Bibi: The
Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu Hardcover – May 1, 2018
by Anshel
Pfeffer (Author)
A deeply
reported biography of the scandal-plagued Israeli Prime Minister, showing that
we cannot understand Israel -- its history, present, and future -- without
first understanding the life and worldview of the man who leads it
Benjamin
Netanyahu is embroiled in numerous scandals, all of his own making, and may
soon be ousted from the office he has held longer than any prior Israeli Prime
Minister outside of David Ben Gurion. But Bibi, as he is known by friend and
foe alike, is no stranger to controversy. For many in Israel and elsewhere, he
is an embarrassment, a threat to democracy, even a precursor to Donald Trump.
He nevertheless continues to dominate Israeli public life -- and he may yet
survive his current crises, the most challenging of his career. How can we
explain Netanyahu's rise, his hold on Israeli politics, and his outsized role
on the world's stage?
In Bibi, the
Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer argues that we must view Netanyahu as
representing the triumph of the underdogs in the Zionist enterprise. Born in
1949, one year after the state of Israel itself, Netanyahu came of age in a
nation dominated by liberal, secular Zionists. Yet Netanyahu's grandfather and
father bequeathed to him a brand of Zionism integrating Jewish nationalism and
religious traditionalism, and he identified with the groups at the margins of
Israeli society: right-wing Revisionists, orthodox, Mizrahi Jews, and
small-time professionals living in the new towns and cities dotting the Israeli
landscape. Netanyahu cultivated each faction individually and then fused them
into a coalition that has frequently proven unstoppable in Israeli politics.
Netanyahu is
also a child of America, where he spent many years as a young man, and where he
learned the techniques of modern political campaigns as well as the necessity
of controlling the media cycle. The product of the affluent East Coast Jewish
community and the Reagan era, Netanyahu's politics and worldview were formed as
much by American Cold War conservatism as by his family's hardline right-wing
Zionism.
As Pfeffer
demonstrates in this penetrating biography, Netanyahu's influence will endure
even if his career soon comes to an end. The Israel he has helped make is a
hybrid of ancient phobia and high-tech hope, tribalism and globalism -- just
like the man himself.
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