There are plants that flower only in the dark. There are birds that hidein the day and come out only by night. And then there is Bibi.
A man such as Bibi can flourish only in an atmosphere of fear. Fear thatgives birth to hate and agression. Fear that turns adults into childrenwho need a strong leader. Such fear elevates politicians of Bibi’s kind,who are found everywhere in the world. In lucky countries such as France,a man such as Le Pen is relegated to a marginal position. In unfortunatecountries such as Serbia, a man such as Milosevic is the leader.
The biggest foe of people such as Bibi is the sun. When it sends out itsrays of light into the dark recesses, all the dark fears disappear, theimagined demons dissipate, and the fearsome enemy reveals itself asnothing but a scarecrow waving in the wind. The night is the kingdom ofthe Bibis.
Last week Bibi gave a speech at Bar-Ilan University in which he revealedto his astounded audience that a horrible menace threatens us from theEast. And just where is this terrifying monster lurking? Woe is me! Thegreat enemy is none other than Jordan.
Yes, the Jordan of King Hussein, of blessed memory. The same onethat Israeli leaders, with Bibi in the lead, had spilled rivers oftears over his freshly-dug grave. The good king, champion of peace, loverof Israel. But isn’t it the same king, Bibi pointed out in his speech, whojoined the terrible Saddam in 1991, when he rained his missiles on Israel?And if that is the case with the good father, what can we expect from hisson Abdullah? What despicable tricks can be expected from him?
Netanyahu and his right-hand-man-for-the-day Ariel Sharon wereplanning their visit to Jordan to strengthen our ties with the newking who has already proclaimed his love for Israel. But far be itfor a man of Netanyahu’s ilk to shrink from the truth merely for the sakeof good manners. He will make sure to speak it loud and clear.
And here is the bitter truth: In a time of trouble, Jordan is capable ofjoining Iraq once again. The Iraqi army will descend on the Jordan river.By then, if a Palestinian state is already in place, the Iraqi army wouldtruly be standing “at the outskirts of Tel-Aviv.” Oh yes, one sunnymorning, the residents of Ramat-Gan and Giv’ataim would wake up, look outtheir windows and what would their eyes behold? The Iraqi army marchingin the street, on their way to the beach. And all because of the Left.
One could, of course, ask a few questions. For instance: Just how wouldthe Iraqi army cross the border into Jordan without being detected byAmerican satellites and by Israeli Intelligence? How would it cover thedistance from the suburbs of Baghdad to the suburbs of Amman, and fromthere on to the suburbs of Tel-Aviv without being decimated by Israel’sairforce? And, even more to the point, why would tiny Jordan risk a warin which it may very well lose its very existence? And why would Saddamneed to resort to such a marching display through the Jordanian desert andPalestinian hills, when he could bomb Allenby Street in Tel-Aviv in amatter of seconds with gas and biological warheads?
But there is no point in logical questions, since it is not logic thatNetanyahu is soliciting. A man of his ilk can win an election only if herides the black horse of fear. After fifty years of independence, heneeds to take us back to the Warsaw Ghetto, surrounded by Himmler’sWaffen-SS. Only then would he succeed in imbuing us with the necessaryburning hate for those murderous Arabs, who are plotting to push us intothe sea. And to those despicable Palestinians, who are insisting onestablishing their own state, only so that Saddam could close in on “thesuburbs of Tel-Aviv.” And to the traitorous Left which is aiding them andto the hostile press supporting the Left.
And who can save us from this second holocaust, one even worse than thefirst? Only one man, no other, a “strong leader for a strong people”,Bibi the Great!
It is hard to believe that today, 50 years after the establishment of ourstate, ten months before the dawn of the third millenium, someone has thenerve to paint such a picture. The world is uniting, Europe is becoming apolitical and economical unit, borders between countries are being erased,technology is creating a global economy, and only in regressive cornerssuch as Kosovo and Afganistan do there remain islands of an anachronisticwar. Netanyahu speaks to us in the language of the distant past. Thelanguage of fear, of hate, of war. He taps those instincts in the deepestrecesses of a nation’s subconscious, which carry the memory of pogromsfrom the Middle Ages and the holocaust of two generations ago.
Only the light of day can chase out the dark and the demons flourishingunder its cover. It is the responsibility of the Left. It must lift itshead high and bring out the opposite message. Five years ago there wasOslo, which caused the barriers between us and the entire Arab world tocrumble. In our own region, the borders began to blur too, peaceagreements were being signed, joint Israeli-Arab projects, the likes ofwhich a mere few years ago, practically no one had dared to dream of, wereborn. Investments began to pour into our country, and Israel began tointegrate itself into the technological global economy. Were it not forthe tragedy that befell us in 1996 with the victory of a demagogue likeBibi, we would be able to enter the 21st century as a state at peace, ledby scientists and economists in place of the Generals, a state putting itshuge energy resources into technological and societal progress.
This must be our choice: The past versus the future, fear versus self-confidence. A new Warsaw Ghetto versus a state integrated in the regionand the world, Iraqi soldiers “on the outskirts of Tel-Aviv” versusIsraeli engineers in Kuwait and Casablanca, the 19th century versus the21st. In short: Darkness versus light.