Bibi’s report card

The same might be said of Cruz

By Evelyn Gordon

I usually leave American politics to Americans, on the theory that they know more about it. But as an Israeli, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on one of the two main concerns raised about presidential candidate Ted Cruz, because I’ve spent the last seven years living under a leader who shares the same flaw: an astonishing talent for making absolutely everyone who works with him loathe him. This flaw has undoubtedly made Benjamin Netanyahu a less effective prime minister than he could have been. Yet on balance, he has been quite successful.

The fact that “King Bibi” is widely loathed in Israel – and not just by left-wingers – may surprise many Americans. But Israeli politics is littered with former senior aides and colleagues of Netanyahu who abandoned his Likud party because they couldn’t stand working with him. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, once Likud’s number two, quit because he loathed Netanyahu and now heads his own party, Kulanu. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, once a senior aide to Netanyahu, similarly left in disgust and now heads his own party, Jewish Home. Jewish Home’s number two, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, is another former senior Netanyahu aide who quit in disgust, as is former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who now heads his own party, Yisrael Beiteinu. Former Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, also once Likud’s number two, quit in disgust and is now taking a “time-out” from politics. It’s hard to think of any other Israeli party with a comparable attrition rate among its most talented people, and it’s no surprise that dumping Bibi is reportedly a top goal for many politicians even within the governing coalition.

Nor is Netanyahu much more popular among his own voters. In a fascinating report in January, journalist Amit Segal described how Likud pulled off its stunning upset victory in last year’s election. The campaign began with focus groups among likely Likud voters in which person after person declared: We’re not voting Bibi again; we’re sick of him. Campaign strategists concluded that only one thing could persuade these voters to nevertheless vote Netanyahu – fear that not doing so would bring the left to power. The campaign successfully played on this fear, and in the end, Likud voters turned out for Bibi en masse.

There’s a reason why Netanyahu has disappointed so many voters: Pushing through major change, which many voters want in the socioeconomic sphere, requires cooperation from many other people, and especially legislators. Thus someone with a gift for alienating everyone he works with finds effecting major change very difficult.

Indeed, it’s no accident that Netanyahu made his most far-reaching reforms not as premier, but as finance minister under Ariel Sharon. Those reforms are widely credited with giving Israel several years of five percent growth and enabling it to weather the global financial crisis of 2008-09 with little damage. But as finance minister, Netanyahu only had to draft them; Sharon, a superb politician, took responsibility for actually pushing them through the Knesset. Since becoming prime minister, in contrast, Netanyahu hasn’t managed to enact any of his boldest ideas.

But here is what he has managed to do, despite his flaws: He’s kept Israel safe in a very dangerous region. Palestinian terror, even with the current stabbing intifada, has claimed far fewer victims than under most of his predecessors. Syria’s civil war, which has destabilized all its other neighbors, hasn’t touched Israel, in part thanks to quiet agreements with more moderate rebel groups that Israel will provide humanitarian aid, including hospital treatment for wounded Syrians, as long as they keep Islamist fanatics away from Israel’s border. Security cooperation with Egypt has reached an all-time high, as have under-the-table relations with other Arab states in the face of two common enemies – Iran and radical Sunni groups like Islamic State. Israel has survived seven years of a hostile U.S. president without being forced into any territorial concessions that would endanger its security.

Compare that to his predecessors’ record and it’s easy to see why Israelis, despite loathing Netanyahu, prefer his cautious stewardship to the left’s adventurism. As I’ve explained before in greater detail, Yitzhak Rabin’s Oslo Accord, Ehud Barak’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon and negotiations with Yasser Arafat, and Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza all significantly worsened Israel’s security situation and led to an upsurge in Israeli casualties. Netanyahu, by contrast, has perpetrated no major disasters; if he hasn’t dramatically improved Israelis’ lives, he has at least refrained from making them worse.

