Bibi has been, for Israelis, a pretty good prime minister
.. Economy: Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, the economy has grown by nearly 30 percent in constant dollars — nearly twice the growth rate of Germany or the United States. Some 3.6 million tourists visited Israel in 2017, a record for the Jewish state. On Monday, Israel announced a $15 billion dollar deal to export natural gas to Egypt from its huge offshore fields.
.. Diplomacy: Netanyahu’s personal ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are exceptionally close, as they are with Japan’s Shinzo Abe. Israel’s relations with African countries and the Arab world are the best they’ve been in decades
.. Security: In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, Israelis suffered more than 400 terrorism fatalities. In 2017 there were fewer than two dozen.
.. For the most part, Israel has been able to strike Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah targets at will.
.. Diaspora Jews were infuriated last year by the government’s backtracking on a plan to let men and women pray together at the Western Wall.
.. The central complaint of Netanyahu’s critics is that he has failed to make good on the promise of his 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, where he claimed to accept the principle of a Palestinian state.
.. Subsidiary charges include his refusal to halt settlement construction
.. Israel’s political left was not destroyed by Netanyahu. It was obliterated one Palestinian suicide bombing, rocket salvo, tunnel attack and rejected statehood offer at a time. Bibi’s long tenure of office is the consequence, not the cause, of this.
.. the two great lessons of the past 30 years.
- First, that separation from the Palestinians is essential — in the long term.
- Second, that peace with the Palestinians is impossible — in the short term.
.. it’s hard to imagine any other sort of approach, which is why any successor to Netanyahu will have to pursue essentially identical policies
.. For all of his flaws, few have done it as well as Bibi, which is why he has endured