For a long time now questions have been mounting around Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu as to just what he wants his legacy to be. He is now the second longest serving prime minister in Israel’s short history and he has very little to show for it. Regardless of whether one leans left, centre or right in political opinion there is nothing to be happy about when looking at Bibi’s reign over Israel.
The man who for years has been touted as the only politician truly capable of being Prime Minister has both seen Israel become more isolated than at any time over the last 20 years and build less settlements than at any time since Olmert was Prime Minister.
Yes that’s correct, settlers would have been better served with Olmert than Bibi.
He both froze settlement building, released Palestinian terrorists from prison and still managed to alienate Israel from the community of nations in the world. In other words he failed so abominably that he actually bowed to US demands for peacemaking and yet managed to extract nothing for it. Save for the fact that in doing so he outmanoeuvred domestic rivals by doing so.
Israel was the big loser.
He wanted to stop the Iranian nuclear program and succeeded only in watching negotiations proceed without him. His famous “this is a bad deal” speech to the cameras gained him nothing save the quiet loathig of his fellow world leaders. The ones who should be Israel’s allies.
He wanted to sideline the Palestinians and has been forced (along with the rest of us) to watch as European countries one after the other have voted to recognise a state of Palestine should one be declared. Now the UN seeks to impose on Israel a timetable for withdrawal. The US veto, once a certainty is becoming less certain with every vote.
It isn’t surprising that diplomatically Israel is more isolated than ever before since he presided over the emasculation of the foreign ministry, the only weapon that could have been used to fight back. He emasculated the foreign ministry by splitting the responsibility over a range of different ministries in a classic display of divide and rule.
Israel was the big loser.
Israel’s policy of deterrence sits in tatters. He balked in 2012 and negotiated with Hamas rather than launching the needed military incursion then. An emboldened Hamas told Israeli negotiators in Cairo in the Summer of 2014 that they weren’t interested in negotiations and dared Israel to enter into the Gaza Strip. Now a mere three months later Hamas are already holding military marches and talking of their readiness for the next round. What did Netanyahu achieve?
Israel was both attacked by the world for launching the incursion and failed to change the strategic reality in the wake of the military operation. Classic Netanyahu, the worst of both worlds. If launching a military option go all of the way. Now Israelis are simply waiting for the same thing again in two years time.
The largest civil unrest in the history of the country occurred on his watch. While the Rothschild protests swept the country and hundreds of thousands took to the streets the prime minister simply promised an inquiry, waited and continued as if it had never happened. He now has the nerve to blame discontent with his rule on a media conspiracy.
There is no media conspiracy, there is a growing determination not to allow this Machiavellian manipulator to slide into the top job simply to preside over the decline of the country.
This man values neither right nor left, he values only himself. Netanyahu has achieved nothing in his term as prime minister save place Israel in a far worse economic, diplomatic and military situation than when he took it over.
So now when he looks over his ailing empire. At a party faithful who feel tied to him rather than supportive of him and former allies who are ridiculing him in public he must know. He is a failure.
