Kidnappings put Netanyahu back on offense
The abduction of teenagers in the Hebron region puts an end to Netanyahu’s political hard times, and, without a dominant defense minister such as Ehud Barak at his side, he is seen, even by the left, as a balanced authority on matters of security and leadership.
Political columns in the Israeli Friday/weekend papers described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the big loser after Knesset member Reuven Rivlin was elected president of Israel. They all offered sweeping accounts of the rage against him in the Likud Party. But within a few hours, all of that became irrelevant.
The kidnapping of the three teenage boys suddenly dominated both the media and the public agenda. And it was with the same rapidity that Netanyahu regained his stature as the responsible adult in the room, and the person with the most diplomatic and security mileage in the government and Cabinet.
In an instant, the kidnapping erased any memory of one of the, politically speaking, worst weeks Netanyahu has had in his current term, if not the worst. His unfocused, emotional plotting to thwart the election of his sworn enemy Rivlin came crashing down around him, and he was forced to congratulate the newly elected president, though he did so without any show of enthusiasm.
Political commentators were quick to position Interior Minister Gideon Saar, the head of Rivlin’s campaign, not only as the big winner in the election, but also as a real threat to Netanyahu in the upcoming battle for the leadership of the Likud Party. The new statements on diplomatic policy by the Yesh Atid chairman, Finance Minister Yair Lapid, also echoed in the background, creating the impression that the senior partner in the coalition already considers retiring from it, because of the lack of any progress in the diplomatic sphere. All this could signal the beginning of the end for the third Netanyahu government. And as if that was not enough, the scandal du jour from Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, was also gaining momentum in the media, with the prime minister’s spokesmen forced to explain why the expensive garden furniture purchased for his official residence in Jerusalem ended up in the yard of his personal home in Caesarea.
