I Like Bibi: A Drash for 20 March 2015

I’ve always tried very hard to steer clear of ‘political’ messages in my drashes.  But with one caveat.  I reserve the right to make a blatantly political drash once a year…maybe twice!  But no more than that.  After all, it takes half a year to smooth all the ruffled feathers resulting from my doing so!

          So, tonight I’m going to take that prerogative, and make a blatantly political statement.  I like Bibi.  Bibi Netanyahu, that is.  The man whom Israelis elected this week for a fourth term as Prime Minister.

          American voters of the Left, and that includes most American Jews, tend to see their world in terms of BO and AD.  That is, Before Obama and its corollary, Anno Domini – Year of our Lord.  Lord Barack, that is.  The Jewish Left tends to see the current President as the One sent to free America from the clutches of the evil, openly-religious, jingoistic Republicans epitomised by the two ruiners of America:  George W Bush and Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney.

          Jews of an earlier generation – about two millennia ago – crowned some­one King Messiah and had some ‘splaining to do when he did not usher in the era of redemption foreseen by the Prophets.  So they came up with the notion that the Prophets were talking about the second time the Messiah would come, not the first time!  That was easier than just admitting their mistake.

          Left-wing Jews of this generation, who crowned President Obama as Messiah in 2008, likewise have had to account for the fact that the new King did not usher in an era of redemption.  But their explanation has been:  It’s all George W Bush’s fault.  He left such a mess.  Obama is struggling just to clean it up.  The latest malady blamed on George W Bush?  ISIS.  That’s right, folks!  The organisation did not even exist until 2011, and did not really become a major force in world jihadism until perhaps the last year and a half.  Yet it is the fault of ‘W,’ who left office in January, 2009.  But never mind that the current President in December 2013, dismissed ISIS as a “JV team.”  Is the Americanism is lost on you?  Let me explain:  JV, or “Junior Varsity” is a school’s B team in any given sport, the players who didn’t make the Varsity, or the A team.  The B team travels around, playing other schools’ B teams.  Nobody cares about them, nobody follows or attends the games.  So as recently as the end of 2013, President Obama dismissed ISIS as a nothing.  And now, Obama’s supporters make excuses for his not redeeming us with a Mighty Hand and an Outstretched Arm, saying, “It’s all George W Bush’s fault after all.”

          I know, I know!  First I said that this drash is about how I like Bibi.  But then, for the last three paragraphs, I’ve turned it into a rant against President Obama.  In reality, that’s what’s behind this visceral reaction by Jews and others, to Bibi and his fourth election as Prime Minister.  It’s about the antipathy of King Messiah Barack I, for Bibi.  If only the Israelis would elect a PM with better chemistry between him and Obama, then Obama would be a better friend of Israel.  And:  If only the Israelis would elect a PM who is not such an extremist, the world would respond better to Israel and her concerns.

          If what I’ve just said resonates with you, Dear Reader, and not for its irony but your actually seriously agreeing with what I’ve written…

          Please remember Intidafa II.  Do you?  It started in September 2000.  Supposedly as a reaction to Ariel Sharon’s visiting the Temple Mount.  I say supposedly, because rational observers saw it as a response to the Camp David talks hosted by Bill Clinton just a few weeks before, in July.  Remember those?  Then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in an attempt to jump-start stalled talks with Yassir Arafat, suggested a bold end plan where the Israelis would cede some 98% of the lands taken in the Six Day War to the Palestinians.  And he would even carve out of Israel proper, enough land to compensate for the remaining 2%!  But Arafat walked from the table, because the Palestinians’ goal never was to have a state in the lands outside the Green Line.  Their goal has always, blatantly been the destruction of the State of Israel.

          So I like Bibi.  Despite all his faults, he tells the truth as he sees it.  Even when that truth clashes with the narrative put forth by the leader of the world’s most powerful country.  If Bibi would go along with Obama’s deal with the Iranians, swallowing what he knows about one of the world’s most dangerous countries, he would be putting the State of Israel in grave and immediate danger.  Given this context, I think that Bibi’s accepting the invitation of Speaker of the House Boehner, becomes a gutsy gambit for an important cause, not a political folly as his detractors have charged.

          Bibi was recently accused of demagoguery for two things he said late in the recent election campaign.  First, he was accused of playing to the Extreme Right for declaring that he no longer advocates a Two State Solution.  Is this demagoguery, or simply a dose of reality?  His reasoning?  If a Palestinian State were to come into being today, given the political realities of the Palestinian National Council, it would most likely, swiftly become yet another failed state ruled by extreme jihadists.  I agree that that is not a comfortable thought.  Like fair-minded people all over, I feel bad for the implications this holds regarding the aspirations of the Palestinian Arab people.  But there is an undeniable element of reality in this pronouncement.  Demagoguery?  You be the judge…

          The second thing Bibi said that supposedly constituted demagoguery:  on social media he urged Jewish voters to get out and vote, since Arab Israelis were sure to vote in large numbers.  This, owing to the creation of a United Arab List.  This list was expected to energise Arab voters and bring them out in record numbers whilst it was feared that many Jews were tepid over these elections.  To Bibi’s detractors, this was not only demagoguery but also race-baiting, playing to Jewish Israelis’ basest fears regarding their Arab co-citizens.

          To this I say, Nonsense!  This is like President Obama’s apparatchiks exhorting Democrats to get off their duffs and vote, because of fears that Republican voters would defeat the President.  Well, Obama Incorporated did just that in 2012, and nobody accused him of demagoguery or race-baiting.  Because there was no reason to.  Democrat activists were simply doing their job – using the perceived differences between their guiding principles and those of the Republicans, to motivate their party to not sit out the election.

          In the case of the United Arab List, this coalition coopts the Islamists and the Communists.  And others not at all friendly to the vision of Israel likely to resonate with Likud voters.  Is this race-baiting, or just “vote or live with the consequences”?  In Israel unlike in Australia, it is not compulsory to vote.

          One more point to make.  The main opposition to the Likud, the Zionist Union, ran a campaign that sought to focus voters’ attention on domestic issues.  This, in contrast to the Likud which has always focused primarily on The Security Situation.  As a long-time Israel watcher, let me point out that the vast majority of Israelis, whilst they do worry about the economy and other issues, always vote as if there were only one issue…and it is not the price of new flats in North Tel Aviv.  So Bibi’s refusal to campaign on other issues does not represent an incompetence on his part to address those issues.  Nor does it represent a demagoguery on his part, to win the election because of fear.  It represents the reality that, when Israeli Jews vote, security is what they care about.  Except the Ultra-orthodox, for whom the Only Issue is how much the state will support their unique institutions whilst keeping their hands off of adult yeshiva students.  And none of those voters voted Likud…or Zionist Union.

          So, hurray for Bibi!  Is he the perfect Prime Minister?  Not by a long shot.  But Israelis have shown, by voting for him in huge numbers, that they agree with what he has to say.  And they resent the meddling of Obama, Incorporated in the internal politics of the sovereign State of Israel.  And the fact that the Israeli voters were willing to stand up to Obama, and stand with Bibi, is a good thing.  It reflects a growing maturity in Israeli politics.  Shabbat shalom.