It's difficult to forget the frantic activity in the waning days of Binyamin Netanyahu's term as Prime Minister when his emissaries were crawling to Damascus to give away the Golan Heights. Israel was fortunate Syria's Assad didn’t take this gift, for the Golan is the gateway to Israel’s North and its loss would have relegated Israel to a strategically inferior position. Bibi did this despite his pre-election disavowal of the land-for-peace equation embodied in the Oslo Agreements and even though the Golan does not present a border in constant turmoil like Gaza.
It's also hard to forget Bibi’s role in the giveaway of Hebron earlier in his term. He dutifully implemented this withdrawal in spite of his criticism of it while he was a candidate. That action might not have been his to prevent, but certainly the Golan giveaway was.
Few will deny that Bibi was a failed prime minister. After a strong 55% mandate from all voters which included an even higher percentage of Jewish voters, Bibi turned away from his strong nationalist positions and did nothing on the economic front to distinguish him from his predecessors, though this was a campaign promise as well.
Likud hardliners now accuse Ariel Sharon of doing the same thing with his disengagement initiative that Bibi did before him. What they forget is that Sharon should be credited for an all-encompassing policy of disengagement that includes barriers between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis and moving to solidify Israeli claims to areas possibly subject to future dispute.
Netanyahu accomplished more when he was out of the prime minister's office than in it. Passed over for foreign minister, Bibi took charge of Israel's economy and has managed to begin a major reformation of Israeli economic thinking. His ill-timed resignation as Minister of Finance, though, deprives Israel of a cabinet officer with the vision and persuasive capability to see those programs (that are uniquely his), through. His absence will more than likely mean that what he's started will never get finished and negates much of the progress he's made up to now.
Bibi's reasons for leaving the cabinet are all things he knew or should have known long before stepping down. Waiting until the actual disengagement was under way, when tempers are at their highest and the possibility of Israeli harming Israeli is very real, is more than irresponsible, it is reprehensible. It speaks to cold political calculation with little concern for Israel's security and safety. The giveaway of the Golan would have jeopardized Israel strategically. This self-serving move puts Israel at more risk tactically while her troops are deployed and her population is at odds.
For all of his calculating, Bibi looks foolish. Natan Sharansky also disagrees with Sharon's policy, but he resigned from his cabinet position when Sharon's policies became clear. Sharansky then joined the national debate from outside of government without rancor or incitement. By resigning now, Netanyahu is trying, in the 11th hour, to grab the leadership of the campaign to stop the disengagement. Sharansky’s actions were responsible. Bibi’s are not.
In the end, Bibi's resignation won’t matter. Set aside the passion, emotion and sincere motives of the Right and most Israelis are still loath to send their sons and daughters to the Erez checkpoint, a place where too many IDF soldiers have died already. The average Israeli understands the wisdom of abandoning tenuous positions and reinforcing stronger ones. They, in their majority, will support the retention of the Golan, Jerusalem, Ariel, the Jordan River Valley and absorption of major settlement blocs throughout Judea and Samaria. Gaza, with its 1.2 million Arabs, is an insoluble problem for Israel and disengagement, most Israelis agree, is preferable to an impossible coexistence. If conflict is going to continue it needs to be on Israeli, not Arab terms. The 8,000+ Israelis living there are in the way of that dictum.
Bibi's clumsy lunge for the political brass ring hurts Israel in more than one way. While it won't deter the government from its policies in Gaza, it will deprive Israel of one of its most gifted economic talents in its cabinet. Ego and ambition often trump genius and certainly can overwhelm common sense, and in Bibi's case it has done both. In the end, Binyamin Netanyahu's impatience for the premiership, something that might have been his for the asking, will probably deny it to him.

–nrg

Comments are closed.