And even excluding security issues, where he shines, his record on other issues may not be stellar, but it certainly isn’t bad. The economy has grown modestly but steadily, and unemployment has remained at record lows despite a massive increase in labor force participation rates. There have been no dramatic reforms, but many smaller ones. Diplomatic relations with some traditional allies, like Germany, have soured, but relations with other countries have improved markedly, both in Europe (where several smaller states, including former hostiles like Greece and Cyprus, have surprisingly become Israel’s closest European allies) and in Asia, where relations with India, China and Japan have blossomed.

So if Americans want a revolution, Cruz probably can’t deliver; his lack of emotional intelligence virtually precludes major reforms. But as Netanyahu has proven, someone with terrible interpersonal skills can nevertheless do a pretty good job of steering the ship of state – keeping the country safe, avoiding major disasters and making modest improvements along the way. To my mind, that sounds infinitely better than what America’s had for the last seven years, or what it’s likely to get from either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Clearly, all this is moot if Cruz can’t overcome his other main problem: He has yet to prove he can match Bibi’s talent for winning elections. But based on the Bibi parallel, I don’t think Americans need to worry about how Cruz would do if he actually won the White House. As most Israelis could tell them, there are plenty of worse traits in a chief executive than an inability to get along with other people.

March 25, 2016 | 20 Comments »
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  1. @ lsatenstein:IRAN DID NOT DESTROY THEIR NECULEAR FACILITIES.

    Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is left largely intact. Centrifuges will be mothballed but not disman­tled. Iran’s illicit nuclear facilities — Nantaz and Fordow — whose op­erations were supposed to be shut down under multiple UN Security Council resolutions, have been le­gitimised, despite their being built covertly in violation of the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

    Instead of dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the agree­ment dismantles the sanctions that brought Tehran to the negoti­ating table in the first place.

    This fact is not lost on US al­lies, friends and frenemies in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who under­standably sees Iran’s potential nu­clear threat as an existential issue, denounced the deal as “a historic mistake”.

    Sunni Arab states threatened by Iran are likely to hedge their bets and take out insurance by work­ing to expand their own nuclear options. Saudi Arabia has let it be known that it will demand the same concessions on uranium en­richment that Iran received. The Saudis have begun negotiations to buy French nuclear reactors and this civilian programme could be­come the foundation for a future weapons programme.

    Other Arab states and Turkey are likely to tee up their own nucle­ar programmes as a prudent coun­terweight to offset Iran’s expand­ing nuclear potential, after some of the restrictions on its uranium enrichment programme automati­cally sunset.

    The end result could be accel­erated nuclear proliferation and a possible nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world. Another major problem is verifica­tion of Iranian compliance. The ad­ministration’s initial insistence on “anytime/anywhere” inspections was downgraded to “sometimes/ some places”.

    http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2015/7/iran-deal-a-diplomatic-speed-hump

  2. @ Keli-A:

    Gearing up for a defensive war is like buying insurance.
    In the end you hope that you will not have to make a claim.

    And of course, you are angry that you spent that insurance money and have nothng to show for it.

    So, gearing up to destroy Iran’s nuclear production facilities did not come to pass. We know now that Iran actually went further than demanded to destroy it’s nuclear manufacturing capabilities.

    On the pessimistic side, Iran may have signed agreements with Pakistan or Russia, for them to continue with what Iran was doing nuclear-wise. Spy agencies would tell us if that is the case.

  3. Negev Bonanza

    August 8, 2014

    The Jerusalem Report — The biggest project the state has ever known gets underway with the planned transfer of IDF bases and personnel to the south.

    The massive relocation of the Israel Defense Forces facilities to the south, long planned and promised, has now reached an impressive momentum.
    The IDF’s strategic intelligence units are slated to move to a high-technology campus steps away from the ATP and the BGU campus.

    A pedestrian bridge connects BGU’s campus with the ATP and the site of the IDF technology campus.

