Prime Minister Netanyahu. Strongly shifting to the right
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Tami Arad
Photo: Vardi Kahana
Israelis suffering from battered child syndrome
Op-ed: Knowing that Israelis are mostly concerned about their personal safety, Netanyahu is taking advantage of this high sensitivity for the sake of his political survival.
The Israeli citizen is like a battered child. His high level of alertness was assimilated into him at a very early age. He is accustomed to bending down or defending himself against the expected blow. And there are those who take advantage of this high level of sensitivity for their political survival.
Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni, who in the meantime has backed down from his ban on Israeli Arabs, stated that his initiative to keep Arab laborers away was not motivated by political ambitions but was a result of the fear factor.
Knesset Chaos
Shimon Shiffer
Op-ed: The person solely responsible for not providing security to Israel's citizens is Benjamin Netanyahu; and just as he judged prime ministers in the past, so must he be judged now.
Shimoni is not alone. While the sense of personal safety is undermined, the fear releases the dogs of the racist spirit from the kennel. Some will say that they have been walking around the Knesset unleashed for a long time now.
The Israeli citizen, who wakes up in the morning to go to work and hopes to return home safely, is not losing sleep over the nationality law, which has been stirring up emotions in our parliament.
The law, which has been defined by legal experts as a problematic law at an explosive timing, is the axe for the government's disbandment – as the nationality issue was not raised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a moment of a Zionist sentiment. As an experienced political psychologist, he sees and hears the covert feelings of the surveys which clearly point to a concerning development as far as he is concerned. The right-wing camp has been captivated by Bayit Yehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett.
What frustrates Netanyahu more than anything is looking in the mirror. Every morning, as he combs his grey hair to the sides and emphasizes the parting line, the reflection he sees in front of him – a young, fluent former elite unit fighter who speaks excellent English – is alarmingly not his own. Naftali Bennett winks at him from the other side, smiling and brimming with self-confidence. And Netanyahu is old enough to know that a bald head and a knitted skullcap will restore neither his skin's youthfulness nor the black color of his hair. That's why he is shifting to the right.
That's the reason for the daily nationalistic slogans, for the advancement of laws shrinking democracy, for blaming Mahmoud Abbas for all of the State of Israel's problems and for turning a blind eye to other problems which are just as urgent – the cost of living, the housing shortage and the threatening recession.
Netanyahu is shutting his eyes for a reason. He is well aware of the most sensitive issue Israelis are concerned about. Personal safety, which is intertwined with the security situation, takes the lead, while the economic security hesitantly lags behind.
Israelis will continuously complain about their overdraft in the bank, about public corruption, about the results of the international student assessment test, but will vote for the person they perceive as a man of security. The person who will first of all alleviate the primeval fear of those seeking to destroy us.
At the moment, there is no alternative security figure on the political map with a muscular shoulder the worried Israeli can lean on and say to himself, "There is someone I can rely on." Both Netanyahu and Bennett are aware of this fact, and both of them – despite their mutual loathing – agree about the way out from all our troubles – through a deep freeze and force, and even more force – and there is no one to divert the steering wheel which is strongly turning to the right.
Yuval Diskin, one of the most highly regarded Shin Bet chiefs, occasionally publishes thought-provoking ideas in Yedioth Ahronoth. Diskin, as opposed to Bennett and Netanyahu, believes there is no escape from defrosting the peace process, and at the same time he suggests active initiatives to maintain the security in different ways apart from force.
For now, Diskin prefers to write articles. One can understand his reluctance to join the club of 120 Knesset members, as a person who served in the public system for many years and closely witnessed the political system's twisted ways.
Nonetheless, as long as no other method is invented, politics is the only way to change things and make an impact. Yair Lapid, Shelley Yachimovich and other journalists who have crossed over to politics can write many articles about that.
And this is also being said and written by common citizens, who are longing for a leader with suggestions and solutions which can survive in the open air and not just by living in a bunker and in deep freeze.
