Netanyahu still seems secure despite bungles

Despite a series of misguided policy steps that have returned Israel to the status of Middle East pariah, and a string of bungles…

Despite a series of misguided policy steps that have returned Israel to the status of Middle East pariah, and a string of bungles, gaffes and legal run-ins that would probably have brought down his predecessors, Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, is if anything consolidating his grip on power.

He sparked his latest storm on Tuesday, when he whispered into the ear of a prominent, rather deaf rabbi, unaware of the presence of a radio microphone, that the Israeli left had "forgotten what it is to be Jewish". He went on to deride the previous left-wing government for having been so foolish as to have placed Israel's security "in the hands of Arabs"; a reference to the peace partnership with the Palestinians that he has gradually destroyed since taking office.

Nearly eighteen months after Mr Netanyahu won election here, he has so alienated Israel's erstwhile Arab friends that this latest evidence of his fundamental mistrust of them will have come as little surprise.

Jordan is still smarting over the bungled Mossad assassination attempt in Amman last month; President Mubarak of Egypt has made it clear that he has no confidence in Mr Netanyahu's integrity or desire for peace; Syria is said to be making contingency plans for war; Mr Yasser Arafat keeps dealings with the Prime Minister to a minimum; Mr Andre Azulay, a Jewish adviser to King Hassan, indicated during a visit on Tuesday that Morocco's nascent ties with Israel have been frozen, and a similar freeze is afflicting the network of other low-level relations established during the Rabin-Peres years of 1992 to 1996.

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But if the Arab world has so far let Mr Netanyahu's off-the-cuff whisperings pass without comment, the Israeli left has risen to the bait, with the Labour Party leader, Mr Ehud Barak, observing drily that Mr Netanyahu had again demonstrated how much Israel needed a "more mature, more responsible" prime minister, and the left-wing Meretz party leader, Mr Yossi Sarid, sniping that Mr Netanyahu had "forgotten what it is to be a human being".

Mr Netanyahu's brief period in power has been punctuated by confrontations with the Palestinians; over the Jerusalem archaeological tunnel opening a year ago, over building at Har Homa last March, and over his continuing commitment to Jewish settlement expansion - and domestic crises.

He narrowly escaped prosecution over the shadowy appointment of an anonymous lawyer as Israeli attorney-general, he has had run-ins with every senior member of his cabinet, and his strained relations with his own security chiefs were almost certainly a factor in last month's Mossad bungle.

And yet, while the Economist's cover story on him last week, headlined "Israel's serial bungler" amounts to a virtual compliment compared to the derision heaped on him daily in the Hebrew media, the Prime Minister's hold on power seems quite secure. Knesset members are unwilling to risk their own future by triggering elections to bring him down. Bungles and all then, Mr Netanyahu is sitting comfortably.

And although coalition storms are looming over legislation on Reform and Conservative conversions to Judaism and, at the end of the year, over the budget, experience suggests that Israel's very own Teflon politician will probably weather these as well.

David Horovitz is managing editor of the Jerusalem Report