    At the same time, multinational companies are moving into the brand new Advanced Technologies Park (ATP) in Beer-Sheva, promising to transform the former backwater capital of the Negev into a global cyber capital. Concurrently, the Trans-Israel Highway (Road 6) and rail networks are being extended at an unprecedented pace.

    This accelerated development is expected to provide a major boost to the economy of the Negev, which most Israelis still regard as the rural periphery. Decades of underdevelopment and unfulfilled promises of investment in the arid region, which accounts for almost two-thirds of the country’s land but just eight percent of its population, are clearly coming to an end.

    Idealistic language figures prominently when officials connected to the project describe the move to the Negev. A “national project” they call it, “in the spirit of Ben- Gurion’s vision of making the Negev flourish.”

    While no academic studies have been carried out on the economic impact of the multibillion shekel project, which officials say is the biggest the state has ever known, it already is providing a boost to the local economy.

    Beginning at the end of the year, the IDF will start moving major military installations from the densely populated center of the country to the Negev. The relocation is designed to streamline combat support training – now carried out in multiple facilities in the extremely congested Tel Aviv-area heartland – by funneling it into a single site.

    Eight separate IDF training bases now located in several British Mandate-era army camps in the center will be relocated to the country’s first mega base at the Negev Junction, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Beer-Sheva.

    Also, in the next few years, the IDF will transfer the core of its technological weight to the south – Intelligence Branch facilities will be moved from affluent Ramat Hasharon to a base to be built at the Shoket Junction, just north of Beer-Sheva, and the C4I Communications Corps will be transferred from Tel Aviv to a base to be constructed next to Beer-Sheva’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), allowing the IDF to decentralize its vulnerable security structure.

    Two smaller training camps also will be relocated to Beer-Sheva, and the Air Force has already moved two of its bases to the Negev; most recently the IAF base alongside Ben-Gurion Airport shifted to Nevatim, near Arad.

    There are already several major military bases in the south, like the Nevatim base relocated from the Sinai after the agreement with Egypt, and Tze’elim, set up in the 1960s.

    But the moves were gradual, without the massive amount of construction going on now, or the central concentration of bases and personnel. There are some career soldiers and their families living in the south, but they moved independently and are scattered throughout different communities.

    Originally called Training Base City, the massive military complex now under construction has been officially designated the Ariel Sharon IDF Combined Instructional Center, named after the late prime minister, the main mover in getting the project approved for the Negev.

    Just two years ago, the site designated for the mammoth new training base, located near the town of Yeruham and not far from Dimona‘s Nuclear Research Center, was a desert wilderness. Today, the 2,500-dunam (632 acre) site, which is bisected by the Zin Valley, is an entire city under construction with cranes and earth-moving equipment everywhere. This is a hard hat-only zone, as building is carried out at a feverish, around-the-clock pace.

    Among the training divisions due to be moved to the new facility are the Medical Corps, Armaments and Maintenance, Education, Logistics, Manpower, and the Military Police Academy. So far, the police station is the only completed building.

    When completed and fully occupied, the mega base will house 10,000 army personnel along with a support staff of 500 civilians, making it the Negev’s third-largest population center after Dimona and Beer-Sheva, albeit one in which there will be a constant turnover of the population.

    The mainly pedestrian complex will include training centers with hundreds of computerized classrooms and simulation sites, a hospital and clinic, dormitories, sports centers, three synagogues, a conference center, and shopping center. Just outside the perimeter of the camp, a recreational public park is planned, funded by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which will include a hotel.

    New bridges constructed over the wadi are designed to support the army’s heaviest tanks.

    The base abuts nature reserves but, according to Col. Danny Moshoyov, commander of the new military complex, the existing firing ranges are being reorganized, not expanded as some Desert & Water Researchalist groups charge, thus leaving the available area for tourism intact.

    Moshoyov shows visitors an animated film simulation of the completed base. Lush vegetation covers the banks of a man-made stream running through the complex. Benches and a cycling path overlook the stream making the site look more like a resort or college campus than an army base.

