Behind the Times Eps 25. The Nine Lives of Bibi Netanyahu

[music] >> Did you know that the forgotten founder of Zionism went on to play a leading role in Agudat Yisrael? Or that Rabbi Chaskel Abrahamsky was responsible for the continued presence of the Muslim Waqf on Har HaBayit? It turns out that the margins of history tell the real story. Behind the Times dives into the big [music] concepts and overlooked moments that carry vast meaning, all through the lens of Torah and rabbinic thought. Join me, Gedaliah Gutenmacher, as I go behind the times to explore the forgotten history, remarkable personalities, and transformative moments that shape current events and explain how we got here. Behind [music] the Times with Gedaliah Gutenmacher. It was Tuesday afternoon during this week's election and the Gevault campaign was in full swing, which means videos were circulating and the news was reporting about high turnout in left-wing Tel Aviv and other places like that, and massive turnout in uh the Arab uh strongholds like in the Negev, and low turnout when it comes to, you know, in the right-wing and religious blocks' centers. And that was a traditional Gevault campaign, get out the vote. And as the afternoon wore on, this sort of atmosphere of depression descended over Bibi Netanyahu's governing block as it looked like uh what the media was reporting was going to come true. That finally, after all these years, Bibi was on route to a historic defeat. A few hours later, things turned around. The exit polls, followed by the emerging results, told a very different story, which is that somehow Bibi had survived. And we don't we still don't know which way, as of Thursday afternoon, we still don't know which way this is going to go. And yet it it it's clear that Bibi has a chance to emerge ahead. And the phrase came into my mind, the nine lives of Bibi Netanyahu. Like this incredible cat, a cat landing on its feet, somehow or other, whatever happens, so far, for decades now, Bibi Netanyahu has managed to fight on. Which begs the question, what is the secret of the nine political lives of Bibi Netanyahu, this agile big cat of Israeli politics? How does he do it every time? Now, it's interesting, since October the 7th, Bibi has increasingly talked of Siyata Dishmaya, very striking language that he didn't used to employ in the past. But, there's also a story here of something, when you dig into it, of an extraordinary upbringing and and extraordinary character coming together, almost an amazing fusion of abilities and circumstance that Hashem has brought together in the character of of this Israeli political leader. It's a story of his upbringing, of a secular but very Jewish sense of historical mission, of a politician who understands the power of media. And he understands how to get through to his number one audience, beyond the Israeli electorate, which is the American public. And it's also the story of a politician who has shown the ability, where all others have become stale, of constantly reinventing himself and and suiting himself to the to the evolution of world politics and Israeli politics itself. And perhaps we want to explore this the secret, bit of a whistle-stop tour, to understand you what the secret What is the secret of of of this most dominant Israeli politician since David Ben-Gurion? In other words, what is the secret of the nine lives of Bibi? >> [music] >> I think, really, to understand the conundrum called Bibi, you need really to understand and appreciate Benzion, his father. Benzion Netanyahu, his father. Because his father I remember him still, you know, he would appear alongside Bibi, was a figure that a figure that Bibi revered, and that was well-known during his lifetime. But he was also a figure who wasn't such an obvious wouldn't so obviously have produced such an outstanding political leader as Bibi himself. And the reason is because Benzion Netanyahu was seen and was He was an academic and was seen to be. People just thought of him as an ivory towers academic. But if you listen to Bibi himself, especially read his autobiography, what's fascinating is how much Bibi is shaped by Benzion Netanyahu, and indeed how much Benzion himself was misunderstood. Because Benzion Netanyahu was an innovator and a political groundbreaker on grand scale. His story is like is like this. And let's just back up that Bibi was born in 1949, and he was he spent his time, you know, shuttling back with his father, his parents, who was an academic in America, you know, between Israel and America. But really, the story of Benzion Netanyahu is really really really interesting and starts earlier. Because in the 1940s, I think it is, it is Benzion Netanyahu who first grasps a shift in world politics that's going to be crucial for Zionism, for the state of Israel, and which Bibi himself has followed. This shift is very simple. Whilst then it still looked to appear to the Zionist movement that the center of gravity of the movement needed to be in London because dealing with the British you know, authorities, effectively the the British government, which still had overlords Palestine still in the 1940s, it was Benzion Netanyahu who said that was wrong. He told his mentor His mentor was Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist Zionists, effectively the only strong counterweight to the Ben-Gurion labor Zionists, and and and effectively the political antecedents of today's Likud party. It was Ben-Zion Netanyahu who told Jabotinsky that he was wasting his time in London, despite the fact that London