It’s ‘Bibi’ – The Second Time Around
Finally! Israel gets an election, too.
Elections should have been called in 2005, when divine intervention removed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from office, but it didn’t happen. But now that PM wanna-be Tzipi Livni has admitted failure in convincing 61 out of 120 members of the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, to commit to her platform, Israel will get its chance. Come February, all seats in the Knesset will be up for grabs.
It’s Benjamin – known in Israel as “Bibi” – Netanyahu’s election to lose. His approval rating hovers near 70 percent—higher than during his first term as prime minister from 1996-99. If Likud, Bibi’s party, doesn’t win, it’ll be an upset of the highest order.
Presidents and PMs
Bibi Netanyahu would make a better president of the United States than prime minister of Israel. Alas, it’s a fantasy—westerner though he is, the Tel Aviv-born Bibi is ineligible. Too bad. A president with Bibi’s feisty and unwavering commitment to free-market capitalism is just what’s needed to steer the U.S. through these scary times. Thanks to Bibi, Israel’s economy is relatively strong. It’s largely because of reforms he pushed through as PM, and again in 2003-05 while serving as Sharon’s finance minister, that Israel is economically stable.
What shadows Bibi’s attempt to regain Israel’s highest office is his unfortunate willingness to cede land to Israel’s enemies. As U.S. president, of course, that wouldn’t matter—no one’s pressuring for Manhattan to be given to the Indians or California returned to Mexico. But in Israel, it’s a problem. In negotiations with Yasser Arafat, Arab terrorist-in-chief at the time, Bibi turned most of Hebron over to the Arabs, then followed that by allowing Gaza to become a terrorist stronghold, too, when he could have stopped it. When Ariel Sharon was intent on forcing the country through the “Disengagement,” giving Gaza to the Arabs, Bibi was Sharon’s finance minister. If Bibi had resigned in protest, the government would have fallen, and the disastrous “Disengagement” stopped.
Unfortunately, Bibi blinked. He stayed to implement his economic reforms, and didn’t resign until the land transfer was already underway. By then it was too late. For many Zionistic voters, Bibi’s complicity in allowing the land giveaway approaches the category of “unforgivable.” And remember, religious Zionists are not necessarily fiscal conservatives, so Bibi’s perfidy on Hebron and Gaza looms as a very big problem.
Behind Bibi
All that said, Bibi Netanyahu is an easy guy to like. Born in 1949 – his mother’s parents came from Minneapolis – the family moved from Tel Aviv to Philadelphia when Bibi was 14. He graduated from Cheltenham High, studied at Harvard and then earned two degrees from MIT. He’s smart, personable and extremely articulate.
Women, especially, love Bibi, which even in Israel – with its far more flexible attitudes toward marital fidelity than the more puritanical U.S. – has caused problems. With three marriages and any number of casual alliances, Bibi is Israel’s answer to Bill Clinton.
That said, one of those troublesome dalliances says a lot about Bibi’s character. In 1992, Bibi had an affair while running for the Likud leadership. One day, Sara Netanyahu, Bibi’s wife then and now, received an anonymous telephone call at home. A voice told her that unless Bibi dropped out of the race, an incriminating videotape of him and his inamorata would be released to the press.
In terms of political skullduggery, it doesn’t get much richer than that.
Bibi took the high road. That night, he himself went on television. He told of the blackmail threat, admitted the affair, said it was over, but that no one other than Sara was owed an explanation. He refused to withdraw from the race.
Bibi won and then went on to become prime minister. But the Israeli left – whose loathing for him can’t be overstated – still uses the incident to belittle him.
“There never was a videotape,” they insisted. “He was silly—and besides, no one cared. Everyone knew about his affairs.”
As unfortunate as the mess was, it reveals some of Bibi’s strengths, too. For one thing, Israelis know he can’t be intimidated—a welcome trait in an Israeli leader. Israel hasn’t seen that kind of fearlessness since Menachem Begin.
It’s also refreshing to find a politician who’s honest enough to admit a serious misdeed. In preempting the blackmailers, telling the story himself, he scored big points with voters. There’s something to be said about courage under pressure, even if the pressure was self-inflicted.
His lack of corruption is another plus. The leftist press hates the capitalist Bibi so much that if Bibi were to pluck a leaf off a tree, someone would probably accuse him of theft. Few people in the world have been as monitored as closely as Bibi Netanyahu. Although all sorts of accusations have been filed, all were disproved. With the intense scrutiny he’s under, he can’t possibly be corrupt.
The Future with Bibi
My personal concern about a second round for Bibi is that he’ll prove too willing to cede land again, and that he’ll knuckle under to U.S. pressure. At the moment, he’s saying all the right things—that this is not the time for any peace agreement, that a nuclear Iran cannot be tolerated and that he’ll build and not evacuate Jewish areas.
Will he hold firm on that? Who knows? But maybe it doesn’t matter. The truth is, in terms of anyone who is willing to run for office in Israel, among those who could possibly be elected, Bibi is by far the best candidate there is. Bringing an ardent capitalist into Israel’s highest office doesn’t hurt a bit.
Israelis will just have to hope he’ll remember that before you can transform a socialistic nation into a capitalist haven, you first need to make sure you still have a country
