One of the positive messages to emerge from the political upheaval in the American elections is that bullying does not work. Correction: Bullying may work, but it cannot substitute for policy.
As long as Trump maintained the appearance of success, voters put up with his imperial pretensions, his daily tirades, his embarrassing lies and his open, brazen corruption. Some believed that verbal aggression was a sign of authenticity, of a politician unafraid to tell people the truth to their faces.
Bullying masquerades as charisma. But when voters discovered what awaited them at the gas station and the supermarket, what their ruler was doing for himself and what he was doing for them, the bully's spell was broken. Trump used to boast that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and not lose a single vote. And yet, voters abandoned him for far less.
Campaign billboard for Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party
(Photo: Ilia Yefimovich / AFP)
Netanyahu copied what he saw there and brought it here. For four years, we have lived under a culture of political bullying: Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, Rothman and Levin, Katz and Ohana, Gotliv and Bardugo. And that is only a short list, the tip of the iceberg. For four years, we have been breathing in a toxic media atmosphere, on social media and across television channels. Perhaps it is time to say: All right, we get the point. Enough.
I watched the video Netanyahu released ahead of Eisenkot's appointment to form the government. I understood the anger. It is unpleasant to leave the president's office when your rival has 67 endorsements and you have only 46. I understood the terror: the power that will disappear, the security detail that will be reduced, the schedule that will empty out, the family that will make a scene. What does a 77-year-old man have left in his life if you take power away from him? I respected the fighting spirit. If only he had fought Hamas like that when there was still time.
But when he described what would happen here if a government were formed without him, he lost me. "The fire and flames we see in the streets of Paris and Brussels," he declared, "will pale in comparison to the fire and flames we will see in the streets of Tel Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli cities. This is not imaginary. This is not fearmongering. This is the reality we will face."
Let me explain. A government that relies on the votes of the two Arab parties would face a series of problems on both sides. It is doubtful that it would survive for long. Judging by Liberman's latest statements, it is doubtful that it would even come into being. But I fail to understand the logical connection between the fires in Paris and Brussels and the fires supposedly awaiting us here. If the Arab parties are going to run the government, as Netanyahu claims, their voters will be celebrating in the streets. At most, they might set off a few firecrackers. Is it Netanyahu's supporters who will set Tel Aviv ablaze? If that is his plan, he should say so now.
The only connection between the riots in Paris and Brussels and the elections here is that some of the rioters there were third- and fourth-generation descendants of immigrants from Africa. There, Arabs rioted. Here, Arabs voted. It does not matter what Arabs do. Either way, in Netanyahu's eyes, they are illegitimate, both in Europe and in Israel.
Perhaps it is worth recalling that Arabs rioted in the streets of Israel in 2021, in events that escalated into Operation Guardian of the Walls. The man who provoked and schemed was Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu's senior partner. It ended with yet another decision by Netanyahu to strengthen Hamas.
Is Netanyahu afflicted by Islamophobia? Even if he is, that is not the main point. Netanyahu does not disqualify Arab parties when he needs them. Bullying is the point. After properly conducted elections, certified by the judge overseeing them and all the relevant law enforcement authorities, it turns out that the results are unfavorable to the prime minister. So he pulls every possible argument out of the attic to discredit them. He mobilizes the police, drags the head of the Shin Bet into it, sends out his mouthpieces and threatens to disrupt the swearing-in of the Knesset. That is how a bully behaves.
Some of the growing disgust with bullying has recently seeped into the media as well. Perhaps it does not herald the arrival of winter, but there are signs of rain. Two prominent broadcasters, Ayala Hasson on Channel 11 and Eyal Berkovic on Channel 13, have landed themselves in trouble over sweeping remarks that smacked of racism following the voting patterns of Arab Israelis. They failed to understand that the rules of the game had changed: The bullying that built their careers is the same bullying that got them into trouble.
Hasson will probably have to look for a television channel more suited to her tastes. It is amusing to read that she is now seeking the media's protection in the name of freedom of expression and professional solidarity. As Netanyahu has taught us, only a very thin line separates bullying from self-pity.