    “Everything is being built to the highest standards. Our main aim is to run these training courses at the highest level possible,” Moshoyov relates to The Jerusalem Report.

    As the vast military complex rises from the sand, the economic impact of the project is already being felt. Moshoyov echoes the missionary tone of other officials in describing the effect of the massive project as “the realization of Ben-Gurion’s vision. This has national importance, as the state strengthens the residents of the south with infrastructure and employment.”

    A key to this mega project is the use of a private company (a Public-Private Partnership, or “PPP”), as was the case for the construction of Trans-Israel Highway 6, but is the first time this has been used by the military. Mabat laNegev (View to the Negev), a consortium of four companies formed specifically for this project, won a 25-year contract to build and operate the military training complex.

    The project already has meant an infusion of jobs into the south, particularly in construction, with Mabat laNegev responsible for all the subcontractors. Most of the 1,400 workers on the site have been hired locally (no foreign workers) and, indirectly, another 2,000 workers, employed in various plants and factories in the area, supply materials.

    Ackerstein Paving Stones, with a factory in Yeruham, has tripled its output in the last year, relates Moshoyov. “We’ve insisted that Negev companies get preferential consideration for jobs. We also plan to hire civilian instructors for the training courses, not just career officers,” he says.

    The estimated total cost of the training complex together with the intelligence and communications bases is 22 billion shekels ($6.3 billion). Estimates for all the projects involved in the transition to the Negev are closer to $11 billion. Where is the money coming from? The Defense Ministry has been promoting the project to prospective international investors and even overseas benefactors. The sports center at the training base, for example, is being funded by American-Jewish donors.

    But the bulk of the money will come from the sale of state-owned lands in the densely populated center, where various military camps and installations are currently located.

    This is some of the country’s priciest and most sought-after real estate. The sale of the lands is expected to earn the state tens of billions of shekels, half of which is to go directly to the Treasury, which in turn will sell the areas to developers.

    Today, it is more expensive to buy an apartment in some parts of Tel Aviv than Manhattan, and the government is under pressure to stem the rise in housing prices.

    Thus, the IDF move to the south will serve not only the government’s declared goal to develop the Negev, but will also free up land for housing in the center. The Construction and Housing Ministry estimates 35,000 apartments, including about 9,000 classified as “affordable housing,” will be built on the emptied sites, although “affordable” seems a remote possibility given the constant rise in housing prices.

    Meanwhile, military personnel to be relocated from the center to the Negev must be accommodated. While the 9,500 soldiers in the regular army coming to the mega training base for three-month courses will be housed in dormitories, another 500 or so career officers and their families could be persuaded – if the army’s promotional efforts succeed – to buy private homes in the area.

    In the next five years, some additional 30,000 army personnel will also be moved to serve in the new bases in the Beer-Sheva area.

    Although it soon will be even easier to get to the Negev by car or train, Hezi Mashita, formerly a high-ranking officer in the navy and now the Defense Ministry’s administration chief in the Negev, says, “We don’t want these career officers and NCOs commuting back and forth to Tel Aviv. We want them to live near the bases; it’s good for us and it’s efficient.”

    In fact, the anticipated move of army personnel to the south has already set off a building boom in the area. It comes at a time of renewed emphasis by the government to bring residents to this region.

    The chief benefactors of all this activity, so far, seem to be the building contractors who have won tenders for the construction of housing units being marketed specifically to army officers. In Beer-Sheva, two new neighborhoods are already in an advanced stage of preparation. Construction in nearby bedroom communities, such as Meitar and Omer, has dramatically increased.

    Yeruham, just a 10-minute drive from the enormous new training base, has been plugging a project of private homes called Tzahala – the same name as the northern Tel Aviv neighborhood originally set up to house the military brass of a previous generation.

    (After houses built in Omer with favorable terms for officers a few years ago were immediately sold or sublet to non-military people, this time, purchasers of the new housing units must agree to live there for at least five years, with no option to rent or sell.)

