(Yossi Verter-Haaretz).Having completed two years of his term, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become, in the words of the late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, media insolvent. He firmly believes that most of the media, with the exception of his "home-team" newspaper, the free Israel Hayom, are determined to topple him and, until that happens, to humiliate him.
The media reception of his plan for national housing committees is, as he sees it, another case in point. For weeks, he toiled over it with his finance, justice, interior and housing ministers. The moment it was presented, it was immediately written off as a maneuver designed to improve relations with Shas. For good reason, Netanyahu has come to embrace Ariel Sharon's motto: "I don't have disappointments because I don't have expectations."
Of late, he's been working with a team of strategic advisers on figuring out ways to bypass the traditional media, and he seems to be finding the answer online: that is to say, on Facebook and Twitter.
As part of a pilot project, Netanyahu connected through Facebook this week to a group of pre-screened participants. They asked questions and he replied, for nearly two hours; no one interrupted him. Afterward, the participants continued the online discussion. The plan is to hold such discussions and then allow the media to turn them into news items. Netanyahu's team is planning in this way to upgrade his online presence, as well as that of his bureau, beyond Israel as well. Like Presidents Obama and Sarkozy have done.
Netanyahu is taking this online project seriously. No less than "the second Bar-Ilan speech" - a term that has become inimical even before the speech has been written.