Bibi's domestic enemies

As was the case in 1996, Israeli media outlets form united front against Netanyahu

Shlomo Engel
Israel Opinion
YNET News

Many observers have already addressed the question of whether the 2009 Netanyahu is different than the young Netanyahu of 1996, and whether his wife has changed in the past 13 years. On the other hand, nobody sought to compare the 2009 media to the media of 1996. Have media outlets changed even a bit in respect to their attitude to Netanyahu and his government, compared to the united front presented against him during his first term in office? Regrettably, less than two months after the second Netanyahu government was sworn in, it appears that nothing has changed in the Israeli media world. Again, most journalists voluntarily enlist for the new battle against Netanyahu and his government.


The fate of the state of Israel’s ties with its greatest ally the United States and its president, Barak Obama, has also been covered homogeneously by Israel’s enlisted journalists, who are begging and praying for Obama to blast Netanyahu the peace refusenik. Since the elections we have heard consistent expressions of grief, arguing that the state of Israel’s relationship with the Obama administration is doomed because of Netanyahu. Everyone hopes that the most powerful man in the world will return the rebellious son to the “proper peace path” – and as far as they are concerned, Israel’s democracy and elections can go to hell.


Nobody in the world can disregard the immense difficulty inherent in standing up to Obama, yet one cannot ignore his childish and dangerous notions such as the dialogue with Iran and Syria. We are still a long way from agreeing with and automatically capitulating in the face of what Obama and Israel’s journalists aspire for.


Refrain from reading papers
Immediately after the formation of the current government, the campaign of disparagement against it got underway. Indeed, it is not desirable for the government to be inflated, large, and wasteful. However, we are dealing with an almost trivial matter in the face of the great difficulty in forming a coalition within such a split Knesset, comprising so many medium-sized and small parties. Netanyahu managed to secure a notable achievement by bringing the Labor party into his government while maintaining his natural rightist partners. However, Israeli journalists were of course interested in the length of the government table and in its 30 needless ministers.



This familiar pattern repeated in respect to the budget, even though we are dealing with a great achievement for Netanyahu and for the State of Israel, first and foremost because the budget is premised on wall-to-wall agreement among Israel’s major economic players. The government, the labor union federation, and the large employers agreed, within a relatively short period of time, to endorse an economic plan aimed at salvaging the Israeli economy.



The alternative to this agreement is of course needless strikes and struggles, whose cost would be much greater than that of the compromises which the government was forced to make. The quick approval of the budget in and of itself, without coalition shakeups and for a period of two years, is a notable achievement that nobody addressed.


It is important to congratulate Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and remind him to stand firm when it comes to the fundamental principles that brought him to office. Netanyahu and Israel’s sane citizens would do well to refrain from reading newspapers during his visit to the US, and preferably after the visit as well.