    But even with all the real-estate activity already going on and the opportunity for career officers to build relatively large detached houses for the price of small apartments in the center, the army is facing a tough battle to persuade them to move south with their families.

    “Most of the military professionals live in the center and to convince them to move to the periphery is a big change and, for us, a big risk,” Mashita, tells The Report. “If we build the bases and lose the manpower, it’s better to stay in Tel Aviv.”

    The Defense Ministry is now actively trying to tempt career soldiers to move south by offering a wide range of benefits and incentives, including mortgages, rent subsidies, salary boosts, assistance for spouses in finding jobs, and moving expenses. The army even puts on organized tours of the region.

    In a film produced by the army shown at a recent recruitment gathering, the announcer says, “You probably think we’ll tempt you with a detached house and a swimming pool waiting for you, or at least a barbecue.

    “But we’ll show you what’s really available, whether a one-room apartment or a villa. The Negev offers a young, fun social life, academic studies, and lots of freedom,” declares the voiceover.

    Speaking at the meeting, Yeruham Mayor Michael Biton commented that “Building houses isn’t the problem. The challenge is making people want to live here. This means investing in education and many other things like jobs for the spouses of military personnel who arrive.”

    “A lot depends on accessibility, quality of life, real opportunities in education, culture and employment offered to the officers’ families, most of whom are not keen to relocate to the south,” says Prof. David Newman, dean of BGU’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

    Mashita, in charge of the relocation of civilian infrastructure, explains he’s been trying to harness as many sources as possible to expand opportunities for career soldiers and their families relocating south when the time comes.

    “I’m in touch with all the mayors and civilian industries and organizations in the south, and coordinating with all the ministries so they’ll upgrade the infrastructure in the Negev,” he says in an interview at his office in the brand new Defense Ministry building in Petah Tikva, just east of Tel Aviv.

    Shmuelik Rifman, head of Ramat HaNegev, the largest (in area) regional council in the country, stretching from south of Beer-Sheva to the Egyptian border, is skeptical.

    “This isn’t the 1950s when they brought immigrants in horse-drawn carts and dumped them wherever they please,” he cracks. “If the highway or the train take you back and forth in an hour, why would you move to the Negev?” he continues, referring to the extension of Road 6 now under construction, and – though years away from being a reality – the planned extension of the rail network to the central Negev.

  4. The Clinging to America at all cost has really cost Israel tens of billions in additional income lower GDP and lower economic growth across the board.

    The electorate is fully complicit. If voters insist that (cliche alert) “the first priority of every Israeli prime minister is to manage successfully the relationship with America”, that childish sense of dependency condemns Israel to be a vassal state.

    I have not even mentioned his two fiasco insurgencies into Gaza…

    It might be an excessively philosophical point, but were they really “fiascos” if they were intended to fail?

  5. The plan will be spread over five years and constitutes the civilian response to the IDF’s move to the Negev. The plan was formulated by an inter-ministerial committee led by Prime Minister’s Office Director General Harel Locker and Negev and Galilee Development Ministry Director General Orna Hosman-Bechor and is designed to advance the development of the Negev as part of preparations for moving IDF bases to the Negev. The expectation is that as a result of the move, by 2020, there will be a NIS 1.4-1.7 billion increase in economic activity in the Negev per annum, according to the government communique. At the start of the meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Negev and Galilee Development Minister Silvan Shalom presented the main points of the plan.

    The plan includes extensive and significant investments in all areas of life, focuses on economic development, housing solutions, strengthening [local] authorities, developing high-tech and emphasizes quality of life for residents. The plan accelerates economic development by subsidizing industrial zones and the establishment of three new industrial parks, provides incentives for companies to relocate to the Negev by subsidizing the salaries of high-tech workers and budgets for training employees. Inter alia, the plan also specifies that an outline will be formulated for turning Be’er Sheva into a cyber center. Increasing the number of Negev residents who serve in IDF technological units will create an employment track for the Israeli ‘silicon valley’.

