It was an unadulterated pleasure, a true delight, to watch Benjamin Netanyahu standing there like a scolded child, reluctantly having to listen to the lesson in democracy delivered by the U.S. secretary of state.
Antony Blinken explained to Bibi the importance of the rule of law, a free press and minority rights, adding that in a democracy “new proposals” must be passed by consensus. The blunt, thinly veiled message: Joe Biden completely opposes the radical regime change you're trying to achieve.
The prime minister tried to keep a poker face, but inside he was seething. There was a lot he wanted to say to Blinken in reply, but he couldn’t. He knows how dependent we are on the United States.
It’s not just the $3.8 billion a year we've been receiving to buy the world’s most advanced weapons – and last year this number rose to $4.8 billion. It's also the scientific and intelligence cooperation, as well as the political umbrella without which we would have been hit by harsh sanctions long ago.
Netanyahu managed to choke out the words “We are two strong democracies,” which reminded me of the fable about the fly sitting on an ox’s horn who says: “The ox and I are plowing the field together.”
But while Netanyahu had to keep his mouth shut with the Americans, he had no such qualms when it came to Israeli economists. He falsely accused them of deliberately hurting the economy, implying that if they would just keep quiet, the stock market would rise and the shekel would strengthen. As if investors didn’t understand what happens when the justice system is shattered.
Bibi is mad at everybody: the high-tech chiefs, the Bank of Israel governor, the credit rating agencies, the bankers, the 300 economists who signed a letter warning against the weakening of the judiciary, and top businesspeople worrying about capital flight and the lowering of Israel’s credit rating. It’s easy for Netanyahu to disparage all of the above, but what about the markets?
You can’t argue with them. They have no political views. They rise or fall based on the decisions of millions of people whether to buy or sell. And we're seeing that at a time when world financial markets are rising sharply, the climb by Israeli stocks and bonds has been much less dramatic.
At the start of the week, Netanyahu saw that he was going to have to break his big election promise to freeze the price of gasoline. So he subsidized the price by 33 agorot (10 cents) a liter, to keep the price from rising. This was a populist decision opposed even by the right-wing Kohelet Policy Forum. The move will waste gasoline, create more air pollution and widen the budget deficit, which in turn will cause inflationary pressure.
Ahead of the November 1 election, Netanyahu promised to freeze prices for gasoline, electricity, water and arnona municipal tax. After the election, he held a press conference with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and said he would keep his promises.
But it turns out that even for a populist like him there's a limit: the size of the budget deficit. That's why electricity rates rose 6.7 percent in February, with water and arnona going up too. The price freeze didn't happen.
Another of Netanyahu’s false election promises was to give working families with children another tax credit, but the exact opposite happened. The tax credit awarded by the previous finance minister, Avigdor Lieberman, expired at the beginning of the month, so now we'll pay more in income tax, not less.
These are all just mind games. Time after time, Bibi promises the world, knowing that the public will remember the pledges and not the failure to follow through. In politics, the promise is as good as actually doing something (the rest is optional).
So Bibi hopes that Biden will suffice with talk and not demand any genuine changes in Netanyahu's plan to bulldoze Israel’s justice system. Let's hope Biden will make clear to Bibi who's really plowing the field.
Biden, Show Bibi How to Fulfill a Promise
It was an unadulterated pleasure, a true delight, to watch Benjamin Netanyahu standing there like a scolded child, reluctantly having to listen to the lesson in democracy delivered by the U.S. secretary of state.
Antony Blinken explained to Bibi the importance of the rule of law, a free press and minority rights, adding that in a democracy “new proposals” must be passed by consensus. The blunt, thinly veiled message: Joe Biden completely opposes the radical regime change you're trying to achieve.
The prime minister tried to keep a poker face, but inside he was seething. There was a lot he wanted to say to Blinken in reply, but he couldn’t. He knows how dependent we are on the United States.
It’s not just the $3.8 billion a year we've been receiving to buy the world’s most advanced weapons – and last year this number rose to $4.8 billion. It's also the scientific and intelligence cooperation, as well as the political umbrella without which we would have been hit by harsh........
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