Why Bibi won’t be beat in America - by Jonathan S. Tobin

...Pfeffer is right that many American Jews disagree with Netanyahu’s policies. But the notion that they are, as he writes, Netanyahu’s “enablers” and bear the responsibility for his flouting of progressive sensibilities is not so much wrongheaded as it is pathetic commentary on the bankruptcy of the Israeli left.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
04 May '18..

Israeli left-wingers have never gotten used to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While they would have detested any Likud Party leader, Netanyahu’s combination of intellectual heft and glib political hucksterism has always driven his opponents crazy. At one and the same time, they view him as both a fraud and something of a political genius. Most of all, they bitterly resent his skill in maneuvering among both American Jews and Washington politicos.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the 2018 AIPAC policy conference. Credit: AIPAC.
Though he’s been a major figure in the Israel-Diaspora relations for decades—dating back to his service as a diplomat in Washington and then the United Nations in the 1980s—many Israelis still can’t figure out why a man who often treats American Jews with such disrespect and has so little interest in them as a community still seems to command the respect of Americans. Though many Americans oppose Netanyahu, the fact that he is not widely reviled in the United States is a source of constant frustration to his domestic critics.

Haaretz writer Anshel Pfeffer’s new biography, Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, is the latest entry in the list of left-wing attempts to unravel the mystery of Netanyahu’s success and his hold on the affections of so many American Jews. The book has its share of interesting gossip about the prime minister and his family, and Pfeffer’s attempt to get inside Netanyahu’s head to figure out his complicated relationship with America provides some points of interest even for those who have more sympathy for the prime minister than the author.

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