The prime minister who was responsible for nothing
Op-ed: After leading Israel's government for six years, Netanyahu wants us to believe that the good things other people did are his doing, while the bad things that he did are everyone else's fault.
How can it be? How could this have happened? Is there a psychological definition which applies to the behavior of a state which elected this man to lead it three times, and there is a big chance – or big danger – that it will happen for the fourth time?
Did you see a prime minister on Tuesday evening on Channel 2 News? Because what I saw was the swindling merchant who stands at the corner of the street, selling a fake watch to innocent passersby. I saw the marketing director of Rim, the furniture company which gave him to us. I saw a man I wouldn't buy not only a used car from, but even a pack of gum.
A prime minister sits in a television studio and shamelessly tells us about the wonderful things his government has done. Remember how we shut the border to the infiltrators in the previous government? And how we created roads and deployed trains across the country, and added free dental care for children up to the age of 12 and made a reform in the cell phone market, which "we did, under my orders, under my leadership." Suddenly he is also Moshe Kahlon.
And what about the bad things that have happened here in the past few years, like the soaring housing prices? Well, that's Ehud Olmert's fault.
He has been prime minister for six years now. The good things which other people did – it's his doing. The bad things that he did – it's all other people's doing.
And if mentioning Olmert is going too far, he has Yair Lapid, who failed to stop all the bad things that Olmert started. I wanted to do things, Benjamin Netanyahu says, but he, Lapid, stopped me. If that's the case, interviewers Yonit Levy and Amit Segal asked him, perhaps it's your fault for making him your finance minister?
You won't believe it, but that's not his fault either. That's the people's fault. Or as the prime minister says, the citizens decided. What exactly did they decide, Mr. Prime Minister, who will be your ministers? So where is your responsibility? Is there anything you are taking responsibility for?
There is only one thing Netanyahu is willing to take responsibility for – the fact that he failed to convince the public to give him more power. Have you seen a more pitiable demagogy?
Israel's relationship with the United States has never been better. The support of the American public, of the Congress, of the administration, of the White House is stronger than ever. His relationship with Israel's president is excellent. They talk every day. People are leaving his party, the Likud, because they have other plans, not because they have had enough of his rule and conduct.
And once again he contradicts himself: On the one hand, he says that Lapid was a failure as finance minister. On the other hand, he takes bride in a deficit reduction and improved tax collection. And the false and despicable concern for Israel's residents. And the unconvincing excuses for the used idea he suddenly came up with to change the government system.
Buji and Livni? So much ridicule. So much contempt. The party which has a different name in every election, says the man who led "Likud Beiteinu" in the previous election and might lead the "Likud Yehudi" this time.
So ask yourselves what is it that you watched on Channel 2 on Tuesday evening. And if this is the man you would like to see as prime minister again.
How many times throughout the interview did you say to yourself: Does he really think that we'll all fools? Yes, that's exactly what he thinks. And it will be terrible to discover in two months' time that he is also right.
