Netanyahu Must Go, It's As Simple As That

Bibi is getting on the nerves of the entire world. And that's because of four words: They don't believe him ... Israel is marching to the UN General Assembly weak and hated, under very difficult negotiating conditions.

By Yoel Marcus

    
                    Benjamin Netenyahu: It is time to go!

The head of the Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg, warns: The probability and danger of an all-out war have increased. "Israel has discovered new and dangerous weapons in Gaza," he says, summing up the poem by saying: We can expect a radical Islamic winter. On the other hand, Amos Gilad, who was once known as a doomsayer, says the opposite: Our situation has never been better.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan and tried to convince him not to go to the United Nations. We have to try to reach an agreement, you have a lot to lose, we can do great things, count on me, said Barak, adding the words "look me in the eye." During his first term as defense minister Barak used to boast that he saw "the whites of the enemy's eyes," and ended up very badly.

Abbas does not suffer from myopia. Maybe he saw the whites of Barak's eyes and maybe not. Barak has already made an international name for himself as a blowhard. His version of the same conversation is that he didn't hear new proposals, but only warnings. Barak doesn't even know how to lie. In that area Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more convincing. And what he doesn't do, he makes his emissaries do.

While the experts on American affairs report a negative balance in relations with the United States and say that "we're not in its guts" - in other words, that we nauseate them - Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz announced on television that our relations with Washington have never been better. How does he know? Does he work for the CIA?

There's a limit to the lies that the U.S. administration is willing to swallow. And it's no coincidence that they chose this moment to reveal former Secretary of State Robert Gates' description of Bibi Netanyahu: "a liar," "not only ungrateful, but also endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel's growing isolation." Even if the administration casts a veto at the United Nations, the sound of President Barack Obama gritting his teeth will be heard from the North Pole to the South Pole.

Bibi is getting on the nerves of the entire world. And that's because of four words: They don't believe him. Although the special relationship with the United States was not close from the first moment when Israel was recognized in 1947 - the first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, didn't set foot in the White House to the end of his days - over the years Israel became America's friend and ally. When we recall the close relations between President Bill Clinton and prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, between President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir, between President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, we understand that even if they didn't always agree on everything, there was a level of trust.

After Camp David, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a Polish gesture, declared that he was willing to give up even U.S. financial aid; a gesture that caused the entire government to do everything in its power to prevent the Americans from taking him seriously. There were times when we boasted of the fact that we were called the U.S. aircraft carrier in the region. The names mentioned above excelled in maintaining rapprochement, even when there were misunderstandings.

Bibi once said that he was afraid that one day there would be a crisis between Turkey and Israel. And now it's happening. Just as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is exploding with anger and humiliation, Bibi decides to visit the ceremony of the naval commandos. MK Shaul Mofaz (Kadima ) is correct in saying that Bibi is a danger to Israel's security. Turkey would not have behaved toward us so rudely and with such threats "if it didn't feel that Israel is weaker and more vulnerable, its deterrent capacity is poor," says opposition leader Tzipi Livni. And she adds: "When Bibi talks about an agreement he is saying words in which he doesn't believe, and that's why the entire world doesn't believe him either."

Israel's power of deterrence has deteriorated, and "our friend" America is isolated and unpopular. Not only because of Obama's dubious abilities at home and abroad, but because he is not being forceful with Israel, and because he is not coming out openly against Bibi's interference in internal U.S. politics. Israel is marching to the UN General Assembly weak and hated, under very difficult negotiating conditions.

It is not hard to understand how a man who is so meek at home dares to play this way with the fate of the country. The welfare of the coalition is more important than the welfare of the country, and people of worth like Dan Meridor and Ehud Barak prefer their seats to concern for the fate of the country.

With clouds of disaster floating above us, all that's left to say to Netanyahu is a historic sentence that was last said in 1940, to Neville Chamberlain: "Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

This commentary was published in HAARETZ on 09/09/2011