Netanyahu Used the Oldest Trick in the Book — and the Elections Will Show If His Voters Fell for It

How fun that there are elections, right? You can start bullshitting, bluffing, lying, lying through your teeth, and while doing so, wink at the listener: 'Elections, right? Everyone lies. Don't get excited.'

And actually, when I think about it, it's not just the election period; that's how it is today in Israel - almost all politicians lie, almost all the time. Except for one - Netanyahu. About him, undoubtedly, the sentence was coined: 'You can fool most of the people most of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.' What then? You can always try.

And today (Sunday) the Prime Minister tried on the public one of his most magnificent and exaggerated lies. 'Whoever does not study Torah - will be drafted. And whoever does not get drafted - will go to prison.' Wait, is that Yair Golan? Avigdor Lieberman? Yoaz Hendel? No and no, this is a 'quote' of Netanyahu that was 'leaked' from 'closed conversations'.

Here you have it, the oldest and most pathetic trick in the book - to share with a journalist a statement of yours, but always keep a space for denial. 'I said?' he will roll his eyes when one of his ultra-Orthodox partners in the government and the next coalition confronts him. 'I said,' he will wink significantly to those wavering between him and a list or candidate who finds the shameful draft law he worked to promote with all his might terrifying, disgusting, and annoying, to the point that they will refrain from voting for Likud.

What a transparent lie. What a ridiculous stunt. Netanyahu knows very well how much anger the law he promoted like a bulldozer in a china shop has caused, and is causing. He knows very well that a large part of his supporters and the coalition's supporters served extensively, faithfully, bravely, and with full sacrifice for the State of Israel, and also that they are buckling under the physical, emotional, family, and economic burden; and even if they think he is a good Prime Minister in many aspects, regarding the discrimination between blood and blood, between Israeli and Israeli, between Jew and Jew, that is hard to forgive, even for die-hard Likudniks.

So what to do, now that the hanging sword of the government's dissolution by the ultra-Orthodox has been removed from his head? Leak a despicable lie from 'closed conversations', so that those who seek to withdraw their support for him, against the backdrop of being abandoned in the reserves and in their lives for the sake of the mass evasion of those whose blood is 'bluer', can whisper to themselves: 'In the next term he will pass a fair, equal, balanced, Israeli, Jewish draft law.'

Like a shepherd looking at sheep

The thing with Netanyahu is that he believes from the bottom of his heart that we are all idiots, with an emphasis on his voters. It doesn't matter how many times he spits a juicy glob of saliva in their faces, the moment he says 'Citizens of Israel - this is a blessing of rain', his loyalists will immediately line up, blessing the rain and thanking Netanyahu, the 'Honi the Circle-Maker'. The circle of corners. The circle of facts. The circle of reality.

This man lacks any respect - forget integrity and decency; we gave up on that long ago - for his voters. Deep in his heart he despises them, I am convinced. Deep in his heart he looks at them like a shepherd who looks at sheep and navigates them according to his will. These are sheep, he thinks to himself, they will go wherever I tell them to go. And those who need encouragement, well - to them we will lie.

And those who decide they are tired of being part of this wandering and instrumental herd? Them we will call 'leftist sheep. Part of the block of poison and panic.' For every sheep that questions the integrity and good intention of the shepherd is necessarily a traitor. A leftist traitor.

Netanyahu's voters are very far from being stupid sheep. Most of them are thinking, intelligent people, with a reasoned opinion, a worldview, and a formed understanding of reality. Anyone who thinks otherwise is himself part of a herd of the blind.

But these elections will be the test for many Likud voters. Those who know deep in their hearts, and understand with their minds, that he is lying to them, and to all of us, as a method, as a way of political action, even as his internal psychological mechanism - and when they agree to acknowledge this and act, I estimate that some of them will refrain from supporting him. After all - there is a limit to the size of the lies one can tell people so brazenly, and be exempt from any consequence.

Or at least, one can hope so. And even if not - one thing is clear: the first phone call Netanyahu will make after the election results are known, will be to the ultra-Orthodox. And in their ears he will say, in the very first sentence, 'Guys, in the next Knesset session we are passing the Bismut law.' And the craziest part? Everyone knows that's how it will be. Including everyone. Including his voters. Including those wavering. The only question left to get an answer to is whether they will do anything about it.