powerful innovator of the Israeli police doctrine in Jerusalem, and one of the most influential internal security ministers in changing the way the occupation police operate in Jerusalem in particular and the rest of the Green Line areas. The ideal solution that Netanyahu saw at the time was to deport him to New York in what resembled exile.

But Erdan turned the tables in New York and became a star in the international media whenever he performed one of his stunts, which were often described as acrobatic and clownish, on the UN podium, such as when he carried a UN resolution and threw it in the trash can in front of the world, or when he tore up the UN Charter in front of the world in protest against the vote to accept Palestine’s full membership in the organization, or when he publicly insulted all the countries of the world without shame.

Passing through the movement that angered the world and even the “Holocaust and Heroism” Foundation in Israel, when he wore the yellow badge that distinguished Jews in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, until he ended it by issuing outrageous statements, such as his last call to destroy the United Nations building and level it to the ground!

Although these moves may seem childish and ridiculous to observers and diplomats, they were always intentional on the part of Erdan, who seems to have understood Netanyahu’s goal of keeping him nine thousand kilometers away from the political scene in Tel Aviv. Therefore, he was determined not to give Netanyahu the opportunity to succeed in removing him from the scene. Instead, he sought to exploit any opportunity to steal the spotlight through a move here or a word there, in the same populist style as Itamar Ben-Gvir, who made some of his haters inside Israel call him the TikTok Minister.

Instead of Gilad Erdan's name fading inside Israel, we saw him shine globally with his populism and arrogant, indifferent style, a style that appeals to the followers of the Israeli right who consider that ethnic and religious superiority is what distinguishes Israelis from the entire world.

Therefore, with Erdan's mission ending with his resignation after a financial scandal that did not receive the necessary coverage and follow-up in the Israeli arena yet, he sought to draw attention to himself at the last moment, so he gave his last speech, which he concluded, as usual, by directing insults and humiliations at the United Nations, accusing it of anti-Semitism, and boasting about his army, which he considered “the most moral in the world”!

He then posted a video from the corridors of the UN building attacking the exhibition that was placed in the entrance hall of the UN building on the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism, which falls on August 21 of each year, simply because the exhibition published a picture of a Palestinian victim killed in a terrorist act in New Zealand and did not publish any picture of an Israeli victim of “Palestinian terrorism,” as he put it.

He took advantage of this to explicitly call for the abolition of the United Nations and the establishment of an alternative organization, and then appeared directly after in an interview with the Israeli channel i24 and explicitly called for the destruction of the United Nations building and razing it to the ground, and the closure of all United Nations headquarters and affiliated institutions in the occupied territories.

All these moves were not in vain. In the same interview that was broadcast by the Israeli network and whose content was reported by some Israeli newspapers, especially the blatant call to destroy the UN building and raze it to the ground, Gilad Erdan was keen to announce that he sees himself as the leader of the Likud Party after Netanyahu. Thus, Erdan finally revealed the truth about his populist movements and their goals throughout the past years, and perhaps since THe was given the portfolio of internal security in Israel in 2015.

When Gilad Erdan was Israel's Minister of Internal Security, the period witnessed TThis position brought him a number of dangerous events in the Palestinian territories, as Erdan began his position by confronting the wave of stabbings that swept through Jerusalem during the events of the Jerusalem Intifada that year. He was also responsible for the occupation police during the events of the Lions’ Gate and the electronic gates in Jerusalem in 2017, and the events of the Bab al-Rahma Intifada in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2019.

During this complex phase, the city of Jerusalem witnessed, under the leadership of Erdan, a fundamental change in the doctrine of the occupation police in Al-Aqsa Mosque, as Erdan worked to modify the work of the occupation police to protect the settlers in Al-Aqsa Mosque during their storming operations, which Gilad Erdan had boasted about in a television interview on one of the Israeli networks during the 2020 elections.

This also made him clearly close to the Israeli far right, especially the religious settler movement, although he is considered part of the secular far right movement, not the religious movement because he is simply not religious.

Gilad Erdan's presentation of himself at this stage as an alternative to Netanyahu based on his history in the Ministry of Internal Security and his positions at the United Nations may increase divisions within the ranks of the Israeli right itself at this stage instead of uniting them behind him. Erdan came to present himself today as an alternative to Netanyahu based on his belief that the Israeli extreme right still remembers what he did for it during his ministry between 2015 and 2020. Therefore, he believes that the time has come to repay the favor he has done for this movement by providing it with support in return to take Netanyahu's place as head of the Likud Party.

But what seems to have been miscalculated by Erdan at this stage is that recent years have witnessed the rise of a fierce competitor to him from the heart of the religious Zionist movement, namely Itamar Ben-Gvir, who clearly declares his ambition to lead the entire right in Israel, not just the religious Zionist movement and the extreme far right. And also the strong emergence of Bezalel Smotrich on the Israeli scene, even though he has not yet declared any ambition to lead the right in Israel as Ben Gvir did.

As long as the religious Zionist movement, which represents the far-right groups that Gilad Erdan served during his ministry, was able to promote figures from the movement’s solid bloc to be an alternative not only to Netanyahu but to the Likud Party as a whole, why would members of this movement lean toward someone from outside their movement like Gilad Erdan, when they could be at the head of the right without needing anyone else?

Therefore, I believe that Gilad Erdan will not have much luck in the future with the members of the extreme right-wing currents in Israel. Also, his return to the domestic political arena at this time to try to compete with Netanyahu or remove him from the scene and replace him, or even wait until Netanyahu's inevitable political end comes, will not help him to replace him and lead the Israeli right.

It seems to me that Netanyahu was smarter than Erdan when he removed him from the Israeli domestic arena and made him play in the international arena far from the Israeli interior.

Erdan gained nothing from all of this except the contempt of the peoples of the earth and their politicians alike for his ridiculous clownish positions. I think he did not gain the Israeli right, which is currently preoccupied with major projects presented directly by the far right, especially with the presence of a strong theoretical figure like Smotrich, and the presence of an alternative who offers the same populist recipe as Erdan, namely Ben Gvir. Erdan is now out of the political game in Israel, and will have nothing more than memories of his videos, which we can classify as black political comedy.