Bibi versus Netanyahu
Op-ed: Israel needs to decide which incarnation it wants - the rapidly disappearing statesman who will lead it out of isolation, or the thriving politico who is bringing about a binational state.
Benjamin Netanyahu has two souls – the statesman and the politician. The first, Netanyahu, honored the Oslo agreements he inherited from his predecessors, and then went on to evacuate Hebron. He also demonstrated astounding flexibility and moved forward, step by step, to secure a draft agreement with the US secretary of state – a recent occurrence. The second, Bibi, is a tireless schemer, a small politician, who is being dragged along by Ze'ev Elkin and Uri Ariel and is leading Israel towards a binational reality.
The problem is Bibi usually trumps Netanyahu. Recent months have seen Israel's status in the world slip to an all-time low. The Palestinians are trouncing Israel despite Mahmoud Abbas's recalcitrance. One can blame the world media, the hate campaign against Israel; and this column does so every week – but the responsibility and guilt rests with the prime minister. He decided to position himself between Elkin and Ariel – a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions for Israel.
The polls are predicting a victory for the right-wing-ultra Orthodox bloc; but there's no need to be too impressed just yet. Polls like these appeared before the previous elections, and the results turned out differently. Now, these same polls are indicating another trend too – the further right Bibi turns, the more the right-wing voters prefer to go for the original incarnation; Bibi is bolstering Naftali Bennett.
The Likud's rightists are at least as right-wing as Bayit Yehudi, and maybe a little more so even; but the Likud still includes Knesset members who are not affiliated with the far right. Some were tossed aside in the previous primaries; and we may just see a repeat performance this time around. And the more rightist the Likud becomes, perhaps even surpassing Bayit Yehudi, the smaller it will become too, and Bennett comes across as more statesmanlike.
Everything is relative. If the Tkuma faction, headed by Uri Ariel, splits from Bayit Yehudi, it may have a secured spot in the Likud, between Danny Danon and Moshe Feiglin. What's the difference between them?
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When it comes to the crunch, the Zionist, patriotic, national-minded Israeli needs to decide which direction he or she wants the country to take – one that leads to a Jewish and democratic state, or perhaps a road that leads to a binational one. Netanyahu, the statesman, is in favor of a Jewish and democratic state; Bibi, the politician, is leading us to a binationalone.
A nationalist-ultra Orthodox coalition would result in further erosion of Israel's status, more and more small successes for the BDS campaign. Netanyahu, the statesman, could lead Israel into an era of hope. He could extract Israel from isolation. He could present the public with a reasonable political plan that would preserve Israel's interests and fully expose Abbas' rejectionist attitude to the world. But the statesman has disappeared. The politician is growing by the day. This is bad for the Likud. It's bad for Israel.
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The Rafah border crossing is closed. Egypt is busy consolidating Rafah's separation from the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed. When it became clear that a 500-meter wide stretch of land between Egypt and Gaza was not enough, and that there are still tunnels in the area, Egypt expanded the strip of land to 1,000 meters. These moves are part of Egypt's fight against terrorism and the ties between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, as well as other global Jihadist groups operating in the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is growing more hostile towards Hamas. In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, hostility towards Egypt is on the rise.
On the backdrop of the blockade on Gaza from the Egyptian side, and the supply trucks entering Gaza from the Israeli side, through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the following comment was posted on the Facebook page of the Palestinian Authority's Interior Ministry: "The Jews are our enemies and the enemies of Islam, but they are the ones who are opening the crossings, while our Muslim brothers, and those who claim to be Muslims, are closing the Rafah crossing on us."
Truth is, the hostility between the Gaza Strip and Egypt is nothing new. Between 1949 and 1967, the Strip was under Egyptian control, under permanent closure – an oppressive regime in every respect. "The Jews under Hitler's regime didn't suffer like we are suffering under Nasser's rule," said a letter written by a Palestinian from the Strip that appeared in a Saudi newspaper. "To go to Cairo or Alexandria, we are put through the wringer."
At a university in Slovenian this week, I was confronted by the Egyptian ambassador about Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip. I had to restrain myself, but I was forced to remind her excellency that Egypt has a border with the Gaza Strip – a closed border. Apparently, when it comes to chutzpah, there simply are no borders.
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The following are three stories about freedom of expression.
Story No. 1: Journalist Matt Friedman, a former Associated Press writer, has published another article about media bias. This time, he's revealed, among other things, the fact that the news agency has blacklisted Prof. Gerald Steinberg and the organization he founded, NGO Monitor, a body that exposes the anti-Israel agenda of NGOs and the funding they receive from the European Union, other European states and various funds from around the world. We're talking about an organization without which we'd have to invent one just like it. Why, Steinberg repeatedly asks, does Europe finance entities that dabble in demonization, that nurture the illusion of the right of return, and, to a large extent, deny the State of Israel's right to exist?
NGO Monitor's publications are usually very accurate and devoid of any contentious attitude. Setting aside just one report, I found no inaccuracies in the organization Steinberg heads. Why was the organization blacklisted? Because not only has AP collaborated with the entities Steinberg has exposed and criticized, but the news agency has also become a spokesman for these entities. AP didn't want to allow itself to be confused by the facts, so it gagged Steinberg and his organization.
Story No. 2: YouTube this week temporarily shut down the account of MEMRI, an organization that monitors the Arabic and Farsi media and whose YouTube channel features clips from Arabic or Farsi television along with translations in English, Hebrew, French and other languages.
MEMRI's service are used by a large number of media outlets worldwide, yours truly included. Its various postings are incredibly diverse. You can find articles and reports that call for Arab or Muslim stocktaking, with biting self-criticism, alongside articles or television footage with hair-raising anti-Semitic content – a bridge to the Arabic-speaking world.
So why was MEMRI's account closed? The organization could, just could, be under attack once again, just like it has been before. There are those who don't want us to know what is happening in the Arabic-speaking world. Sure, one can learn Arabic, and read and get the picture independently, but hundreds of thousands of people use MEMRI's publications, which are accurate and of high quality.
Here we have another attempt at silencing in this age of free-flowing information. The account, by the way, has since been reinstated.
Story No. 3: Following yet another anti-Jewish State piece in The Economist, an Israeli reader posted a comment in which he told the story of a family member who fled to Switzerland during World War II and was forced to bribe the border guards to allow him in lest he perish like millions of others. Therefore, he wrote, we need our own state so that we don't have to bribe anyone to get in.
Surprisingly, the man received a message noting that his comment violated the magazine's standards of good taste and was thus deleted. I read the comment over and over again. There wasn't a trace of bad taste about it, and certainly not racism. Just a little story with an accompanying lesson.
Three stories. This is the free world. This is what goes on in it. And it's a little worrying and frightening.