ruled Palestine, actually the future of the Zionist movement would be decided in Washington. Now, it was a startling insight, but it wasn't just the only one. What happened was that Ben-Zion Netanyahu persuaded Jabotinsky actually to move to Washington, which is and and to focus the lobbying efforts over there. What Ben-Zion had grasped was that despite what, you know, appearances there, it was it was America that was the up-and-coming superpower and would and would decide the future. Very interesting insight. But he had another interesting insight that that really helps you understand his son. And it was regarding bipartisanship. You see, up to then, efforts had been focused on the Democratic president, who was Roosevelt. Because it was the Democrats who were uh unlike today, who were uh favorable to the Jewish cause. It was the Democrats who who who who who who received the lion's share of the of the Jewish vote, and therefore the lion's share of the lobbying. Because they were seeing the Republicans as just seen as being beyond the pale, a lost cause. Jews didn't vote for Republicans. Republicans were you know, that fabled or that uh or that uh proverbial, rather, country club anti-Semitism was at home in the uh Republican party. But Ben-Zion Netanyahu said no. What you have to do in order to exercise influence in Washington, it needs to be bipartisan. Again, another very interesting insight. And in fact, what he did uh Benzion did was he cultivated some of the Republican leaders. He cultivated former president Herbert Hoover, a leading senator Robert Taft of Ohio, and an influential congresswoman Clare Booth Luce. And before the Republican National National Convention in 1944, this congresswoman Luce uh phoned Benzion Netanyahu and said, "I'm going now to do your work at the convention." What did that mean? The convention adopted a resolution uh calling for unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state. And 3 weeks later, the Democrats followed. You hear that? His insight that it was by developing links with both parties that would enable the those links would enable you to play both sides off. In other words, the Jewish vote should be up for grabs. That the Jewish influence should be on both sides and therefore be able to to to leverage one against the other. A very interesting insight. One that prefigured that it effectively shifted Zionist strategy to the bipartisanship, opened the eyes of the Zionist movement to the to the possibility of bipartisanship. Now, it's very interesting because if you look what has happened since is that Bibi has in a sense has come full circle. He's lost the Democrats. He's thrown in his lot with the Republicans. But that may be um just because more than Bibi has lost the Democrats, the Democrats have lost interest or turned against Israel. But that's that's that's an a different discussion. And there was a third insight that that uh and principle that Benzion Netanyahu developed and taught his son, which was that the way to reach America's politicians. He says, "Politicians are governed by interests. But you can appeal to the people through morality and a sense of justice. You have to talk to the American people about the sense of justice in the Jewish cause and the Zionist cause. And therefore, once you get secure the public, you will find the door open to the politicians. And the route therefore to the minds of the public was both through both through media and through the local politicians who in turn would be a bridge through Congress to the White House. So, that itself was another thing. You can't just lobby the State Department of the White House. You need to go broad and deep within the American public itself. And the public are reactive to arguments about good, about justice, about truth, about heritage. Very very important third uh principle that he that that he developed. And once again, something that that the Bibi Netanyahu was able to um to to develop because he said It's long been said that the most important polls that uh as Bibi Netanyahu is in is concerned with, in Bibi's eyes, the most important opinion polls are not the Israeli opinion polls, but the American opinion polls. And that is a very very interesting thing to to to see. When you consider the nine lives, the survival political survival of Bibi Netanyahu, he has learned he learned from his father to understand the importance of Washington, to understand the importance of of of bipartisanship, and to understand the importance of reaching the American public. >> [music] >> There's something else you need to know about the home of Benzion and Zila, how that home created the Bibi that we know. There was something I would say almost Spartan about that upbringing in the sense that they were trying to produce something quite old-fashioned, an education upbringing totally unrecognizable today. The Netanyahu home was driven by a mission. It was secular. It was driven by a sense of Jewish history. And it was driven by the urge to succeed at the very highest levels. And that involved a ton of education. And it's very very interesting to see, perhaps the the easiest way uh the clearest way to see this for anyone who's read the letters of Yoni Netanyahu, which were published after Yoni Netanyahu was was killed in the Entebbe rescue mission, will see something very unusual. Yoni, for example, when he goes ahead, he is a commando and he's busy there training and he's on mission, he says, "Please send me things from home." He says, "I need my physics textbooks. And please send