WhatsappWell known Israeli media personality Yedidya Meir recently wrote a must read article in the Hebrew Be’sheva newspaper. Meir is totally impressed with how Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is successfully leading Israel. A tsunami of investigations, leaks and state witnesses are making all of the headlines on a daily basis. Yet Bibi is not only surviving, but thriving. This article should definitely be read by all to better understand the crazy situation PM Netanyahu finds himself in today.
Video of Netanyahu receiving a heroes welcome when he returned home from his trip to the US. Even though he is under intense media attention for alleged “corruption”.
Below is the English translation of Yedidya Meir’s article.
A New Fan of Bibi
1. I want to start with a personal confession: I am a fan of Bibi. I just admire the man. And you should know that this is something entirely new to me, just this week. There are those who think that right-wing religious people automatically admire Netanyahu. Maybe it’s true, but I promise you I’m not one of those. I mean, it was clear that I was generally for him. I was very happy when he was elected and not Shimon Peres, nor Livni, and not Herzog either. All these years I have been scornful towards those who spoke with too much enthusiasm for his personality, enamored by his speeches and his English etc. Netanyahu did not do this for me personally. All in all, he is a politician. A very successful politician, but a politician.
Until this week…
This State Witness Was Big!
2. On Monday afternoon, when the first rumors started that Nir Hefetz had signed on to become a state witness, Amnon Abramovich of Channel Two said the following: “When you tell Benjamin Netanyahu, Sarah and Yair that Nir Hefetz became a state witness, you have to do this with the accompaniment of a police officer, a doctor and a tranquilizer. “Every house has a trustworthy person” is an expression of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Nir Hefetz was that trustworthy person of the Netanyahu household. He was sent on missions by them. Shlomo Filber (the last person to sign on as a state witness against Bibi) was Netanyahu’s emissary to Elovitch and to Bezeq. But he was not a member of their family in terms of the Netanyahu family. No less fatalistic. ”
Did Bibi Look Under Pressure?
A short while later the photographs of the reception at the White House arrived. I’m not a body language expert, but from my impression, not only did Netanyahu not need a tranquilizer – he could be the substance that is injected into people who need relaxation (Dana Weiss, for example). What ease, peace of mind, and voice he had. I thought it might only look like that in the pictures, but then I heard some journalists who were there and then I was really impressed. They talked about his meeting with Trump and about their long conversation with him. They did not see any impact of Hefetz’s fatal testimony on Netanyahu.
And this is extremely admirable. This ability of his to function normally under tremendous pressure. Around him there is a flurry of investigations, leaks and an attack of state witnesses – and with this all, Netanyahu is acting like a leader, with no impact of all that is going on around him. He meets with the President of the United States, deals with security matters, Iran affairs, and the affairs of the disintegrating coalition. Facing so many fronts and yet he is totally cool. Yair Lapid said, again and again, this week that Netanyahu must go home because the prime minister under investigation, cannot function properly in matters of state administration. The truth is that there is much logic to Lapid’s claim. A normal person would really have trouble functioning under these conditions, but not my esteemed leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Fake News
3. The next day, there was an article by Sima Kadmon on the cover of Yedioth Ahronoth: “If the reports are true, Nir Hefetz can hit the soft underbelly, not only of Netanyahu, but also of his voters, because if Hefetz did tell about two security affairs in which Netanyahu acted contrary to the recommendations of the heads of the defense establishment and instead made a decision based on the influence of advice given to him by his wife and son, I think that this will be a watershed among his many supporters. It will be difficult to remain indifferent to stories that harm state security. ”
I’m sorry to tell you, Sima, not only that these stories of Chafetz did not crack the faith of the blind loyalists of the Prime Minister, but they added to the Prime Minister another blind trustee: me! You’re right, it’s really a watershed, but I’m very worried that the water is not really flowing along the side you wanted them to flow.
Amazing White House Visit
4. From the world of fake news we saw more this week: In the relatively short reports about the meeting in the White House, it was widely reported that “Trump gave Netanyahu some satisfaction.”
Excuse me, did Trump give Netanyahu satisfaction? No, Trump gave satisfaction to millions of Israelis. More precisely, he could have given satisfaction to millions of Israelis, if only they had been exposed to everything that was said in their meetings. However, for the actual report of the meetings readers had to flip through to page 16 in the same holiday issue. After pages and pages of extensive reviews and headline-breaking headlines on every leak in Netanyahu’s investigations (two days later denied), and after a prominent column with the headline “The Last Speech?” In which the authors estimate that this is the last time Netanyahu will speak at the AIPAC conference, the laconic report in Trump’s words finally was printed in small print.
US/Israel Relations Have Never Been Better
“Relations between Israel and the United States have never been better,” President Trump said. “There are good relations on military issues and on preventing terror”. The Yediot reporter reported that veterans of the White House do not remember any White House meeting where the wives sat in the Oval Office alongside their husbands, at the start of a political meeting.
This is amazing. For years, one of the strongest arguments of Netanyahu’s enemies was that he was doing us diplomatic damage. Netanyahu was “damaging the historic alliance between Israel and the US”. Remember how many people attacked Netanyahu for going to Congress to talk about the Iranian nuclear program, contrary to Obama’s position? Now, look at the welcome he received in the White House.
In a briefing before the meeting with Netanyahu, Trump was asked about the promised peace between Israel and the palestinian Arabs. “The fact that we removed Jerusalem from the table gives us the possibility of getting a deal,” the president said. He then added that “if the Palestinians do not come to the negotiating table, there will be no peace agreement, and that could be possible.” The article ends with a remark, almost incidentally, that “in this way, Trump signaled the end of the effort to bring about a peace agreement, and the Palestinians as those who could be blamed for it, if that does not happen.”
How Does Bibi Do it?
5. Do you hear the winds of history? For the first time in years, the president of the United States supports us, moves the embassy to Jerusalem, announces that he wants to come to inaugurate it personally, adopts the Israeli narrative in the conflict with the Arab terrorist enemy, and you write about “Trump satisfying Netanyahu?” This is a blessing for the Jewish people. Throughout the generations.
And in the midst of all this, our prime minister is acting admirably in the face of the 4,000 attempts to overthrow him. He is up against a police commissioner who for some reason treats him as a lone terrorist. It is as if our Prime Minister has a ticking bomb on his body that must be intercepted urgently in order to stop him. This is the way the Shin Bet security service is acting. All the roads are kosher on their mission to stop Netanyahu.
How does Netanyahu manage? Where does he have the power to get up for another day of leaks? What did he read this week? Did he read the “Garden of Faith” by Rabbi Arush? or motivational pamphlets by Rabbi Biderman? Maybe he read classical moral literature like Mesilat Yesharim? Faith and trust of the Chazon Ish, or perhaps Chassidut books? What an example of self-control, restraint and concentration! If he behaves this way without reading these books, how will he act after he reads them?
Am I a Bibi Man Now?
6. This week, in the face of all the reports of “discoveries,” “testimonies,” and “earthquakes,” and especially the incomprehensible gap between Netanyahu in Israel and Netanyahu in Washington, I started talking to myself aloud. Are you familiar with that? Like an elderly woman watching the news answering the reporters questions. Worse still, I noticed that I was telling myself clichés. In other words, all the sentences I have heard from Netanyahu admirers all these years that I have mocked, suddenly were being uttered by me. “What a strong leader,” I said to myself about Netanyahu, “you are amazing, no, you are the greatest.”
The truth? I scared myself. I might find myself screaming “Go Bibi” at the screen. If the police, prosecution and media continue to do everything to attack Netanyahu, that can definitely happen.
