Netanyahu using Peres as his scapegoat
Op-ed: Prime minister is incapable of taking responsibility for anything. As long as there is someone to lay the blame on, he can continue failing.
When Netanyahu destroys our relations with the world in general and with the United States in particular, Peres will picks up the phone, calms things down and cuts corners. When Netanyahu needs a slanderous campaign, Peres divides Jerusalem.
I can only imagine Netanyahu's advisors sitting in their room immediately after the recent Poverty Report was released. Sitting and thinking what the hell should they do with a million and a half poor children.
Not a single idea comes to mind. There is a silence in the air and no solutions or plans in the horizon. The media is still dealing with the poverty, and images of families which have nothing to feed their children still appear on the screens.
Suddenly, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan bursts into the room with a super solution: "While we are being fired on, they are engaging with poor people."
The advisors are ready for action. They feel they have a tie-breaking argument in their hands. They send Erdan to fire his words into the air. But, alas, instead of scaring off the poor into the shelters and making them disappear, the argument is met with harsh criticism.
Netanyahu is desperate. If the Erdan-Iran concept didn't work, what will work? "Peres at an event of Latet (an association aiding Israel's needy population)," someone throws an idea in the air. Netanyahu springs up in his seat, "Well, we've got ourselves a solution!"
Peres lives up to the expectations. During the association's event he "dared" say an empathetic sentence about the poor: "You can’t keep feeding the public with media statement."
He didn't even mention who is responsible for this situation, but Netanyahu's incitement machine wouldn't let the truth confuse it and immediately swung into action: "Peres is to blame for the poverty" and "this is a joint scheme devised by the media and by Peres to replace the prime minister."
Bibi's people are firing in all directions. Peres and Peres and Peres and Peres. As if Netanyahu has not been prime minister for the past six years. As if Netanyahu is just a guest in his government, sailing in a supertanker of spins while the economy collapses below him.
Netanyahu has never looked in the mirror. He can't take responsibility. As far as he is concerned, as long as there is someone to lay the blame on, he can continue failing. As long as there is "Peres," life is easier in general. Because Peres can clean up the mess and can also be accused of it. What a multi-talented person.
Every time he is threatened, Netanyahu finds someone to harass. That's always his strategy. No policy apart from the accusing finger policy. Shimon Peres is the prime minister's PR and election asset. It seems like every morning, before Netanyahu asks how the state is doing, he asks how Peres is doing.
Poverty in Israel is a much bigger and much more concrete danger than the Islamic State and all Arabs states together. It is crumbling the Israeli society, shattering people's dignity into pieces, humiliating, insulting and crushing their souls.
Netanyahu's economic policy is a ticking bomb, but Netanyahu is great in standing on stages with bomb illustrations. He has no idea how to dismantle them and what to do when they blow up in his face.
And because Peres is so essential in explaining the prime minister's failures, and because Netanyahu feels so lucky that Peres was born, I have a proposal for reducing Peres' birthday costs, which the Likud is so angry about: In the next party, guests will be served pistachio ice cream donated by the Netanyahu family.
Erel Margalit is a Knesset member on behalf of the Labor Party and is running in the party's primary elections.