me I'd like to study the some of the classics or philosophy." This was a home of intense this combination I'd describe as the rugged soldier-statesman-philosopher. So, you know, the rugged, that Spartan soldier-philosopher model, rather. That was what you see in Yoni Netanyahu's notes, but you can also see that and that was the home which Bibi Netanyahu was brought up as well. And very very interesting, you see how much studying and learning and reading is such a central part of Bibi Netanyahu today. We have our very own Mishpacha Knesset Channel columnist Avi Bloom told me once that he was he flew to to Washington with Bibi on Bibi's plane as part of the press corps. >> [snorts] >> And he said that Bibi was very interesting. As everyone was schmoozing there during the night, Bibi lies there with, you know, better better down there. It was the days before the Knaf Tzion, the new sort of luxury prime ministerial plane. And so, he was he lay out there on the floor, basically. Avi sent me a picture of this, of Bibi reading a book. I don't remember if it was Russian history or French history. Fascinating because Bibi is surely the one of the most widely read and is a voracious reader and never stops. And he said, "The reason is where that came from again was the upbringing and from Netanyahu of Benzion Netanyahu himself because when Bibi went before uh become prime minister, he went to his father and he asked him, 'What does a prime minister need to do?' So his father said, 'Nu, what do you think?' He says, 'Well, he needs to understand this history, understand different things.' And Benzion Netanyahu said to him, to his son, 'No, no, no. You have to understand there's one thing you're going to need as prime minister, which is education." "Because if you don't know everything there is to know on governance yourself, you'll be at the mercy of the bureaucrats and the people around you." And Bibi has quoted that. He masters briefs on every topic. And the most incredible thing people have noticed, David Friedman, uh America's former American ambassador to to Israel, said that as he would he would notice how how Bibi autodidact constantly learning, constantly teaching himself on an incredible array of things. He's gotten a even a helicopter um he's busy there reading and reading. Doesn't waste time. Just constantly learning about new things. And in fact, he educates himself about things on any topic, whether it was during COVID about vaccines, whether it's you know, about AI. He's ahead of the game. There is something incredible about about his ability, his breadth of vision. You know, you don't have to agree with him. You don't have to like his secularism, but the fact is this is a man of phenomenal abilities and ceaseless work. And that came from Benzion Netanyahu. >> [music] >> It was the long arm and influence of Benzion Netanyahu that ushered Bibi into the highest ranks of government. How was that? That goes back to Benzion Netanyahu's own time in America when one of his disciples, one of the people he influenced, was a young man, very talented man named Moshe Arens, who went on to become Israel's defense minister, uh if I'm not mistaken, foreign minister. And Moshe Arens went to Jabotinsky's Betar rallies and became a member of that Betar the Betar youth movement, made aliyah after helping out Bibi Netanyahu in America, and went on to become a Likud politician. In 1979, Moshe Arens attends a conference led by an up-and-coming uh star, which is Bibi Netanyahu. That was his first movement in public life in which he comes and and he gets his conference together in the wake of his older brother Yoni's Yoni Netanyahu's death, an international conference on counterterrorism. Now, that sounds that sounds par for the course nowadays, but but he was the one who first convened a big discussion about it. And in fact, Bibi made his mark as a writer and and and uh as a campaigner world campaigner through the issue of counterterrorism. And Moshe Arens at that conference very impressed with the young man with his breadth of thinking and of his leadership capabilities. And so, 3 years later, when Moshe Arens is himself appointed Israel's ambassador, uh Menachem Begin appoints him as Israel's ambassador to uh Washington, he needs a deputy. He reaches out to Bibi Netanyahu. And that's how Bibi Netanyahu ends up in Washington. And what happens when he comes to Washington is very, very interesting because instead of attending these uh you know, the regular round of uh cocktail receptions in the DC circuit and rubbing shoulders uh with the influential uh people over there, he doesn't just do that. What he does is he sets out to make his mark on American television. And he becomes prob- probably Israel's most seasoned and respected voice in America. Bibi Netanyahu puts himself in on a every American television television set. It doesn't come naturally to him at the beginning. That's what we know. But through dint of hard work, he learned to become what is today the media performer of today. And this and that deep, authoritative baritone, which is obviously a big asset for Bibi as a media campaigner, is one that is rec- universally recognizable. And it helped that obviously naturally had a charisma and a presence, but he created it as well. And to created and that all enabled him to come to the front lines of of of world statesmanship. I don't think there's a there's there's there's only a handful of people who can be considered in Bibi's league. And to part of it was his ability to perform for the media and that put