May 29, 2011
“People may be honest, though they are doing wrong: that is between their Maker and them. But we, who are suffering by their pernicious conduct, are to destroy them. We are sure that [Burke] acts from interest. We know what his genuine principles were. They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction.”
Life of Johnson
James Boswell
Dear Friends,
I’ve been searching for a word or term to describe Israel’s 27th and 32nd Prime Minister, after observing his Trumpian-stentorian-triumphal tour of Washington DC.
Having considered many options, and finding bully, coward, and poseur fitting, although insufficient to the task, yesterday’s e-mail provided a moment of discovery, drawn from the weekly edition of “World Wide Words,” and its “Weird Word” entry for the week -- criticaster.
“You may gather it [criticaster] is uncomplimentary. It refers to those who set themselves up as arbiters of taste and literary discernment but whose sensibilities are inadequate to the task.
“It was coined in the late seventeenth century by adding the ending -aster to critic. The suffix came directly into English from Latin, where it meant an incomplete resemblance. English adapted it to refer to a person of inferior or inadequate qualities. It turns up in a small number of words, of which poetaster, a person who writes bad poetry, and philosophaster, a shallow or pretentious philosopher, are the least rare.”
Aha! Just like Pygmalion’s Professor Henry Higgins, I said: “By Jove, I think we’ve go it.”
Binyamin Netanyahu, aka, Bibi, is a politicaster, i. e., a person who practices bad politics, is shallow and pretentious, and has sensibilities that are inadequate to the task.
It’s about that simple.
But because he is also a poseur of considerable skill, he achieved two important goals for his efforts during this visit:
First, popularity at home.
According to a poll by Haaretz, Israel’s leading English language newspaper:
“It emerged that Netanyahu's trip not only put a brake on the drop in his popularity ratings, but actually reversed the trend.
“While in a Haaretz poll five weeks ago Netanyahu seemed to be in hot water with the public, with 38 percent expressing satisfaction with his performance and 53 percent disappointed with it, in yesterday's poll the results were essentially reversed: 51 percent were satisfied, while 36 percent were not.”
Second, popular acclaim in Washington.
Haaretz columnist, Yoel Marcus:
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have read the phone book at the Congress podium and received the same standing ovation. His speech used the advice Moshe Sneh gave to himself . . . on the draft of one of his speeches: ‘weak argument, raise voice.’”
That’s the good news for Bibi, the short-term results of his impolitic and injudicious orating, but as columnist Marcus further suggests:
“One more victory like that and Israel is done for: A failure of the peace process is not an option. The status quo cannot be maintained. True friends tell each other the truth.”
Another commentator, renowned Israeli clinical psychologist Carlo Strenger, who is a blogger at Haaretz, The Guardian, and elsewhere, made this observation:
“The clear losers in Netanyahu’s short-sightedness wrapped into grandiose verbal pyrotechnics are the citizens of Israel. Once the dust of the media storm settles down, we will be faced with the stark truth: The specter of Israel’s ever-growing isolation and of increasing international pressure looms large. Once the Palestinians succeed in their bid for statehood, the Netanyahu government will be facing international criticism of its settlement policies unprecedented in force and intensity.”
The protagonist in this drama of uncertain length is President Barack Obama, whose reviews for speeches delivered at the State Department and at the AIPAC convention last week range from rabid to supportive – from the scathing criticism of Charles Krauthammer to the tepid rebuke from Congressional Democrats and to the unqualified endorsement of the folks at J Street and elsewhere who heard those speeches via distinctly different antennae.
As one insightful TMR reader, a prominent civic leader and respected member of the Jewish community far from the Beltway, put it:
“There was an article in the NY Times a few weeks ago describing the responses of Mormons to the new hit Broadway musical, Book of Mormon. It basically said that conservative Mormons think the play is abominable and liberal Mormons think it’s hilarious. From what I’ve heard in the last week, this is analogous to Jews’ reactions to the speeches of Obama and Netanyahu.”
He went on to say, “After hearing about Obama’s speech, my sister, who is extremely conservative on these issues, said, ‘Obama threw Israel under the bus. He’s the worst U.S. President in history when it comes to Israel.’”
And for those who may have missed the speech, here’s exactly what the President said:
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”
To some that was ‘throwing Israel under the bus,’ and to others it was stating the obvious, the truth as it has been known for years.
But to Bibi, the politicaster, these were fighting words.
So fight he did – getting them out of their seats up on Capitol Hill 49 times during his speech, and warming up his numbers back home. Right before our eyes, Israel’s most talented orator rose up in righteous indignation rivaling the response to William Jennings Bryan’s stirring “Cross of Gold” speech to the Democratic Party convention 115 years ago.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/
And with much the same result – thunderous applause, the audience on its feet and cheering wildly, proud men basking in the warm glow of political adulation, and little of substance to show for it all, save for the recordings that retrieve their ‘fifteen minutes of fame.’
The most remarkable thing about Binyamin Netanyahu to this observer is that he has achieved fame simply by being elected and ducking when the going gets tough. He has no accomplishments to his name. He has shown no courage on the paramount issue that besets his people and his country. He is rhetorical warrior in an empty suit of armor.
There are legitimate questions to raise about Barack Obama’s speech – its timing, its phrasing, and, of course, its impact. He may well have taken the wrong counsel on any of those factors, and there are serious questions to be addressed about whether there is still a beating heart in the process for solutions in this conflict, or whether a third intifada may be just over the horizon.
No geopolitical issue of consequence – and particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict – is so simple that there are those who have it right versus those who get it wrong. That’s why diplomacy and politics are central to the life of a democracy and a republic, and to the sustainability of the global order -- tools designed to be used when the issues are seemingly intractable.
Bibi’s decision to take the low road, to play to the crowd sensibility, and to engage in artful sophistry and casuistry may be consistent with his “genuine principles,” but as Boswell’s Life of Johnson reminds us:
"They who allow their passions to confound the distinctions between right and wrong, are criminal. They may be convinced; but they have not come honestly by their conviction.”
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