Op-ed: Soon we will find out whether Bibi truly moderated his views or remained a staunch rightist
Eitan Haber, YNET
Benjamin Netanyahu was the big winner of the recent Likud primaries. However, he too realizes that the party that sent him to the Prime Minister’s Office is slipping through his fingers. Likud is distancing from him.
However, some politicians will respond to the above with a chuckle. For years they have been saying that Netanyahu has not changed at all, and that Likud is not distancing from him at all. Bibi is just like Moshe Feiglin, with a softer veneer, they say. The primaries’ results will force Netanyahu to rip the mask off his face.
This is the big question at this time: Has Netanyahu truly moderated his political views in recent years in order to survive, because he realized rightist positions cannot be sold to the world? Or did he merely pretend,when he delivered the Bar-Ilan speech about the two-state solution and held meetings with world leaders, while not changing his views even a bit?
Did Bibi indeed undergo the same process experienced by Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Dan Meridor, Tzipi Livni and others, who realized there is no way to sell Likud’s dreams to the world?
The prime minister realized a long time ago that one cannot deceive the whole world all the time, so over the years he tried to market new goods. Now, with Moshe Feiglin doubling his strength in the Likud primaries, Netanyahu will have to face the cruel choice he aimed to avert for years: Returning to his roots while claiming this is what his voters want, or facing his party members and uttering the following message:
“Dear friends. I tried. You know how much I tried. Yet your dreams cannot be exported. The world does not buy into our ideology, and without the world’s support we simply won’t be able to exist and to live.”
In God we trust?
Netanyahu will then add: “At this time I am responsible for the fate of the whole nation, not only for Likud members, and with all due respect, I haven’t yet found the trick that would prompt Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel to shift to our camp. Feiglin can talk all he wants, but ultimately I’m the responsible adult here.”
In the near future, Netanyahu will try to pretend that Feiglin doesn’t bother him, yet that’s not true: The results of the recent Likud primaries will force Bibi to shift to the Right (unless he was always there in fact and merely attempted to deceive President Obama, King Abdullah and others.)
If the above possibility is indeed what we shall find out – and it looks like it is – our diplomatic and security situation will become much worse. If 80% of Israel’s Jews believe that God exists, we better summon him now; we are going to need Him urgently.
Ynet is a disgusting publication. They repeated Maariv’s lies about Chassidim wanting to stone a dog because the body of a lawyer inhabited its body or some nonsense. Even after Maariv apologized for its lies, Ynet did not nor did they issue a retraction.
If Likud’s vision cannot be exported to the world, then so what? The world is evil anyway and the world should not be appeased.
Aryeh and Jerry nailed it. All this left-right BS is just a crocka BS.
Just the kind of stale, twisted thinking you’d expect from a burnt out leftist hack like Haber.
Bibi is neither a rightist nor a leftist. He is simply a politician. As with most politicians he is more concerned with his future than with the future of his country. So in the final analysis he will do whatever he has to do to keep himself and his cohorts in power. End of story.
There is no Left/Right dichotomy in Israel. We have those who are loyal to the Jewish people and those who are loyal to something else. Most of those who have shown their disloyalty are more interested in their supplemental retirement plans than any point of ideology.
The Americans and the Europeans learned during their active colonial period that the most effective way to control a colony is not with troops of soldiers but with troops of sycophants. They find all sorts of third or fourth rate people who have no chance on their own of becoming someone of importance. Then they act as that persons patron and push him into higher and higher office. In the end they have their “Banana Republic” with all its major officials vassals of the colonial power.
So stop looking for ideological or strategic reasons for all this and start searching for bank accounts and luxury retirement villas.
I have plenty of criticism of Natanyahu. But I admire him deeply for having the courage to attack quotations from the hadith, which is a Holy book to the Mohammedans, second to the Koran.
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=90&doc_id=6275
This comes at a time when the world is afraid to criticize Mohammedanism and, if I can believe what I read, European countries are persecuting people who dare to criticize. Criticism of other religions is of course permitted.
So I say Bravo to our Prime Minister and Shabbat Shalom to all,
Yeruham
Eitan Haber is a low life scumbag who should be tried and imprisoned for his role in the Oslo Accords.
No Jew with any self respect would even read this clown Haber’s rants, much less disseminate them.
U.S. soldiers will die a consequence of an Israeli attack on Iran. Gas prices may rise precipitously. Another 9/11 could be in the works. Israel has to take U.S. concerns into account. If they didn’t – they would have already attacked. Even China would not launch a War without taking world opinion into account.
Bibi–is not right of center–he is without a doubt a leftist!
Yes it should act as a sovereign power, bur ever since Irangate, and the first Iraq invasion (where it received Saddam’sd missile attack-without a response) it has acted as America’s obedient lap dog. Israel ought to have aborted Iran’s nuclear program ten years ago, but it refrained from doing so on direct U.S. orders. See Suez and upteen other occasions.
Bibi must be quaking in his boots as Eitan Haber was “Rabin’s assistant” who wrested the blood-stained “Song of Peace” song sheet from Rabon’s pocket and waved it before the Israeli public – he is thus a prominent member of the Israeli Erev Rav (Mixed Multude – à la Edgar G. Robinson of Dathan fame in the Ten Commandments). Bibi will bend over backwards to be in the good graces of Eitan Haber and his ilk. Eitan Haber is sending Bibi his marching orders through this piece and is not just bloviating. As Eitan Haber implies, “May G-d save us from Eitan Haber (and Bibi)!!”
It is not their country and therefore Bibi does not need to consult and convince world leaders of anything. Israel needs to act like a sovereign nation.
Haber should have a long talk with Moshe Arens. 😉
Bert Says:
Not so Fast Bert:
The Exile is the personification of Jewish weakness, defeat, flight, persecution, torture, humiliation, genocide, holocaust, degradation. And because of this, it must – in the eyes of the gentiles – personify the weakness, so to speak, of the G-d of the Jews.
To the enemy of the Jew, Jewish defeat is proof of the inability of the G-d of Israel to give His people strength and triumph and glory. Such a G-d is either impotent or non-existent…
“Not for our sake, not for our sake but unto Thy Name give glory… Why shall the nations say: ‘Where is G-d?’” (Psalms 115)
“Oh L-rd, what shall I say, after Israel hath turned their backs before their enemies… and what wilt Thou do for Thy great Name?” (Joshua 7)
“Israel’s degradation is the desecration of the Name of the L-rd.” (The Biblical commentator Rashi, Ezekiel 39:7)
The humiliation will come to an end. “The L-rd reigneth; let the nations tremble!” (Psalms 99)
“Fury poured out. ” Heaven help us!
“If the above possibility is indeed what we shall find out – and it looks like it is – our diplomatic and security situation will become much worse. If 80% of Israel’s Jews believe that God exists, we better summon him now; we are going to need Him urgently.”
Christians and Muslims often pray in public for their cause. In 2006 when Israel was attacked from Lebanon the Chief of Staff responded immediately as a modern Jew. He called his stock broker to sell his stocks. First things first. We Jews, of all people, should not be turning our backs on our G-d who has kept us alive for all these centuries. If we believe in G-d then we should call upon Him now. If we do not believe in G-d then what is our purpose to exist and for what have we suffered during all these many centuries? Chapter 28 in Deuteronomy lays it on the line. Obey the Law and G-d will fight for us. Ignore the Law and He will abandon us to our enemies.