MIDDLE EAST	JANUARY 19, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 3
	Culture of Contempt Reviling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become a national pastime in Israel By LISA BEYER /JERUSALEM hen Benjamin Netanyahu was a teenager, recalls a boyhood friend, "he was simply a wonderful kid." Slim and handsome with a ready smile, "he was always loved and appreciated and successful." He was a first-rate athlete, "and the girls were dying over him." The kids all called him Bibi, a family nickname that expressed the affection his friends felt for him. But that was long ago. Now, Bibi Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, is the man the country loves to hate. "Having known him for many years," says the friend, clinical psychologist Eli Katz, "I know it's not possible that he's as bad as people think." Which is pretty bad. Though Netanyahu was a popular figure before his election, reviling him has become a national pastime. Israel's political left detests him so much that the newspaper Ha'aretz dubbed 1997 "The Year of Hating Bibi." U.S. President Bill Clinton has snubbed him, and the French have deemed him a "catastrophe." What's more, some of Netanyahu's angriest critics come from his own ideological camp. Last week Netanyahu's Foreign Minister, David Levy, resigned in disgust and yanked his five-member parliamentary faction from the ruling coalition, leaving the government on the brink of collapse. Levy's official reasons had to do with policy differences, but in fact Levy had finally found Netanyahu's overbearing conduct unbearable. The culture of contempt for Netanyahu seems rooted in the nature of both the times and the man. Navigating a peace process still plagued by violence and with Israelis divided over the outcome would give any leader little room for goodwill. His allies on the right think he's a turncoat for having agreed to even part of the peace accords with the Palestinians. His opponents on the left think he's a reckless novice, reversing advances made toward peace. At the same time, Netanyahu, with his tendency for dissembling, his haughtiness and his paranoid edginess, invites more than his share of flak. The Prime Minister tends to cast himself as a kind of singular savior, as if, mocks commentator Uzi Benziman, "had he not been elected Prime Minister, Israel would have ceased to exist." Netanyahu's vanity often prevents him from seeking, and taking, good advice. Says Naomi Chazan, a left-wing parliamentarian and grade school friend of Netanyahu's late brother Jonathan: "The message he transmits is, 'I don't give a hoot about what any of you think because I know best.' He ignores even the people who are close to him." That failing is compounded by a streak of paranoia. In moments of defeat or triumph, Netanyahu whines about conniving foes. He has launched attacks on the media, the justice system and the academic elite. So suspicious is he of rivals that he has denuded the Likud leadership of much of its talent, producing a government so green it can't help fumbling. Paranoia played a part in Netanyahu's bitter relations with Levy, in particular. In 1993 Netanyahu accused Levy of trying to blackmail him with a videotape of an extramarital romp and was forced to apologize when police found no evidence of the plot. Among some psychologists in Israel, it has become a parlor game to speculate about the sources of Netanyahu's shortcomings. One theory is that he is the frustrated and therefore overly ambitious second son, squirming in the shadow of his brother, who died famously in the rescue of hijack victims at Entebbe in 1976. Another thesis is that he has been warped by a strong father, Benzion Netanyahu, a historian. Katz thinks this is nonsense, that Israelis, especially of his own once idealistic generation, are projecting onto Netanyahu disgust with themselves. "Bibi is criticized for being a cold, selfish opportunist," says Katz, "but he's really just a mirror of what our generation has become." Katz adds, "Before, all our leaders were archaic figures, while Netanyahu is one of us. And it's very difficult to accept one of us as our leader." Netanyahu could be dislodged from that position now that his coalition has been hobbled by Levy's revolt. In the Knesset, Netanyahu is left with a paltry 61-to-59 majority as he prepares to honor a controversial commitment to expand Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank. One faction swears it will bring the government down if he does not go ahead; another promises to unseat him if he does. Even if his government survives, Netanyahu's fall from grace has already been precipitous. He came to office with the aura of a star. He was, to all appearances, a skilled and savvy winner. Those who disagreed with his politics still could not deny that he was swift, smart and able. As Prime Minister, he has thus far proved to be none of those things.
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