Netanyahu – From Ring Master With His Clowns to The Theatre of the Absurd

As his circus begins to falter, the Ring Master could do with some new tricks.  Bibi now seeks to emulate Houdini as a great escape artist.

Towards the end of 2018, with the legal system closing in on him, and with total disregard for the interests of the country or its people, Bibi brought forward elections with the single purpose of frustrating and delaying the legal process concerning the charges against him (subject to hearing).

When it comes to self-interest, Bibi has shown he has no red lines.  Ahead of the elections, he pushed the National Religious parties to embrace the extremist party Utzma Yehudit.  In doing so, Bibi gave legitimacy to supremacist, Kahanist ideology which has far more in common with the far right in Europe or the US, than with traditional National Religious values.

Despite only managing a draw in the elections, where Likud and the new Blue and White Party shared the honours, with the support of the right wing and religious parties, Bibi was tasked with and then failed in building a coalition.

It could be, that like Houdini, a “sucker punch” this time courtesy of Avigdor Lieberman, may indeed lead to his demise (albeit political) and consequently to facing the music in the courts, and if found guilty, ending up incarcerated for his alleged corruption.

And so, in Bibi’s Theatre of the Absurd, nothing is too absurd, particularly when he finds himself in unfamiliar territory, that of desperation and panic.

Apparently, so desperate was he, that Bibi approached the leader of the Labour Party, Avi Gabbay, who himself had led his party to their worst electoral performance in history; offering him senior cabinet positions, and even the cancellation of laws to circumvent the High Court, if he would join the coalition.  In the end Gabbay refused however, not before giving serious consideration to the proposal, much to the chagrin of his parliamentary colleagues, not to mention his party members.  Gabbay’s lamentable and disastrous leadership of the Labour Party is soon coming to an end.

But back to Bibi…  Having failed to woo the Labour Party who were wholly at odds with the rest of his coalition, Bibi went one step further, where apparently this bastion of the right-wing ideology approached the Arab parties, not as you might expect, to see if their constituents were crowding the free buses provided by the leftists and on their way to the vote in their droves, but hard as it is to believe,  to see if they might be willing to prop up his attempt at a coalition.  How on earth he thought he might get that past Smotrich, Peretz and their pals remains a mystery.   Yet again another desperate attempt failed.

So, having failed to put together a government for the first time in the country’s history, Bibi then set about sabotaging any chance of Benny Ganz and Blue & White being given the opportunity to build a coalition.  He tasked his current “Senior Clown in Chief” Miki Zohar, with championing a bill to call for a new election, in effect a rerun of the elections in April, at a cost of over 3 billion shekels to the citizens of the country, all in order to prolong Netanyahu’s seat of power and ability to avoid facing justice.

Like a good clown, or useful idiot, take your pick, Zohar did his master’s bidding and indeed got the necessary majority in the Knesset to cancel the new parliament and call for new elections, leaving the country in a state of limbo, with a caretaker government remaining in place.

More absurd still, in order to exact personal revenge on Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, fresh from their own electoral failure, Bibi fired them from their ministerial positions, something which is seen as highly dubious and perhaps even illegal.  Smotrich really wanted the Justice portfolio, but his desire to turn the legal clock back 3000 years and impose a biblical theocracy on the modern state was thankfully even too absurd for Bibi.  So he gave Justice to another one of his clowns and made Rafi Peretz Justice Minister and Smotrich had to make do with transport.  Don’t get me started!

Anyway, the other clown he set up as the “care taker” Justice Minister was Amir Ohana.  One might think this was a great step in Israel for the LGTBQ community, with Israel’s first ever openly gay minister, although this just happens to be a gay minister with a record of voting against his own community.  But, I digress.

Ohana began his tenure in an equally absurd manner stating that “we do not always have to adhere to High Court decisions”.  This was so absurd in fact, that immediately after his statement, Netanyahu himself saw it necessary to correct him with a public statement.

As an aside, upon arrival at his new office and with his new found status, apparently our new “care taker” Justice Minster was not satisfied with his ministerial car and twice requested an upgrade to a car befitting that of a Minster, which in his opinion has to be a Toyota Land Cruiser at a cost in excess of NIS 500,000.

The appointment itself raises huge questions regarding  a Prime Minister currently under investigation, being able to appoint a new Justice Minister who is a staunch ally, useful idiot, clown, take your pick.

But back to our new elections now scheduled for September 17th, less than six months since the previous election…  To be clear, Likud and its allies voted for the new elections, as did the Arab Parties.

Blue & White voted against.  Of course, Bibi blamed Lieberman for “forcing” these elections upon us.  Bibi was just doing what he believed to be in the best interest of the country… duh.

So, one might be excused for being confused, when only two weeks later Bibi is panicking again and has changed his mind and now wants to cancel the new elections, the very same ones that he went out of his way to initiate.

Bibi has sent in the clowns to spin this 180, degree pirouette.  Once again, “Clown in Chief” is out there playing the blame game, but this time it’s not Lieberman.  According to MK Zohar and the other clowns, the new elections, which he initiated and drove through parliament at the behest of his master, are apparently not good. 

They’re a terrible thing for the country.  Moreover, according to Zohar, the people of Israel will never forgive Benny Ganz and Blue & White, who voted against holding new elections; for refusing to help Likud, the very party which initiated and voted for the new elections; to cancel the very same new elections they pushed for in order to sabotage Blue & White.  Got it??

It’s a brilliantly absurd argument!

But it won’t wash.  The people of Israel are beginning to understand that for Bibi, the election rerun and now his consequent, desperate attempt to have them cancelled are nothing more than a cynical ploy, vehicles and spin to protect Bibi himself.

While the south of Israel burns, Bibi is too busy with self-preservation to offer a solution to Hamas terror from Gaza.  While the impending closure of Sde Dov endangers the economic future of Eilat along with other outlying areas in Israel, Bibi is too preoccupied with spin and avoidance to give it his attention.  While the country faces a host of challenges in health, welfare, security, take your pick, Bibi felt quite comfortable landing us with a caretaker government, unable to make any decisions or take decisive action.

In short, Bibi is far too wrapped up in himself to be bothered to run the country.  Ironically, that was pretty much his argument when he called on Olmert to resign as Prime Minister, stating that a Prime Minister could not govern the country effectively with the distractions of criminal charges and legal process.  Seems he was right.

If as Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”  Well for this “comedy of errors” the exit is fast approaching. For Bibi, his clowns and their Theatre of the Absurd, the end is nigh.