him at the front of the Mizrah front over there. And when he came comes back, Bibi comes back from America, he's already a credible figure, one who's put himself on the international map. He comes back and he challenges in the 1996 elections when when Israel is reeling from from the death of of Yitzhak Rabin, he challenges the titan of Israeli politics, Shimon Peres. And he brings with him an American Republican strategist, Arthur Finkelstein, who helps him to phrase the election as one about security after wave of terrorist bombings. And 3 days before the election, he goes up for a debate against Shimon Peres. Now, this shouldn't be a match-up. Shimon Peres is a legend. He's done everything in Israel. He's been there from the beginning. He's been there since the days of Ben Gurion. And yet, he holds his own in a debate against Shimon Peres and he wins. If you're about 20 years old, living in Israel or overseas as well, you will have known practically no other world besides one in which Bibi Netanyahu was the leader of Israel. For a comparable record, you'd have to go to autocrats like Turkey's Erdogan or Putin of Russia. And yet, Bibi Netanyahu did this the fair way. He did this in an immensely competitive democracy. How did he do that? And that is the question. What are the nine lives of Bibi? how has it been possible? We've talked about his background. We've talked about the kishronot that he had and the abilities that that he that he was born with that were educated with and that he perfected himself. Ultimately, the story of these nine lives of Bibi is one of the ability to change and retailer and create new political messages based on where Israeli society is up to. And I think what we have to do is trace broadly speaking those different changing uh pitches to the Israeli people. Pitch number one was Mr. Economy. Remember, Bibi was a prime minister in already 1996, but it short-lived then. It was he and he and he himself said later he was ousted by the the left and he wasn't ready for power. When Bibi comes back into power in 2009, he does so after serving as one of the most successful finance ministers in Israel's history. In fact, he rightly should be given credit for reforming the Israeli economy. Under Ariel Sharon, Israel Ariel Sharon is prime minister 2002 wave of suicide bombings. But Israel's in a crisis because it's not just a security crisis. The security crisis coming on top of an economic one. Israel is in basically a failing economy. Bibi comes in and he does one thing. He puts the country on a radical diet. And as he writes in his biography, he said back in the time it with his memorable ability to sell to to deliver clear ideas, he said the Israeli economy was a fat man riding on top of a thin man. And what he meant by that was that the fat man was the bloated unproductive public sector was was riding on top of the private sector. And so with his and with Bibi's American MIT education, he comes along he says, "We need Thatcherite Reaganite capitalism. We need to slash the public sector. We need to put the fat man on a diet." And he does and it was a very painful diet in which in fact we do remember he he slashed the welfare. He he hit the haredi sector very hard because he slashed the the the the the welfare budget and etc. What he does, he effectively was one of the key ingredients in the boosting and the priming the pump priming of the Israeli economy just as the as the Israeli high-tech sector is taking off because I think fairly Bibi has has some claim to saying that he was he gave a a large measure of the responsibility for the creation of what became Israel's startup economy, startup Israel. The ability of the private sector to produce billions and billions in value came partly through the through the reforms that Bibi had enacted. And that was his pitch to voters. His pitch to voters in 2009 was, "I liberalized the economy. I liberalized everything. Let me finish the job." Now, alongside of this, Bibi had another pitch to voters, which is not just Mr. Economy, it was also Mr. Security. His pitch as Mr. Security was the following. "I will not create a Palestinian state. I have learned the lessons of Oslo. The Palestinian state is a threat to Jewish state. We we will not go down that road." Now, despite the fact that when he comes to power, he gives a speech, the about famous Bar-Ilan speech, Netanyahu gives a speech in which he says that he lays out some road map for a Palestinian state, that is for consumption of Obama only. Because what he says, he says is that if they keep these rigorous conditions, conditions which he knew could not be kept by the Palestinians. In a million years, they will they would not keep this these conditions. Leaving the speech aside, what Bibi's pledge along Mr. Economy as Mr. Security throughout the Obama years, he does an incredible thing. He's He's the first right-wing Israeli Prime Minister truly to survive the pressure, American pressure when it comes to the peace process. Because besides what he says in the Bar-Ilan speech, he then spends two terms of the of of of Obama doing everything he can not to do anything to speed along a Palestinian state. He's called by the American admin officials, they call him, you know, coward and and a chicken etc. But really, he's no coward, he's not a chicken. What he does what he's just doing is his greatest achievement during those years alongside the economy is the ability to resist American pressure over Palestine over the Palestinians. But there's another addition, there's another thing that