For Sheldon Adelson, Newt Gingrich and Binyamin Netanyahu, the political is the personal, and vice versa.
I make it a point not to judge people’s personalities on the basis of their politics; I’ve known, and known of, too many humble right-wingers and superior-acting left-wingers for that. But not infrequently, the personal and the political line up: the good guy (of either gender) has what I would call good political ideals, the bad guy has rotten ones.
At this rather fateful time for Israel, its three greatest champions - Bibi Netanyahu at home, Sheldon Adelson among American Jewry, and Newt Gingrich among American gentiles – are politically all Arab-bashers and personally all insufferable egomaniacs. I think this says something about Israel’s sphere of influence today, about what sort of people it lifts up.
In a news feature about Adelson titled “The Man Behind Gingrich’s Money,” the New York Times reported: “Even his two sons sued him at one point, accusing him of cheating them, though they lost.” The Times also reports: “Friends point out that [Adelson's] staunch Zionist beliefs are consistent with his take-no-prisoners personality.” “Staunch Zionist beliefs,” i.e. ”hatred of Arabs and of anybody who doesn’t hate them, too.”
About Gingrich, we already know: He visited his first wife in the hospital where she was recovering from cancer surgery and told her he wanted a divorce. His acknowledged professional code of behavior is ”chimpanzee politics,” otherwise known as ”winning through intimidation.”
Unlike Adelson and Gingrich, Netanyahu doesn’t go around scaring people; he leaves that to his wife Sara, who reportedly scares him, too. But a ruthless egomaniac he certainly is. I don’t think adultery, even serial adultery, necessarily makes you an SOB – but to go on prime time TV news and tell the world about it, like Bibi did in the 1993 Likud primary campaign? He was being blackmailed, somebody threatened to release a videotape of him and his girlfriend in the act. The solution he chose was brilliant politically - he played the outraged victim, smearing his chief rival, David Levy, for using “mafia” tactics to try to run him out of the race, which he never proved. But, uh, to voluntarily divulge your affair on TV while your wife is sitting at home? Some guy.
After Netanyahu won that primary, I researched a profile of him and had a phone interview with one of his close boyhood friends. The man, who insisted on anonymity, said that as a teenager in Jerusalem, Netanyahu was already “very dominant” in his political views. I wanted personal details – what was he like as a friend, I asked, would you say he was a loyal friend? The man answered: ”I would say he was loyal to himself.”
Politically, Adelson, Gingrich and Netanyahu are all national triumphalists – it’s all about Israel (for Gingrich, Israel is an extension of America) beating the daylights out of whichever nation happens to stand in its way. Personally, Adelson, Gingrich and Netanyahu are also triumphalists – it’s all about beating the daylights out of whichever individual happens to stand in their individual way.
In 2012, these three gentlemen are the saviors of Israel, our showcase of Jewish civilization – Bibi, King of Israel; Sheldon, King of the Jews; and Newt, our favorite Righteous Gentile.
Oh, we are in great shape, my ethnoreligious brethren. We’re having us a real Golden Age.
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Zsolt Sandor
This triumvirate is scary stuff.
Dave in NY
Saviors of Israel? Not hardly. Just saviors of the Israeli Right—posturing as saviors of Israel.
While you correctly note their egomania, I’m afraid you’re doing them a favor when you suppose them to be unequivocal supporters of Israel; they’d violently oppose the Israeli government were the left to take power there.
berl
I always wondered if this Adelson will one day realize how immoral is his behaviour. It is astonishing to me. Thanks god I believe in reincarnation. Next life he will be a member of the Anata family that “lost” their house few days ago.
David
Sheldon Anderson: “My method of operation is to identify, challenge, and change the status quo”
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/125 (1:56-2:03)
John Yorke
That would be mine also. Only more so.
http://yorketowers.blogspot.com
Steve
If Newt supports Israel, good!
If EVERYONE supported Israel, it would be even better!
If the crazy people right outside of Israel decided to also support Israel, that would be the best!
aristeides
Steve doesn’t seem to have heard of the maxim –
.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
John Yorke
The real task here is to make your enemies into your ‘friends’ – even if they don’t like the idea and totally oppose what it is you have in mind for them.
If it can be somehow arranged that their actions against your side can only result in the advancement of your own cause and also promote a knocking back their own agenda, ‘friendship’ might not seem so strange a word to use.
http://yorketowrs.blogspot.com
Using the ‘enemy’s’ strength against him lends a very deft touch to the workings of a plan for a more permanent disabling of the conflict.
John Yorke
It seems, Larry, that the position taken by these three champions of the Israeli right is only to be expected. It’s predictable. They are who they are and, barring some personal epiphany on their part, that is who they will remain. As far as any criticism of them is concerned, it’s almost certainly water off a duck’s back and will change their outlook on life not one jot.
In a way, that also seems to be the case when the larger picture is considered. There is a depressing predictability about events there too. Move and counter-move, right-wing agenda versus left, terrorist/freedom fighter against military machine/defender of law and order, zealot and secular, government policy challenging the legal process, occupiers resisted by those occupied and, well, it’s a long, long list but I’m sure you get the idea.
What we have here is the equivalent of a log-jam with the pressure of water building up behind it all the time. At some point, part of the barrier must give way and, when it does, then more new logs have to be added to close up the gap.
If the expenditure were only that of logs, then there would be little problem. Unfortunately it’s lives that are very often washed away instead.
In any properly constructed dam, a release gate of some description must exist. These are called spillways and they act to regulate the pressure of water held in check by the structure.
Does the Israeli/Palestinian structure have such a regulator? It’s not called for in any of the plans as far as I can see. Maybe this is why so much damage is being caused and why so many emergency ‘repairs’ are constantly on the go.
Such a basic omission in the construction of the State of Israel is very hard to countenance.
However, a retrofit kit can be made available and installation carried out at remarkably little cost.
Http://yorketowers.blogspot.com
Otherwise, the expression “Apres moi, le deluge” seems an appropriate description of what could so easily happen.
Solomon2
” I asked, would you say he was a loyal friend? The man answered: ”I would say he was loyal to himself.””
It’s stooping pretty low to exclude a man’s maturity and concentrate on teenage hijinks and unsubstantiated gossip of his personal life, isn’t it? Lashon Hara stuff.
Can’t you do better than this, Mr. Derfner? As far as I’m concerned if this is all that can be dredged up it’s practically an endorsement.
AbeBird
And you’re egomaniac for strong Palestinian terror case. So what’s the difference?
AbeBird
ARISTEIDES wrote: “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”
He is right. With friends like Larry Derfners and ‘J-Street’ why Israel needs foes?