    In Be’er Sheva, Dimona, Yerucham, Arad, Ofakim and the Merhavim Regional Council will be declared national priority communities and defined as target communities for the plan. In these aforesaid communities, unique plans will be implemented in order to strengthen local authorities, which will be eligible for upgraded assistance and support, especially in managing long-term planning. The five-year plan will assure that the target communities will benefit from the potential inherent in the move of IDF units to the Negev, according to the release. The Negev and Galilee Development Ministry will be responsible for the overall Government work in implementing the plan.

    In order to encourage young people and young families to move to the Negev, the supply of housing will be increased, culture and recreation will be expanded, a campaign to brand the Negev as a housing target and attractive place of opportunity will be launched, and additional civilian infrastructures will be developed in order to close the gaps between Negev communities and the center of the country.

    The decision joins the Government’s five-year plan for the socio-economic development of the Bedouin population in the Negev, which is now in its second year, and adds industrial, commercial and environmental aspects to it.

    Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “We will make a very great effort, and I think that it is a historic move in the context of Government decisions to approve a national plan for the development of the Negev.”

    “The plan that we are submitting today for the development of the Negev entails an additional investment of NIS 500 million and this investment will be in all the main aspects of life in the Negev in order to raise the quality of life. It is concentrated in employment, with an emphasis on high-tech. The Negev especially Be’er Sheva, is going to quickly become an important high-tech center for the State of Israel. The plan deals with economic development, strengthening infrastructures and housing solutions. It embraces all of the main communities in the Negev – Be’er Sheva, Dimona, Yerucham, Arad, Ofakim and the Merhavim Regional Council. It will also develop Be’er Sheva as a cyber center. In coordination with the Israel National Cyber Bureau (INCB), we are implementing joint projects and this is also a sign for the future, a better future for Be’er Sheva and the communities of the entire Negev, ” Netanyahu said.

    Negev and Galilee Development Minister Shalom added: “Today is an especially moving day for me, as a man of the Negev, as the Negev and Galilee Development Minister, as we come today with the civilian response to the IDF’s move southward. The Defense Ministry is doing everything in order to move IDF bases. Last week, we dedicated the communications site, but we need to provide the civilian response, and this government, under your leadership, has understood that without providing the right civilian response to those who will potentially move – it will not be possible to for them to live in the Negev. We hope that those thousands of career personnel who will come with their families will the Negev to be their home, and in order to allow them to do so we have set up a one-stop-shop center, at which they can receive all the information they need about jobs for their spouses, education for their children, housing and infrastructure possibilities, culture and recreation, and we will assist each and every one who applies until they take root in the Negev.”

    “Today, we are developing the Negev apace, Mr. Prime Minister. A high-tech park was recently established in Be’er Sheva and has opened its gates. Of course, in the Rahat-Lehavim-Bnei Shimon industrial park, we have brought companies like Soda Stream and Cargal, and in Netivot, in the Noam Industrial Park, which had been closed for many years, we brought Tara. You mentioned, of course, the development of infrastructure, for health, education, smart classrooms – today we are seeing dramatic changes, and we are talking about another NIS 500 million, in addition to the NIS 45 billion that we have invested in recent years and this is a great amount beyond the normal investments, of course, in the Negev,” Minister Shalom said.

    “And therefore, today we are coming with genuinely good new that will allow all those who want to move, to tell him ‘You have the possibility of doing so because in the Negev today, there are conditions that are no less good than in the center of the country, and sometimes even better’ regarding housing prices, education, employment and a long series of issues such as culture and recreation which, I believe, are developing and prospering very well in the area.”

    “The Negev and Galilee Development Ministry will be responsible for managing and implementing the decision in order to ensure that the Negev will receive significant support that will cause IDF career families and other strong populations to move to the Negev. The Ministry, in coordination with the local authorities in the Negev, will manage a campaign to change the image of the Negev. In recent years, the Negev has undergone a revolution, is drawing strong populations and is developing in all aspects of life. This additional investment will provide an additional urgency to the Negev and will upgrade the entire region as well as its residents,” Minister Shalom said.

