A new line has recently been added to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's growing list of credits: The only person who beat Netanyahu in an election. Yes, in addition to an elite combat soldier (decorated), chief of staff (mediocre), prime minister (a disaster), politician (hated), and defense minister (a failure), Barak is now parading the only success he las left – as the man who defeated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the polls.
"He's no more a magician than the magician you hire for your kid's birthday party. He doesn't have superpowers – he just tricks people. If I beat him in 1999, he can be defeated now," Barak said Wednesday in an interview on Army Radio. Netanyahu isn't a magician? Really? Who knows the Bibi magic better than Barak?
Only a couple of years ago, Barak was one of the most hated politicians in Israel, and on the Left, too. He was blamed for bringing down the Oslo peace process because of his "arrogance" and his "bad chemistry" with PLO leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David. He was blamed for causing the Labor party to crash and burn, first by joining forces with Netanyahu and then by splitting off and forming his own Independence party.
What hasn't he been called: an opportunist, a "little Napoleon"; manipulative, a shady dealer – and even harsher epithets have been used by notable figures on the Left. Any reference to his name would garner a sniff of contempt and sheer hostility.
In his 2013 book "The Stealth Bomber: Ehud Barak, the Real Story," journalist Ben Caspit delves into Barak's term as defense minister. Caspit ends the book by declaring he wrote it for one reason only: that one day, Barak would try to re-enter politics and when that day came, it would be important to have a record of his acts as defense minister and prevent his return at any cost.
What happened? How did Barak make his way back to center stage and become the new rock star of the Israeli Left, which has been staging a comeback for the last two years? What's behind the trick that allowed this to happen? Barak knows: It's Netanyahu. Because if there is anyone the Left hates more than Barak, it's Netanyahu. And the white-hot hatred for Netanyahu and the Likud has benefitted Barak for two years.
It's nothing new. Barak's 1999 electoral victory was a result of the same magic. The Left closed ranks against the demon and his voters, and through an aggressive campaign and a string of NGOs, spearheaded by the New Israel Fund, managed to defeat the fiend and "give Israeli society a second chance," as then-head of the NIF, Eliezer Yaari, put it. Does that sound familiar?
But besides Netanyahu's "magic," which built Barak's career, we should mention another form of magic: the Barak curse. Recently, people have enjoyed bringing up the fact that Netanyahu has served more consecutive years as prime minister than any other leader in Israel's history, including David Ben-Gurion – and is on track to exceed even Ben-Gurion's total years as prime minister. But the other record-holder is forgotten: the prime minister with the least time in office – who is none other than Ehud Barak, who held the position for a mere year and 244 days.
Barak's term as prime minister was unusually destructive as well as unusually short. His time in office was so traumatic that the Israeli public threw him out in disgrace and preferred to put their faith in Ariel Sharon, who until then had been one of the most denigrated, extremist figures in politics.
Barak managed to ruin so much in the year and three quarters he resided on Balfour Street in Jerusalem – the Second Intifada, which continued unsuppressed, the security failures at Joseph's Tomb, the scandalous 2000 retreat from the security buffer zone in southern Lebanon, the crisis with the U.S. over the Falcon aircraft, and more – that in the end, the public was willing to forgive even the "butcher of Sabra and Shatila," as Sharon was dubbed for Israel's failure to prevent a massacre of Palestinian civilians and Lebanese Shiites perpetrated by Lebanese Christians in Beirut a few months after the 1982 Lebanon War, when he was defense minister.
But Netanyahu's magic is so powerful that he is throwing off the Barak curse. Remember that the next time the "only person who ever defeated Netanyahu" is interviewed.
