Ehud Olmert's failures and a national swing to the right may bring Benjamin Netanyahu back as Israeli prime minister, writes Mark Weiss
BARRING AN improbable, last- minute reversal in the polls, next Tuesday 59-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu, will become the head of the largest party in the new Knesset parliament, and Israel’s next prime minister.
The event will herald a remarkable political comeback for the politician who was written off by most commentators when, in 2006, he led the right-wing Likud to its worst-ever electoral defeat, leaving the party with only 12 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Many leading Likud politicians had chosen to join Ariel Sharon, who, in December of the previous year, bolted the Likud and established the centrist Kadima party.
Kadima won the 2006 election and formed the government. Netanyahu, who refused calls to step down as Likud leader, appeared to be increasingly irrelevant, fighting ideological battles that many Israelis perceived as belonging to an earlier, long-gone, era.
But then came the unexpected stroke that left Sharon in a coma. Ehud Olmert, who replaced Ariel Sharon as prime minister, not only presided over a failed military campaign against Hizbullah in Lebanon in 2006, but was linked to a whole series of corruption allegations.
Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza, which prompted Netanyahu to resign from the government, resulted in Hamas eventually taking control of the Strip, and daily rocket attacks on southern Israel.
The political pendulum swung back to the right. The Israeli public, which had supported unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, were now prepared to give Benjamin Netanyahu another chance.
On the campaign trail this week, Netanyahu, commonly known in Israel by his childhood nickname “Bibi”, hammered away at familiar themes.
Visiting the southern city of Ashkelon on Tuesday, just a few hours after a Katyusha rocket had hit, he blamed “Kadima’s blindness” for the ongoing rocket attacks, and vowed to work to topple the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.
The previous day, in Jerusalem, Netanyahu criticized Kadima leader Tzipi Livni’s reported willingness to cede Arab neighbourhoods to the Palestinians. “We did not unite the city in order to divide it,” he said. “A sane country does not give its capital to its enemies.”
Likud election posters feature a picture of Netanyahu with the slogan “Strong on security, strong on the economy”. Many give Netanyahu credit for turning the Israeli economy around when he served as finance minister from 2003-05, pursuing a rigid Thatcherist agenda based on privatisation and slashing welfare benefits.
Despite his political comeback, the Likud leader remains somewhat of an enigma.
Much of the Kadima campaign was based on the message that Benjamin Netanyahu cannot be trusted, citing a number of embarrassing, factually incorrect statements made by him over recent years.
Two prominent examples were his claim that he was asked to become Italy’s finance minister, and that he never voted for the Gaza disengagement, even though he initially voted for the move on three separate occasions.
Neither do many on the right trust Bibi.
After being elected as Israel’s youngest-ever prime minister in 1996, after a razor-thin victory over Shimon Peres, Netanyahu vowed not to cede more land to the Palestinians.
But he did just that, handing over most of the West Bank city of Hebron, and signing the Wye River agreement, committing Israel to further West Bank withdrawals.
The agreements were signed after intense American pressure, leading to another criticism raised repeatedly during the election campaign: Bibi buckles under pressure.
Benjamin Netanyahu came from a solidly right-wing family. As a teenager, he moved with his family to the US, which explains his flawless, American-accented English.
Both these factors made him somewhat of an outsider, and he spent much of his early political career haranguing against the “left-wing elites” who allegedly controlled the country.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s private life has also been riddled with controversy.
In 1993 he confessed publicly to having cheated on his wife.
He is now in his third marriage, and has two sons by his current wife, Sara, a former air hostess. Sara is portrayed by the Israeli media as interfering, paranoid and vindictive. One report even said she forced her husband to sever ties with his daughter from a previous marriage, Noa.
His three-year term as prime minister, from 1996-99, was also controversial.
When he ignored advice from the security establishment and opened a tunnel close to Jerusalem’s Western Wall, 15 Israelis and dozens of Palestinians were killed in the ensuing clashes.
He narrowly avoided criminal charges over allegations that his appointment of an attorney general was part of a political deal.
The police also recommended Netanyahu be indicted over allegations that the Netanyahus billed the prime minister’s office for renovations to their Jerusalem home, but no charges were ever filed.
Netanyahu admitted to having made mistakes, but he promised the Israeli public that he has changed, and deserves another chance.
It appears that next week he will get his wish and the Israeli electorate will grant him another opportunity.