he's doing in those years. He's keeping the Americans a hostile administration, the Obama administration, which is in the years after Obama left office, become clear just how hostile. If you look at his endorsement of of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan for Senate in Michigan, you see just how hostile uh uh uh Obama really is to Bibi as an Israeli leader. And he survives that, but but he keeps Obama on on side for when it comes to Iran. And that is an incredible achievement as well, because because he ramps up the pressure on the economic pressure, and there's a campaign a Mossad campaign that's that's that's trying to push back the uh uh Iranian development of nuclear weapons, successfully so. And so during those years, you get the pitch Mr. Economy, Mr. Security, Mr. Non-Palestine, and Mr. Iran. >> [music] >> All of which means that Netanyahu is in power when Washington undergoes an earthquake. Donald Trump coming to coming to the presidency in 2016 is a game changer. Because for the first time Bibi has an opposite number in Washington who's truly aligned with him. And it immediately bears fruit. Washington slashes the the Palestinian aid budget. It withdraws from the Iran deal. Trump withdraws Trump moves the American Embassy to uh Jerusalem. He recognizes Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And crucially at the end of that, he vindicates Bibi's entire diplomatic approach basing back decades. Bibi had said for years, "We can leapfrog the Palestinians. We can get round them. We do not need to make peace with the Palestinians to have peace, wider peace in the Middle East." That becomes under this this linkage between uh um Trump and Bibi becomes the Abraham Accords, 2020. Abraham Accords are an astonishing diplomatic coup for Bibi because it vindicates him. It shows he's been right that Arab states are willing to have diplomatic relations with Israel even before the Palestinian issue has been solved simply because they want to connection with Israel, a startup nation. They want to connection with Israel as an intelligence and military power. And they want the Israeli access to the White House that it brings. And Bibi is rising high before the fall. Number one, Trump is voted out of office. Number two, Bibi loses office. And then comes October the 7th. And perhaps the most incredible test for an Israeli leader. Because I I I wrote this a column a few a few years ago after after October the 7th. I wrote, "Imagine that you've reached the age of 72. You've written your your autobiography. And yet you discover that your life's work still lies ahead of you." That's what happened to Bibi on October the 7th because suddenly everything he had achieved till then it went up in smoke. Bibi after October the 7th was challenged to totally transform himself from Mr. Economy, Mr. Security, Mr. No to Palestine to Mr. delivering on his promises to defeat Iran. Because that is ultimately what happened. Bibi had spent decades talking about the threat that Iran posed, but he'd been exposed because Iran, through Hamas, had attacked first. And that's why after October the 7th, the most incredible metamorphosis happened, that Bibi becomes the warrior prime minister. And it was something that that that his opposite number Trump noticed. He called him a great wartime leader. And indeed he was it. He has been a great wartime leader, focusing, building, and leading a a multi-front war against enemies that he's warned of for decades and created the capacities for decades to tackle them. There was the Beeper operation in Lebanon. There was the ferocious war against Hamas that despite defying international opinion. There was the war with the Houthis. And what the attacks on Iran, Iraq, and finally the attacks on Iran. And the war that we're still in the middle of with Iran that's happening in two stages and possibly a third coming up. And the Iran war, three years long, has been the metamorphosis of Bibi into warrior Bibi. But however big the metamorphosis, the development and evolution of Bibi when it comes to foreign policy and when it comes to finance and all of that, perhaps the greatest is the last one, the one we're seeing now, last few years, which is the metamorphosis of the Israeli voting public and Bibi's metamorphosis and change along with it. Because you have to remember that Bibi comes from a secular household. It's incredible again, you read the letters to of of Yoni Netanyahu, you'll see scarcely a mention of Jewish tradition, no mentions of God of or anything. It's it's That was the household he he grew up in. And yet one of the incredible things is that while some of his political rivals on the left, for example, Benny Gantz, the former chief of IDF chief of staff, put on tefillin regularly, I think every day, and was was a person who was I noticeably more uh of you know, in tune with Jewish tradition, Bibi, from such a secular background, came to head and achieve his greatest electoral success as part of a right-wing religious block. Most incredible metamorphosis. And what has happened along the way is the change in his own political base. Because remember that Bibi was you just have to look at someone who fell by the wayside, a man called Benny Begin. Very, very interesting. Menachem Begin was traditional Jew. He was famously from Brisk, but his son was a real Jabotinskyite. He was he was secular, right-wing, liberal. Benny Begin walked away a few years ago from Bibi Netanyahu's party because he said it's changed too much from the one the Likud that I used to know. It's too It's too religious. It's too right-wing. And yet Bibi Netanyahu, who came from a far more secular home, went with that change and was able to ride the wave of change because the Israeli electorate the Israeli right has become far more religious, faith-based. Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, the Likud contains many people wearing a kippah. And that has been the That's been the political change that Bibi has rid- ridden. And that change became very clear after 2015 when Bibi won a great convincing electoral victory. Um and he and began to form what what was almost lasted basically a decade, the right-wing religious block. And it was Aryeh Deri, who was a a major you know, his his his number two, his his lieutenant in that effort. Um and Deri's Deri's repeated election poster featured Deri and Bibi. And and it would say uh Bibi tzarich Aryeh hazak. It was like a kind of play on words. He says, "Bibi needs a strong Aryeh, a strong Aryeh Deri, a strong lion." In other words. But there was this uh you know, incredible um electoral political hug between between Bibi and his increasingly um religious uh coalition partners. And that's what we saw for 4 years in the Knesset. Now, when the Haredim became an part become part part of that. And yet it was the draft issue that has split apart that threatened to split apart those two which finally broke down the electoral pact and we have to see whether it still resurfaces and comes back to to life. And perhaps this is something revealing about because the fact that that a man brought up in Netanyahu's house should ultimately form this uneasy but very strong bond with very religious voters and and and parties. And it's perhaps something if we look back into into Bibi's history, grandfather Benzion's you know history over there, you will see that there's this tension there because Benzion's father was very interesting man. He was a Volozhiner. He learned in Nachum Nachum Milikovsky. Um and and my colleague from our Hebrew edition um Yisrael Grovais produced a fantastic article which we published in Mishpacha few weeks ago which was about um a the grand the mysterious uh Volozhin Talmud grandfather who was uh Bibi's Bibi's grandfather who who is constantly often says um mentions learned in Volozhin. And what's very interesting is that he was a Volozhiner and he's very brilliant man but he himself became caught caught up with the Zionist cause Nachum Milikovsky and he came into clash with his with the world in which he'd come from. And and he himself became much more Zionist. His son Benzion became secular Zionist but his grandson and this is so interesting because Bibi as it were has that in the family roots. This treading this kind of undefined line between tradition and belief and secularism and Zionism. Very very interesting over there. The point is that whatever blend Netanyahu represents it works. It speaks to a large portion of the Israeli electorate and it enables somehow political creation of this political fusion and block that has lasted and dominated so so so much of Israeli politics in recent years. And I think the best line, the best way of understanding that came from Yinon Magal. For those who don't know, Yinon Magal is perhaps the one of the biggest media personalities in Israel today. He's the front front man of the presenter of the Israeli Patriotim, a show which is like Channel 14, which is like Israel's Fox wannabe. And Yinon Magal, I talked to him a couple of years ago and he said a fascinating thing. He said, "Yeah, Bibi isn't as religious as many of his voters," he said. "But Bibi is the leader that Israel needs today. It could be in the future, he said, we're going to have a more religious leader. But Bibi is the one who can bring together the pieces of that of that governing majority today." Which Magal was saying, "Yes, there's going to come we're going through a stage of Jewish history." And I suppose he's talking in terms of you know the the divine orchestration of events over here. Says Bibi is right for the moment. It's a very interesting take. And that's something that his coalition partners and the Israeli electorate broadly understands about him. For Netanyahu and the broadly the right wings religious and traditional supporters, it's not so much a question of how many times Bibi puts on tefillin, it's a question of is he the right leader for the moment and for an overwhelming you know, a large majority of Israelis repeatedly through election after election for the last 15-16 years have answered with a resounding yes. This has been said so many times it's a cliché, but I think it's true that this is Bibi's greatest test. Here in these elections he's failed to deliver a majority. Yet the opposition failed to take him down. And the question is what's next? With the investigations of the Arab parties, saw potential that some of his the left is perhaps going to jump and then they're going to face this this Gordian knot of how to solve the already draft crisis. But the key thing is when it comes to Bibi is that he's too formidable to discount. You can never know with Bibi. He has been in turn Israel's Mr. Economy, Mr. Security, Mr. Iran, Mr. No to Palestine, Mr. Warrior Bibi. These have all been the case. The question is now does he have the agility and the dexterity to bring across to to to create another miracle over here and and and to form a government over here. Don't count Bibi out because he's the agile big cat of Israeli politics who may yet for a ninth time land on his feet. Thank you. >> [music]