Netanyahu risks it all. The left could throw the old fox of Israel out
martedì 17 marzo 2015 English 0 commenti
Il Giornale, March 17, 2015Although he had to sneak amid the dunes of a Middle-Eastern desert full of dangers and ambushes, the great fox did his best, hiding in silence at times just to be immediately hunted out again. He ran as fast as he could, sometimes he tried to bare his teeth at the pack of hunting dogs after him, but in the end, he was cornered. The last polls allowed for release before today’s election predicted a result of 23 or 24 seats against 21. The Parliament has 120 members. There are two main parties running: according to the polls, the Isaac Herzog-Tzipi Livni group, the so-called Zionist Union (de facto, the whole left wing united against Netanyahu) will surprisingly beat Bibi’s Likud. This does not necessarily mean that Herzog, the offspring of a noble Zionist family (his father was the sixth President of Israel), a small and good mannered man with a squeaky voice and a disgruntled look, will actually become the next Prime Minister.
A left-wing coalition does not reach 61 seats, the United Arab List (13 seats) has no intention to associate itself with a Zionist party, the moderate Moshe Kahlon (12 seats) is unsure whether to accept the Finance Ministry portfolio that Bibi offered him. Bibi’s numbers for a right-wing coalition are more realistic: on his side, he has those who fear imprudent pacifistic moves and those who know that Bibi has ultimately more charisma than Herzog. Bibi is being blamed of having chosen the way of the national bloc, forgetting that his previous government included Tzipi Livni and Yair Lapid, the secular candidate par excellence who, in the last few hours, relaunched the idea of a Palestinian State inside the 1967 borders and with Jerusalem divided. An idea that, in this time of extremism, is not viable anymore. When the President Reuven Rivlin will appoint the new Prime Minister, he will certainly push for a coalition government, which the two leaders are refusing for now. So, after six years, Bibi could actually go home.
Two factors have played a role in all this: the hatred, mandatory in our contemporary world, for a right-wing leader and the hostility for his past century’s curriculum vitae. He served in the Sayeret Matkal commando, where he carried out several difficult anti-terrorism operations. Well-read son of the historian Bent Tzion Netanyahu and brother of Yoni, killed in Entebbe, he was also Ambassador to the UN, Prime Minister for a long time and a solitary standard-bearer of the truth about Iran’s nuclear program. More than an electoral campaign, it was a political, legal and economic siege supported by a national and international army. The slogan that has been circulating for months is “Anyone but Bibi”. The newspapers, the newscasts, the satirical TV shows made Netanyahu their fixed target and the driving force of their audience share. They targeted his lifestyle on the base of the annual survey on household expenses interpreted through typical Israeli Socialist-populist standards. They even accused the poor man of ordering a pistachio ice cream and said he did not reimburse one of his staffers who had paid for eye drops for him. They also targeted his wife Sara, who is not a simple character but for sure neither a criminal one. Moreover, Bibi’s urgency on security and his visit to the US Congress to speak about the Iranian nuclear issue have been seen as an obsession. Some of his now ex-associates, as the former director of Mossad Meir Dagan, accused him of endangering Israel’s security: some vituperated him because he did not destroy Hamas and some others, on the contrary, because he started the war.
The picture suggested to the public is that of a leader who does not know the cost of a pint of milk, while the left wing and the center parties put on their proletarian overalls. Life is hard here, and military expenses weigh down the State budget. The New York Times is wrong in thinking that Israeli elections are mostly about issues as the Palestinian State, the settlements and the settlers. Even Herzog and Livni - although they hurried to say it is a shame that Israel could not garner any sympathy and that it is all Netanyahu’s fault - are perfectly aware that it is not worthwhile to promise peace. The aggressive attitude of Abu Mazen, the terror siege and the Iranian threat, not to mention the experience of Gaza’s evacuation, do not look promising at all. The fundamental accusation against Bibi is not about the settlements, but about his failure to contain the cost of living and to implement the building plans he had promised. Nobody mentioned the fact that the Israeli economy is in enviable shape like its scientific, high-tech and cyber sectors, as well as its employment rates. Nobody pointed out that Israel developed an extraordinary road and transport network just in the last few years, that the public health system now covers everything, that wages increased, that the army is strong… but Bibi is right-wing, and Herzog is “an honorable man”, as Shakespeare would say.