When the radio announcer quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proud national response to the unprecedented criticism directed at him by President Barack Obama on Tuesday [Jan. 15], I was standing at a particularly long red light.
I turned my head to the left, toward one of the large billboards. “A Strong Leader for a Strong Nation,” it said, next to a huge photo of Benjamin Netanyahu. How many additional votes will now be cast for the Likud-Beiteinu? I wondered. How many of the drivers waiting in despair for the light to turn green are hearing this now and telling themselves: “We’re lucky to have a strong prime minister. Only Bibi can put this Obama in his place.”? I recalled that a poll conducted in Israel on the eve of the US presidential elections found that if Obama were to immigrate to Israel, he would find it hard to even be elected as mayor of Petah Tikva [a town near Tel Aviv].