Benjamin Netanyahu looks like he’s playing with fire. His ongoing crusade to strangle at birth the new public broadcasting corporation, scheduled to begin operations on April 30, has put him on a collision course with both the entire political and media establishments.
With the exception of a small handful of toadying ministers and members of Knesset, and a few hundred employees in the soon-to-be disbanded Israel Broadcasting Authority, just about no one in Israel understands what he’s fighting for, or at least claims to be fighting for. Not even the majority among the prime minister’s supporters in Likud, many of whom have openly questioned the wisdom of threatening to hold early elections if Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon doesn’t agree to defund the new corporation, also called Kan (Here), and to keep IBA alive. [...]
Then there’s the “weekend effect” theory: that Netanyahu routinely changes his mind after family Shabbat meals, when his wife Sara and elder son Yair egg him on to confront his enemies, real and imagined. The timing of the latest twist in the saga gives some credence to this theory. Last Thursday evening Netanyahu and Kahlon agreed that Kan would begin broadcasting on schedule and that the coalition during the next Knesset session would pass a new media regulation law, giving the government control over all public broadcasting. Then along came Shabbat eve and the next day Netanyahu had ditched the agreement and was threatening early elections if Kahlon didn’t back down. [...]
Netanyahu truly believes he is omnipotent. Just look how he beat down all opposition to his grand designs for exploiting the natural gas finds off Israel’s coastline. It’s all coming together exactly as planned and the protesters can go to hell. Everything is working for him. He decides to designate “smart transportation” as the government’s priority and in a matter of weeks Intel writes a $15.3 billion check for Mobileye. His critics accuse Netanyahu of isolating Israel due to his intransigence over the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, but barely a day goes by when he doesn’t host in Jerusalem another president, prime minister or foreign minister from every corner of the globe.
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