In early December, the annual Saban conference was held in Washington. Many dignitaries appeared, from Hillary Clinton to Bozi Herzog, but most attendees will remember Naftali Bennett's performance first and foremost.
The chairman of the Jewish Home went up for an interview with a polite Australian-American named Martin Indyk. Thirty years of working with Israelis had not prepared Indyk for this moment.
Bennett attacked him, punched him, insulted him, argued, shouted, and in Israeli eyes, inflicted a resounding knockout on him.
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There were quite a few Americans in the audience, wealthy Jews with a liberal orientation. What Netanyahu's six years had not done up until then, an hour-long panel did. The movement for a change of government was filled that evening with a lot of money.
Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, you are right. The forces working to remove you are enormous. Most of the media is working on it.
Big money is flowing into this, there hasn't been anything like this since 1999. Former generals, businessmen, senior officials, all dream of the modest ceremony in the Prime Minister's Office, in which she will leave office.
Just a small question – is this phenomenon illegal?
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First, the movement to keep Netanyahu in power is doing exactly the same thing. Israel Hayom has increased its circulation by 100-150 thousand copies a day. Big money overseas, much more than is invested in the Boy 15, is going to spread Netanyahu's propaganda, under the guise of a newspaper.
The right-wing movement 'If You Want' is doing exactly what Eyal Arad is doing. At the same time, the national religious establishment, Seder yeshivot and Torah groups, institutions that live on the state budget, are being called upon by the leaders of 'Habayit Hayehudi' to save the right-wing government.
The left doesn't have that.
The fact that most of the media is against Netanyahu is automatically perceived as an unfair phenomenon. We have been accustomed to the fact that the media should be 'balanced', symmetrical, with one claiming this and the other claiming the opposite, but what if we are ruled by a particularly bad prime minister, whose continued rule endangers us all? Theoretically, of course.
Is the media supposed to say 'on one side' and 'on the other'? We don't maintain symmetry when we cover the Yom Kippur debacle, or the folly of the First Lebanon War. We weren't 'balanced' after the Second Lebanon War (then Netanyahu had no problem with it) and with the same media, Netanyahu is closing out six years as prime minister.
Maybe they are behaving now in a way they didn't in the previous six years because Netanyahu has reached an impossible level of performance?
True, Yedioth Ahronoth and Wynette crossed every logical line. I don't take it lightly that two such central media outlets have been looking at the Israeli reality for months only through the lens of 'what will hurt Netanyahu,' but most journalists (and former generals and officials and businessmen) really think that Netanyahu is the worst prime minister to have been here in the last decades, and no, it's not because Bibi didn't clear territory. It's first and foremost because it seems that in the prime minister's office sits a man who has lost his ability to execute and make decisions.
Netanyahu promised a revolution in education. To his credit, he allocated budgets in his first term. A revolution, even Netanyahu will admit, did not happen.
Netanyahu's housing default has already been talked about enough. In the run-up to the elections, a police investigation (slowed down by the elections, as problematic as it sounds) revealed how rotten our systems of government are.
They blamed it on Yisrael Beiteinu (rightly so) and a little bit on Bayit Hayehudi, but what about the prime minister? The one who distanced himself from any ideal of transparency, who never fought corruption, not even in appearance.
Is it possible that such unacceptable norms prevailed in many government ministries for years, and only the most important bureau was not even aware of it?
The Israeli healthcare system is deteriorating, private spending on healthcare is breaking records, Netanyahu is not interested. The Gush Dan mass transit project is stalled, corrupted, delayed for years, Netanyahu is not involved.
Netanyahu's passivity, his lack of interest in decision-making, the weak team around him (which stems in no small part from Netanyahu's wife's influence on these decisions), and his non-existent management ability, are what brought crazy energy to the attempt to replace Netanyahu, more than his terrible failure in the political sphere.
• The article was published this morning in "Haaretz.".
From Raviv Drucker's blog: http://drucker10.net
