Netanyahu’s Base Appeals
While he was arousing fear of Arabs and Scandinavians, he was relying on the support of an actual foreign patron, Sheldon Adelson, the American billionaire and casino operator. Adelson owns and publishes Israel Hayom (Israel Today), the country’s highest-circulation daily—a propaganda sheet whose sole purpose is to support the Prime Minister and Likud. Adelson is Netanyahu’s piggy bank and reflects a cruder version of his ideological impulses. Adelson has dismissed the Palestinians as “an invented people,” and he doesn’t mind if Israel strays from democratic principles and norms: “I don’t think the Bible says anything about democracy.”
.. Netanyahu’s victory—the way he achieved it and what it says about the politics of the Israeli majority—is clarifying.
.. Netanyahu, of course, does not view himself as Richard Nixon. In his imagination, he is Winston Churchill, the valorous protector of his nation, the singular leader of clear, unerring vision. Nearly two hundred former Israeli military and security chiefs, none of them naïve about the multiple dangers of the Middle East, have declared that further brinkmanship threatens the long-term stability of the nation. But Netanyahu is sure that he knows better.