Netanyahu’s Elephant in the Room

By Moshe Feiglin

The level of rhetoric that we will be hearing during these elections apparently will not rise beyond “It’s either us or him” or “it’s either me or them”. Herzog and Livni made a terrible mistake when they created this conditional threat. It is much easier for Netanyahu to win points with it than it is for Herzog-Livni. All of them are completely stuck and incapable of bringing the State of Israel anywhere. But as Netanyahu said in one of his campaign clips, “It is either a Bibisitter or a Buzi (Herzog’s nickname) sitter.” When those are the options, every mother prefers an experienced babysitter over a novice.

What is fascinating in these elections is that in the face of the Left’s pathetic attempts to whip up all sorts of scandals in order to permeate Netanyahu’s fortress, they practically do not touch upon the true, frightening elephant in the room.

Netanyahu’s failure is not about the deposit on the bottles and not about the pistachio nuts. His fiasco is that every Israeli now understands that Israel is not going to be attacking Iran. The responsibility for that is solely Netanyahu’s.

Six years ago, Netanyahu had already defined Iran’s nuclear threat as his most important challenge. “Not on my watch,” he said unequivocally. But it is happening right before our eyes – on Netanyahu’s watch.

At the beginning of Netanyahu’s term, the world expected an Iraq-like Israeli attack on Iran. At that time, there was much world-wide support for an attack and its implementation would have been relatively easy. Today, however, after six years of Netanyahu’s premiership, the world understands that no Israeli attack is forthcoming and support for it has nearly evaporated.

Netanyahu’s speech-making strategy has led Israel into a situation in which all we can do is try to shout through the keyhole of the door behind which Obama is conferring with the ayatollahs. Now, Obama has even decided to cover the keyhole.

How can it be that this babysitter, who has allowed a Shiite atomic bomb into the childrens’ room, is still the preferred option?

And an even better question: How could it be that the pathetic duo running against him is going on about bottles and pistachio nuts while this real and frightening situation is unfolding?

The answer is very simple. Just as everyone understands the ‘he’ will not stop the bomb, they also understand that ‘they’ certainly will not stop it.

Even more than that. ‘He’ did not stop the bomb, mainly because ‘he’ was afraid of ‘them’! He was afraid of the attacks of the Left, of the loss of internal unity, of the top officers cloned by the Left in the IDF, the Shabak and the Mossad, who always came out publicly against the idea of attacking Iran. He feared ‘them’ more than the Americans, the Europeans and the Iranians.

That does not absolve Netanyahu of responsibility. But it does highlight what every Israeli understands: that Buzi and Tzippy are certainly not the solution; they are an inherent part of the problem.

So who do we vote for? Personally, I have not yet decided. It is much more important for me to create a true alternative (for two years from now, when I estimate Israel will once again go to elections).