Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent his 73rd birthday [Oct. 21] signing copies of his new autobiography, “Bibi: My Story.” Released just last week in the US and Israel, it is already racking up record sales. Showing up at a large bookstore in a mall in Petah Tikvah, a town known for his support of him, Netanyahu signed hundreds of copies of the book, which were sold on the spot.

Netanyahu says that he wrote the 600-page book over the course of a year, while the coronavirus was raging. Still, the timing of the publication, ten days before the Nov. 1 elections, cannot be coincidental. The messages in the book are clearly calculated to picture Netanyahu as the probable winner. While doing that, he also tries to settle the score with political and diplomatic rivals, including former US President Barack Obama.

In the book, Netanyahu claims that in his first meeting with President Obama in 2009, Obama “took the gloves off,” expecting an immediate and full freeze of settlement construction. Netanyahu (so he writes) told Obama that “his draconian demands were both morally wrong and counterproductive.” As the two leaders prepared to leave the Oval Office, Obama told Netanyahu: “You know, people often underestimate me. But I come from Chicago, where I had to deal with tough opponents.”

Another US president targeted by the book is Bill Clinton, whom Netanyahu blames for trying to prevent his first prime ministerial victory in 1996.