Bibi’s Palin
Please read it all.
Give John McCain credit where credit is due. A so-called “maverick” and ideological Liberal-Independent in Republican clothing, his dance to the mythical Center (Left, in reality) was clearly not working and his campaign was floundering. In one bold stroke, he did what he needed to do. In picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, McCain re-energized the core conservative base of the Republican party and suddenly vaulted ahead of Obama in the polls. You can talk all you want about Palin’s appeal to women and her folksy style, but she is what McCain is not; a card-carrying conservative to the core who has the Republican DNA that McCain clearly lacks.
Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu is Israel’s John McCain. Bibi heads Likud, the largest party in Israel, the nationalist Right-leaning party that is truly a “mini-Israel,” but Bibi clearly lacks Likud DNA. Evidence? Let’s go back to the general elections of 2005. Political experts weigh in and state that Bibi will win if he leans more rightward. So what does he do? He plunges ahead in an attempt to find Israel’s mythical Center, deviates the Likud to the Left on all national and security issues in order to clone the Likud in Kadima’s style. It’s a master strategy and a winner… for Kadima. Ehud Olmert, a shy(ster) lawyer and empty suit, wins the Prime Ministerial chair as head of the one-issue Disengagement party (or as it has now come to be known the expulsion-to-save-Ariel-Sharon’s-rear-end-from-indictment party), while his mentor cools his body and brain in vegetative hibernation.
Fast forward to 2008. As Tzipi Livni will now attempt to form a government that will give away everything and the kitchen sink (no matter what Shas says), Bibi clearly is intent on proving me right when I tell his supporters he will never change. He attempts to shove leftists such as Dan Meridor and Uzi Dayan, as well as pseudo-settler and token religious Jew Yechiel Leiter (who, by the way, was Bibi’s masterful campaign manager in 2005)[…]