Bibi Netanyahu has more or less been anointed Israel’s next Prime Minister. So let us remind ourselves a few of his actions when he was last PM. He is the man who promised that a peace treaty with Syria could be achieved without parting with a single square metre of Golan Heights.
He signed a Hebron deal that became and still remains a total disaster both for the settlers and for their indigenous neighbours. He also described Yasir Arafat as "a good friend", and handed over 13 per cent of the West Bank to PA control - more than any PM before or since.
Speaking in London, he assured the whole world that Israel will get a totally free market economy managed in the ways of the Wall Street. Forced all pension funds to deal in speculative stocks, and it is now, when Israelis’ pension savings are going down the drain, he calls for a bi-partisan effort to save them. Israel, he added, was on the verge of becoming the top economy in the world.
And when he was finance minister, he cut the budget required for the deployment of active protection systems of Israeli tanks, an act of fiscal prudence that killed quite a few soldiers during the Second Lebanon War.
Remember, if you will, he was the man who presided over the Khaled Mashaal's assassination fiasco that is (probably quite rightly) considered to be a biggest cock-up in the Mossad’s history. He was forced to eat a humongous crow by the late, great King Hussein and released the late Sheikh Yassin, who so successfully motivated Hamas suicide bombers for several years after his release. It was only on the orders of Arik Sharon (is he still with us, by the way?) that Yassin met a untimely death.
Netanyahu also keeps embroidering his biography by so many mythical details such as:
Example 1 Supervising the late Rehavam Zeevi (Gandhi)
In a Knesset session dedicated to Zeevi’s memory, Bibi praised the late minister and recalled a few touching facts and anecdotes from the times when Zeevi served as a minister in his government.
“When Gandhi served as a minister in my government, he always behaved with wisdom, responsibility, solidarity and humanity”, said Bibi.
Fact: Zeevi was never a minister in Bibi’s government.
Example 2 Granting citizenship to Pollard
On his website Bibi claimed (in a speech recorded in video) that he has granted citizenship to the jailed spy Jonathan Pollard.
Fact: The citizenship was indeed granted to Pollard, but during the time Shimon Peres was PM and Chaim Ramon the minister of interior.
Example 3 Pre-natal memories
In an interview to Yediot Achronot told Bibi about his childhood memories of British soldiers in the streets of Jerusalem.
Fact: Bibi was born after the expiration of British mandate.
The man whose lust for power is matched only by his lack of self-control. Like in the case when he hastily expressed his condolences to Sharon’s family after the sleeping one’s first stroke.