Viewpoint
Bibis problems with the truth
By NEVE GORDON
Perhaps its naivete, but I
still have faith in President Lincolns claim that a person can fool all
the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but one cannot
fool all of the people all of the time. Could it be then that Israels
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proved Lincoln wrong?
Not a week passes without the Israeli press disclosing new
evidence of the prime ministers deceit, cunning, fraud or duplicity. Upon
his return from Wye Mills, Md., Netanyahu notified the public that his was a
better agreement than the one initiated by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin. Rabin, Netanyahu said, promised the Palestinians 92 percent of the
West Bank; I gave them much less.
How did Netanyahu come up with 92 percent? According to the former
head of the Mossad (Israels intelligence service), this figure is a
chimera of the prime ministers imagination. Leah Rabin agrees. During a
protest commemorating the third anniversary of her husbands
assassination, she proclaimed that Netanyahu is a liar who is cynically
exploiting the fact that Rabin can no longer reply.
A few days later when the Wye memorandum was finally distributed
among cabinet and Knesset members, it became clear that there were substantial
differences between the Hebrew version and the authentic English agreement.
Netanyahu, it turns out, had his assistant Danny Naveh add numerous clauses to
the Hebrew document. Since most Israelis read English, and read it fairly well,
this machination was also detected.
Netanyahus mendacity is not confined to issues relating to
the Palestinian question. A number of months ago he appeared on TV and stated
that Israel must continue to develop its high-tech industry by encouraging the
use of personal computers in every household. Thus, the prime minister
continued, I have decided to repeal all computer taxes. Leave it up
to Netanyahu to repeal a tax that had already been repealed by his predecessor
years before.
Deception also characterizes Netanyahus response to
Israels increasing unemployment rate. Since he entered office two and a
half years ago, national unemployment figures have risen by almost 4 percent
and are now just shy of 10 percent. In Ofakim, a town in Israels southern
desert, the unemployment rate is in the high teens. In January 1998, Netanyahu
visited Ofakim and promised the residents that he would fight the high level of
unemployment. To prove that his intentions were good, he vowed to create 300
new jobs within a month. Almost a year has passed, and Ofakim still tops the
unemployment charts; the 300 jobs have yet to materialize.
While many politicians lie, only a few have made lying into a
modus operandi. Opposition and coalition members, cabinet ministers and even
Netanyahus closest aides have publicly stated that they do not trust
their leader. Beyond the damage he has done to the peace process and to
Israels economy, which is entering its second year of recession,
Netanyahu has introduced the culture of mendacity into the Israeli political
arena. One need only examine recent history to realize that the most dangerous
regimes evolve in countries where leaders lie without shame. A shameless leader
is a leader who can commit atrocities.
Netanyahu, for me, serves as a litmus test. If he remains in
office for his full four-year term, I will have to concede that one can get
away with lying all of the time and that Lincoln was wrong. In the meantime I
am following the prime ministers actions closely, longing to write a
column headlined Bye Bye, Netanyahu, Bye Bye.
Neve Gordon writes from Jerusalem.
National Catholic Reporter, December 25,
1998
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