Things were no happier for Netanyahu on the international front. On Wednesday he riled governments around the globe by approving plans for a big new Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. In public the prime minister defended the move as good for both Arabs and Jews. Privately, he told Washington that right-wingers would have brought down his government had he failed to push the plan.
The appointments scandal and the settlements showdown both paint an unflattering picture of a politician hostage to expediency. Netanyahu, who conjured up Clintonesque images when he took office last June, is now being compared inside Israel to the embattled Richard Nixon. Like the disgraced American president, he rose to power as the avowed enemy of the country’s academic and political elite. He immediately took on the press–especially the Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Channel One, which broke the appointment scandal Jan. 22. And he has surrounded himself with a tight circle of obscure aides, untested in power, whose main qualification is their conservative ideology and personal loyalty. Lieberman, a 39-year-old immigrant from Russia named in the appointment investigation, is his most trusted aide; he may be forced out. “Netanyahu had no executive experience, and he hasn’t done too well in choosing the right people,” says Moshe Arens, the former defense and foreign minister who served as the prime minister’s political mentor throughout the 1980s.
The prime minister’s worst choice was his initial pick for attorney general. Lawyer Roni Bar-On allegedly won that job by cutting a deal with Netanyahu ally Deft, leader of the religious Shas Party. In exchange for Deri’s support, Bar-On allegedly promised to approve a plea bargain for Deri in a pending baud case. If the deal had gone through, Deri would have been allowed to continue his political career. Bar-On got the job but lasted just 12 hours. He quit after legal experts protested his lack of qualifications.
Netanyahu has denied any knowledge of the alleged deal, and seems to be trying to shift the blame to Justice Minister Hanegbi for putting forward Bar-On in the first place. But the investigation clearly hasn’t stopped with the minister. Police grilled Netanyahu for four hours about the case last month. At one point, investigators advised the prime minister that he was being questioned “under caution”-a legal formality meaning information he supplied could be used against him. The probe is expected to conclude this month, but not before police question the prime minister again.
Loan guarantees: Fundamental policy differences with the Clinton administration are adding to Netanyahu’s woes. Washington opposes Jewish settlement on land Israel conquered in 1967. While serving as Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Netanyahu traded insults with Bush administration officials over U.S. efforts to curb settlements by denying loan guarantees. Palestinian leaders called Netanyahu’s plan to establish a new Jewish settlement of 6,500 housing units in south-eastern Jerusalem as a plot to encircle the city’s Arab neighborhoods and undermine their goal of making East Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state. With Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat scheduled to visit Clinton Monday, Arab protests were quiet. Arafat, too, had a chance to cut a deal. Israeli forces are scheduled to pull out of part of the West Bank this week. Washington will pressure the Israelis to give up more land-but only if Palestinian protests against the new settlements remain peaceful.
The opposition Labor Party is banking on “Bibigate” to sink Netanyahu, and has called on supporters to get ready for another election campaign. Netanyahu says he’s unfazed. “I have one piece of advice for them: be patient,” said Netanyahu. “You have four more years.” He’s probably right. But that didn’t stop Israelis from chuckling over one TV network’s choice of a late movie last week: “All the President’s Men.”
