'As usual with Bibi, he was the victim'.
The elections in Israel are going to happen in about one month, and Netanyahu is facing - again - serious accusations of corruption by an attorney general he nominated among his many layers of his inner circle. Apparently, Bibi has a special art to get estranged from people that used to be close to him, and/or cannot be used for his immediate needs. It happened with Naftali Bennett, with Ronald Lauder, with many others.
Haaretz journalist and The Economist writer Anshel Pfeffer published a very well researched political biography of someone who is mostly an 'outsider' of the Israeli political system. Without belonging to the elites of princes of the Founding Fathers that created the state of Israel and its institutions, distrusting the media and the power of big bureaucracies such as the Foreign Ministry or the Army, Bibi succeeded. Was he better fit to the 'spirit of the time', did the intensive training as a member of the lites of Sayeret Matkal empowered him with a special penchant for lonely wolf attitude, or maybe was the distrust of the Jewish leadership he took from his father, Benzion, the incentive for trusting himself as the one and only Israel's leader?
Netanyahu is not a commoner and although not part of the mainstream ruling or academic or economic elite and 'had never lived as an ordinary grown-up civilian in Israel', he has the right connections. He is charming and speaks English and has the 'chutzpe'. He is a perfect PR product - including of his own efforts but it doesn't get more than the glittering. For instance, while at the UN, he 'became a star of the airwaves, the darling of Republican circles and the Jewish American elite, but he had little lasting influence in the highest echelons of decision making'.
And there is also Sara Netanyahu.
And a very big availability to trade partners and find ennemies. He called once the toxic Kahanists he signed a political agreement recently 'thugs'. He was a vocal participants at rallies against Yitzhak Rabin without taking a clear stance against those who screamed 'death' against Rabin - some of the Kahanists' colleagues amongst them. He positions himself as a champion of opening towards the Arab world, forgetting that Shimon Peres went to Oman and Qatar long before his emissaries. As for his hawkish stance on Iran, many representatives of the establishment - among which the late Mossad chief Meir Dagan were vocally and logically against.
But in the words of Anshel Pfeffer: 'He sees no one capable enough or worthy of replacing him and fails to understand how anyone could contemplate someone else leading Israel'.
Will King Bibi -the name of a movie by Dan Shadur - win another mandate soon? Who will be the losers of such a re-confirmation (besides the state budget, for reasons that do not have to do with the improvement of the military training, for instance).
Bibi. The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu can be easily read and understood also by someone not familiar with the intricacies of Israel's political life. Sadly, it is about a kind of leadership replicated in many parts of the world. One can stay and wait because not too much to be done, anyway, but at least you know what expects you. And millions of other people too.
Although I've personally been a bit reluctant and careful with this book, it is a professional approach, that neither the right or the left shall consider biased. There are facts and figures and files of corruption. And the enemy within.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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