    Finance Minister Yair Lapid added that, “In addition to the major benefit to the development of the Negev, the transfer of IDF bases to the Negev will allow for the advancement of many housing starts in areas in demand and will lead to a lowering of housing prices.”

  6. Bear Klein Said:

    He has been integral in moving the IDF main base to the Negev so that the land is better used and the population will have jobs in the Negev. He has also been integral in the on going project of improving the transportation system of the country.

    They have been talking about moving IDF bases South since forever. Most had long been moved before BB’s last two terms. The overriding reason was that the municipality of Tel Aviv wanted the prime land that the Kirya and Lashut in Ramat Gan were sitting on those properties with inflated bubble prices largely caused by BB himself, are worth Billions to developers and that was the primary motivation….

    Negev is not that large but the army bases there are an ecological disaster and their clustering makes them an easy target for Hezbollah and Hamas missiles and rockets. We had great bases in Y&S and Sinai and an airbase 500 KM closer to Iran negating 3rd party help if we had attacked Iran. 500 saved KM to and 500 Km saved in return is a 1000 Km making an attack highly feasible with greater chance of success…. Stupid treasonous Begin and all of the LIkud put us in our negative current positions and BB became a part of their stupid mindset, if not in his public pronouncements but through his actions since taking office in 1996.

    Israel for past 15 years ten of them under BB as PM have spent 3 billion dollars per year just to gear up for an attack against Iran? No attack, failed policy and lack of will are going to give Iran their nukes, so where did the 3 billion a year go to?

    BB is a skunk and scoundrel a weasel mouth POS that lies more than telling the truth….. He is for us worse than Obama and Hitlery are for America.

  8. babushka Said:

    I am glad Netanyahu has found his niche, because he has been a very very bad Israeli Prime Minister.

    The absolute worst and we have had some very bad Prime Ministers. He as leader of the Likud party was elected with one overriding mandate and that was to prevent Iran from developing Nuke and nuke production infrastructure. He has allowed Hezbollah to recover from the beating they took in second Lebanese war, rearm with even more advanced Rockets and Missiles with more payload and greater accuracy putting the whole of Israel under threat and in their target capabilities range. That includes Ben Gurion all IDF military bases our electrical generating plants petrochemical and chemical manufacturing and storage facilities, ports and strategic storage tanks and of-course most of our population along the coast.

    He has created a housing bubble by reducing and freezing all to most building in Y&S and other places in Israel where people need homes. Due to fear of Obama and before him Bush BB refuses to sell the Chinese our weapons systems costing Israel billions in lost sales increased employment and added income for the state to lower taxes for the people. The Clinging to America at all cost has really cost Israel tens of billions in additional income lower GDP and lower economic growth across the board.

    He approved and attached our strategic mid to long term military procurement to the F-35 thereby making Israel ever more a pawn to any American Admin and loss almost totally of our political independence….

    I won’t get into the widespread corruption of BB and his governments and wastefulness. I have not even mentioned his two fiasco insurgencies into Gaza and the spate of terror stabbings and car rammings of the past year due to lax and inadequate policies at the top.

    Evelyn Gordon used to be very astute in her political analysis of Israeli politics and politicians but after this puff piece on BB, seems like she has lost her reason….nuff said.

  9. babushka Said:

    Netanyahu should be Finance Minister.

    There are some things you cannot do as Finance Minister. On top of the economic reforms, do not forget that it takes a Prime Minister, not an FM, to get a major gas find out of the ground in just four years (Tamar), and to parlay Israel’s gas reserves into an international asset. He could have done even more with the gas if it were not for obstructionist leftists in the bureaucracy and in the courts.

  10. babushka Said:

    Eric R. says:
    March 25, 2016 at 5:32 pm
    Who would have been your choice?

