OPINION:
Food, shelter and a comfortable life are as important to the Israelis as to everyone else, but survival comes first. That’s the clear and unequivocal message in the remarkable triumph of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Tuesday. His victory, unexpected to anyone paying attention only to the polls and the skeptical international media, was decisive, complete and emphatic.
He still must put together a coalition government, but with his Likud Party firmly in place as the strongest of the 10 parties participating in the elections, the task looks easier than it first appeared on election night. Mr. Netanyahu will govern now from a stronger position than he enjoyed before the elections. This is good news not only for Israel, but for the United States and the West, despite the misgivings of the faint hearts, the nervous Nellies, and the weak sisters here and abroad.
Mr. Netanyahu makes no apology for who he is and for what he says and intends to do. He moved to the right in the days before the vote, opposing statehood for Palestinians who make no secret of their ambition not for a share of the land holy to the three religious faiths of Abraham, but to get it all.
Mr. Netanyahu went the next day to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s old city, sometimes called the Wailing Wall because over the centuries it has heard the wail of lamentations, cries and prayers of those seeking divine guidance and mercy. It is regarded as the holiest place Jews can pray. “I’m touched by the weight of the responsibility that the people of Israel have put on my shoulders,” he said on leaving the Wall. “I will do anything in my power to ensure the well-being and security of all the citizens of Israel.”
Mr. Netanyahu called the election two years before the end of his third term demanded; he wanted to govern from a strong position. And so he will, but he was chastened by how close he came to losing everything because he neglected bread and butter warnings that leaders forget at their peril: “It’s the economy, Stupid.” He appears to have learned the lesson. He is expected to appoint Moshe Kahlon, whose Kulanu Party captured 10 seats by focusing almost entirely on the economy, as the finance minister in his Cabinet.
The Netanyahu triumph was a bitter disappointment for President Obama, who yearned for payback to punish Mr. Netanyahu for coming to Washington early this month to warn a joint session of Congress that lack of resolve in the face of the radical Muslims exacts a painful price. He delivered a powerful message that revealed Mr. Obama as naive, clueless and artless. Some might say incompetent. He said several true things about the enemy, which he did not disdain to call the enemy, things that Mr. Obama, for whatever his reasons, would never do. Iran, the Israeli prime minister said, is a regime “hijacked by religious zealots” who are driven by ideology “to wage jihad.” Iran, he said, is no better than ISIS. “The enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”
This was the message that Mr. Obama clearly hoped the elections in Israel would refute, embarrass Mr. Netanyahu and shut him up. Instead, Tuesday’s results guarantee that Mr. Obama will now negotiate the “bad deal” with Iran under a looking glass that will make his administration very uncomfortable. He will give away the store to buy the legacy he seeks only at his peril. He is stuck with the legacy he already has.
In contrast with his gracious remarks when he stood before Congress, thanking Mr. Obama for past courtesies and favors, both for himself and for his country, the president could not bring himself even to send perfunctory congratulations to Mr. Netanyahu. Instead he sent an obscure aide out to congratulate Israel and the defeated parties for holding an election. Mr. Obama revealed himself to be a little man in a big job.
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