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Netanyahu’s Delusions of Grandeur will Push Israel into an Abyss

Maariv, Israel, October 10

A father knows his son better than anyone else; maybe even more than the son knows himself. If Benzion Netanyahu the Elder said that his son, Bibi, isn’t suitable to serve as prime minister, maybe we should have believed him. Netanyahu the Elder knew what he was talking about, and his son is proving him right almost every single day. Bibi lost his moral compass and threw us into a mess. I cannot recall any previous prime minister, from Ben-Gurion onward, who caused such deep divisions among our people and led to such fervent demonstrations week after week. Avigdor Liberman, once Netanyahu’s right-hand man and today his bitter rival, declared this week that “Bibi is taking Israel to ruin” and demanded the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the functioning of the government. Bibi and his cronies repeatedly attack their rivals by claiming that they’re trying to remove a democratically-elected prime minister from power. Suppose this is the case, then what’s the problem? It is completely natural and understandable that anyone who thinks that a prime minister is unfit for office will do everything in his or her power, inside and outside parliament, to overthrow him. Instead of trying to vilify and dehumanize the law-abiding citizens demonstrating outside his residence, Netanyahu’s time and energy would be better spent trying to understand how he reached this point. How is it possible that with each passing week, more and more right-leaning voters – including prominent and respected right-wing political figures – join the demonstrations and demand Netanyahu’s resignation? One cannot talk about Bibi’s delusion without mentioning the laundry saga. When a few newspapers claimed several years ago that the Netanyahus bring suitcases of dirty laundry on their state visits abroad just to get them cleaned on the government’s dime, I thought this was nothing more than a bad joke. But as time went by, more and more outlets reported on this habit, including several American newspapers. In their recent trip to Washington to sign the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates, the Netanyahus allegedly brought copious amounts of dirty laundry with them for the Blair House staff to clean. What a shame. Not just on Bibi, but on our entire nation. – Avraham Tirosh (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)