    Moshe Feiglin

      

    Short of an existential threat, though, Israel would not turn to him. And by then it would be too late.

  13. What many people do not know is that Bibi has had a major part in making Israel quite free of the old Labor party practices which had severely hurt Israel’s economy and bring its debt to completely manageable levels.
    This started when he was Finance Minister.

    He has been integral in moving the IDF main base to the Negev so that the land is better used and the population will have jobs in the Negev. He has also been integral in the on going project of improving the transportation system of the country.

    As Finance Minister, Netanyahu undertook an economic plan in order to restore Israel’s economy from its low point during the Second Intifada. Netanyahu claimed that a bloated public sector and excessive regulations were largely responsible for stifling economic growth. His plan involved a move toward more liberalized markets, although it was not without its critics. He instituted a program to end welfare dependency by requiring people to apply for jobs or training, reduced the size of the public sector, froze government spending for three years, and capped the budget deficit at 1%. The taxation system was streamlined and taxes were cut, with the top individual tax rate reduced from 64% to 44% and the corporate tax rate from 36% to 18%. A host of state assets worth billions of dollars were privatized, including banks, oil refineries, the El Al national airline, and Zim Integrated Shipping Services. The retirement ages for both men and women were raised, and currency exchange laws were further liberalized. Commercial banks were forced to spin off their long-term savings. In addition, Netanyahu attacked monopolies and cartels to increase competition. As the Israeli economy started booming and unemployment fell significantly, Netanyahu was widely credited by commentators as having performed an ‘economic miracle’ by the end of his tenure.[51][52][53]

    However, opponents in the Labor party (and even a few within his own Likud) viewed Netanyahu’s policies as “Thatcherite” attacks on the venerated Israeli social safety net.[54] Ultimately, unemployment declined while economic growth soared, the debt-to-GDP ration dropped to one of the lowest in the world, and foreign investment reached record highs.[51

    Most people outside of Israel focus on the conflict and not the actual life in Israel or how people live.

  15. i discontinued receiving her emanations directly, earlier today, after having read this one; negativity clouds logic, with inappropriate consequences inevitably emerging [under the double-aegis of “killing via faint-praise”]

  16. lsatenstein Said:

    Under Netanyahu’s leadership, as the Author pointed out, Israeli deaths due to terrorism are way down.

    The Israeli economy is better shape than most of Europe’s and the rest of the world.

    Perhaps the problem is that Natanyahu lacks people skills. He is direct, says what he wants, does not have patience to remove his rough edges, and most of all, for the supporters and opposition, he is predictable for his actions.

    That is a rather positive review of Bibi coming from a leftist like you.

  17. babushka Said:

    I am glad Netanyahu has found his niche, because he has been a very very bad Israeli Prime Minister.

    Who would have been your choice?

  18. Under Netanyahu’s leadership, as the Author pointed out, Israeli deaths due to terrorism are way down.

    The Israeli economy is better shape than most of Europe’s and the rest of the world.

    Perhaps the problem is that Natanyahu lacks people skills. He is direct, says what he wants, does not have patience to remove his rough edges, and most of all, for the supporters and opposition, he is predictable for his actions.

  19. Ted Cruz, because I’ve spent the last seven years living under a leader who shares the same flaw: an astonishing talent for making absolutely everyone who works with him loathe him.

    Name a conservative who loathes Ted Cruz.

    Netanyahu would have made a very very good American President.

    I am glad Netanyahu has found his niche, because he has been a very very bad Israeli Prime Minister.

  20. A very nice balanced posting. It drills down to show the positive and negative qualities of Netanyahu.

    He has leadership skills, but perhaps he does not have implementation skills.

    He has ideas, but can’t translate them into actions, which means that others do the grunt work, but don’t have much of a say in the recognition or in making improvements.

    Netanyahu lives for Israel. Israel is Natanyahu’s reason to persist as leader.

    Netanyahu would have made a very very good American President.