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Photo: Amit Shabi
Netanyahu - master of the medium
Photo: Amit Shabi

Netanyahu's beauty pageant victory

Op-ed: The left persuaded voters they needed a change, but not that Herzog and Livni could deliver it; and no one can work a camera like Bibi.

When Benjamin Netanyahu decided to call an early election, he must have believed it was a brilliant ploy. True, he had no achievements to boast of to the voters during the election campaign. The cost of living was up, the chances of buying an apartment were down, and the promise to eliminate Hamas had vanished into thin air.

 

 

Why then did he opt for such a move, without a political and economic program? Netanyahu believed, apparently, that his main rivals, Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, remain incapable of competing with him in the only field in which he excels – tele-politics, politics via the small screen. Based on the outcome, he was right.

 

Netanyahu on election night (Photo: AFP)
Netanyahu on election night (Photo: AFP)

 

Netanyahu, who served as Israel's ambassador to the UN in the 1980s, learned a lot about media appearances at the time from then-US president Ronald Reagan, a former movie actor, who put on events and shows with cheering crowds and waving flags. Former US federal judge Walter Cummings once said that political coverage on television was similar to that given to the Miss America pageant.

 

And that is what we got from Netanyahu – countless speeches and shows, and evasion of the truly important and controversial issues. It worked in the United States, but how did it work here? After all, we are a somber nation that has known suffering, of two thousand years in exile and a tough life in Israel.

 

Bibi took that into consideration too: Over the years, he successfully waged a campaign surrounding every Jew's most primal fear – a second Holocaust. It began with Yasser Arafat, who was going to eliminate Israel with the help of Shimon Peres, and went on to Iran, who is going to wipe us off the map with the help of Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.

 

The right-wing voters kept their faith in Netanyahu, despite being aware of his underhand conduct. They believed that to combat all the demons and enemies, the real and the fictional ones, Netanyahu spoke of, we need a devious and conniving politician who can trick and thwart them. Yes, Bibi is fooling us, but he will fool those who seek to destroy us too.

 

The left was able to convince the Israeli public that it needs a change, but it wasn't able to convince voters that its current leadership can affect this change. Siamese twins Herzog and Livni, who were separated at the very last minute before the election, are serious and capable individuals. But they lack the tele-politics dimension, which can even sway voters who don't agree with their positions. They achieved a good result, but those swayed votes came from their camp.

 

Yair Lapid came into the election battered and bruised from his tenure as finance minister in the Netanyahu government. He has what it takes to be a national leader in the electronic age, but he didn't have enough time to ripen in the minds of the public. He can view this current campaign as successful primaries ahead of the next election. Moshe Kahlon wasn't aiming for national leadership but the finance portfolio instead – no matter who the next prime minister is.

 

But above all, the election results are an achievement for Israel's greatest-ever tele-politician. Netanyahu, the prime minister who can hardly be credited with doing anything at all, appears to have done it again, to have won thanks to the concerted efforts he made on television during the week before the election. In the Israel of today, we still elect a beauty queen and not a leader.

 


פרסום ראשון: 03.20.15, 23:47
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