Understanding ‘Bibi’

By Abu Yusef from Occupied Palestine

Many have painted a picture of the ‘Bibi’ as a stupid or even crazy person, but this seems to overlook his incredible academic background – probably inspired or inherited from his father, a former professor at the esteemed Cornell University.

Netanyahu’s family origins trace back to Lithuania, as well as British Mandated Palestine. However, his family kept close ties with the United States where Benyamin moved at the age of fourteen to attend high school and then a number of outstanding American institutions of higher learning.

Netanyahu has earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a master’s degree in Management from the same institution. He went on to study Political Science in both MIT and Harvard.

Despite popular beliefs, Benyamin Netanyahu is not an idiot…

Rising Star on the Right…

After finishing school, Bibi remained in the US, where he tried his hand in the private sector in Boston, before returning to Israel and entering the political scene. Thanks to his mastery of the English language and the political affiliations of his father – a professor of Jewish History, editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia and senior advisor to Zeev Jabotinsky – Bibi was sent to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC in 1982. From then on, his political advancement has been meteoric.

He was elected to the Knesset on the Likud ticket from 1988 to 1992; and following the party’s defeat in the 1992 elections, Benyamin won the primaries by which to become its new leader.

In June of 1996 Netanyahu became the 9th Israeli Prime Minister – the youngest to ever hold the position, and the first to have been born after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 (1949). He had beat the heavily favored candidate from Labor, Shimon Peres, and won the first direct Prime Ministerial election in Israel’s young history.

Only days before the election, Palestinian suicide bombers had struck deep within Israel, killing dozens. Voters fled the ‘old and dovish’ Peres to the ‘new and strong’ Netanyahu.

In short, despite Bibi’s relative lack of military experience compared to politicians all along the political spectrum, it is his ‘tough guy-wild man’ image which forms the backbone of his support. The fact that people perceive him as willing to ‘go crazy’ or lash our ‘savagely’ has developed into the somewhat sophomoric, and perhaps even dangerous, characterization of ‘Bibi’ as an idiot.

Much as with George W Bush, such criticism fails to properly capture neither the individual nor the bigger picture. Furthermore, on the basis of stupidity, it acts to legitimize or soften the criticism of what are actually quite horrible deeds undertaken by knowledgeable men.

The First Chance to Lead the Nation… Netanyahu was elected upon a seemingly anti-peace platform, where much like today; he did not see the logic behind negotiating with a Palestinian Authority which is ‘either unwilling or unable to make peace’. This ran headlong into Clinton’s agenda in the White House leading to rocky relations between Israel and its longtime ally.

Despite his promise not to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority (PA) under Yasser Arafat, Netanyahu entered into the Wye Accords in 1998 - though he failed to meaningfully implement any of the proposals other than a partial return of Hebron (Khalil) to the jurisdiction of the PA. Even small gestures such as this, seemingly pushed by the United States, angered Bibi’s rightwing coalition, while emboldening the left.

In 1999, the new, ‘security credible’ head of the Labor Party, Ehud Barak, defeated Bibi in the race for Prime Minister.

In the Space between Premierships

When ousted from power, Bibi floated into the shadows for a time before returning to government as a Foreign Minister under Ariel Sharon. Whether they were bitter rivals within the party or not, (Netanyahu challenged Sharon’s leadership almost immediately upon reentering Likud) Sharon recognized Benyamin’s strength in communicating with the American public and the credibility his tough guy image afforded the government within Israel.

Netanyahu’s chance to escape Sharon’s shadow on the Right finally came in 2004, when Ariel Sharon announced his plan to unilaterally ‘disengage’ from the Gaza Strip. Bibi resigned from Sharon’s government in 2005 setting off a civil war within the Likud Party which eventually forced Sharon out. The ‘Lion of the Right’ held onto power by inching toward the Center in the formation of Kadima – this left only Netanyahu to lead a fractured Right.

Following the virtual death of Ariel Sharon, Kadima, now led by former Mayor of Jerusalem Ehud Olmert, held on to win the 2006 elections. Since those elections, until the recent decision by Shimon Peres to allow Likud to form the next governing coalition, Bibi Netanyahu has remained in the opposition – his only job was to watch the ‘broad’ coalition fall apart amidst corruption scandals and negotiations with the PA.

Bibi’s Rapid Rise and the Return of Likud

By all rights, Sharon’s defection from Likud, and the plethora of right wing parties which emerged to fill his void, should have left the party all but dead. Kadima offered secular, right-leaning Zionists a place to be, while small niche parties such as Shas, suddenly realized the power and opportunity afforded them by eating away at the base of Likud. Though Bibi was the ‘leader’ of the opposition, he was far away from the reins of power, and knew that grasping at them within a Kadima-led government would spell the final end of Likud.

His ‘luck’ would soon change…

The ‘disengagement’ from Gaza, publicly opposed by Bibi, was a myth in terms of actually de-occupying a part of the Palestinian Territories, and one which was sure to blow up the faces of Kadima in a matter of time. Pretending to ‘de-occupy’ Gaza, while in reality maintaining control of everything, meant that it would not stop Palestinian resistance by militant groups seeking something a bit closer to sovereignty. The Israeli public, seemingly oblivious to actual government policy, could not imagine why the seemingly ‘generous gift’ of Ariel Sharon had been responded to by rockets and mortars.

Each and every day that a rocket has fallen since the Likud left power in 2006 has translated into votes for the party.

Suddenly the secular Right began to defect back to Likud - some even further right to the number of fringe parties. Now it is Kadima who faces the chance of becoming irrelevant; but once more it is Bibi’s ‘wild man’ image which has brought him to the helm.

The Far Right and the Catch 22 of the 2009 Israeli Elections Bibi had been expected to win the 2009 elections by a landslide for months leading up to them. Both Labor and Kadima were weakening by the day and his chief rival, Tzipi Livni, had failed to form a coalition after the breakdown of Ehud Olmert’s government.

It was clear at that point that Israel was moving further right, but it turned out to be somewhat of a catch-22 for the leader of the bloc. First, it led Kadima back into the battle for rightwing votes – what many believe to be a primary cause of the Labor-Kadima war on Gaza. And secondly, the increase of voting along the Right, did not necessarily translate into votes for Likud. The ‘Right’ in Israel won a clear mandate, but the bloc itself is not very homogenous.

Like Bibi’s first premiership, he will be forced to align with powers further right than himself, which already promises to replay the head-butting with the Democratic Administration in the United States.

Since Tzipi Livni has all but rejected the offer to join a broad coalition under Likud, it will be impossible for a righwing bloc to make any concessions whatsoever in the peace process with Palestinians. In fact, the occupation of the West Bank looks set to intensify over the coming years in terms of settlements, checkpoints and the encroachment of the separation Wall. Any attempt by Bibi to slow this process, even if he wanted to, could result in the collapse of his coalition and the return of a triumphant Kadima.

Netanyahu, and the Likud party, would not survive another political bullet like this, and he has made it clear to all who will listen that:

I don’t plan on negotiating folks…I just want to spend the next few years talking about all of the stuff we agree about. I want to pump money into the Palestinian Territories in order to pacify them enough to avoid an Intifada during my first term, and continue consolidating and creating facts on the ground straight through my second.

Let us hope the Obama Administration, and a Palestinian Authority of national unity have other plans…