Mockery, insults and abuse are the tools Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used in his recent interviews to Israeli media outlets.
While the prime minister was expected to intensify his campaign closer to the March 23 Election Day - the fourth he has brought the country to in the past two years - his declining poll numbers have prompted him to embark on his media blitz prematurely.
His concern is evident. In two appearances in the Israeli media this week, Netanyahu appeared angry.
His ambitious goal of winning 40 seats for Likud in the upcoming ballot seems out of reach. Unlike previous campaigns, the Likud leader no longer has the protection of an assured parliamentary bloc made up of the ultra-Orthodox parties and right-wing allies.
His approval rating in the wake of the yearlong pandemic is also on the decline.
Netanyahu's lies, defamatory accusations, half-truths and denials are familiar to anyone who has been observing the Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Now he has added contempt and mockery to his arsenal.
No one is immune. Not his political opponents or those who dared criticize his policies; not the civil servants he blames for undermining his efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic; and certainly not the media he accuses of conspiring against him.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embraces then-President Donald Trump during a visit to Washington in 2019
(Photo: Reuters)
Just like his close friend and political ally, former U.S. president Donald Trump, Netanyahu avoids calling people by their name and prefers to use derogatory terms to describe them.
As he repeats his claim that leaders the world over are calling to beg for the secrets of his great successes in combating COVID-19, Netanyahu lays blame for the actual failures on everyone but himself.
Only he is able to obtain coronavirus vaccines, the prime minister says into every microphone. But the death of some 6,000 Israelis from the virus is the fault of former Likud MK Yifat Shasha-Biton who used to head the Knesset oversight committee for the handling of the pandemic.
Shasha-Biton was stripped of all positions of power early last summer for deying the party line. She had since joined a fellow Likud escapee and today another of the prime minister's rivals, Gideon Saar, whose New Hope party is challenging Netanyahu's leadership.
What else could the Israeli voters expect from a leader who has never bothered to reach out to any of the victims of COVID-19 or the families of those who succumbed to the disease?
Yes he lacks any humility, and perhaps he is a megalomaniac, but his recent behavior befits an authoritarian ruler more than an elected official. He alone decides on policy and he alone distributes the budget, ignoring the Knesset, officials in government ministries and defenders of the law.
"The problem is not his personality, it is the propaganda," one psychologist who studies leaders around the world told me.
"What is worrying from a psychological aspect is how focused he is and how little empathy he has for anyone else."
He does not believe his battle cry of "I alone can do it," the psychologist said.
"Tomorrow he will present himself as the sad leader and even shed a tear at the bedside of a COVID victim. He does what he believes will work to enlist public support."
Netanyahu makes promises he has no intention of keeping, easily and with a straight face. His policies are decided by potential votes and nothing else.
He cares only about himself and that is a source of his political strength. But it also makes him a dangerous man who is quick to switch allegiances and even political agendas.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets a plane delivering coronavirus vaccines to Israel in January
(Photo: Moti Milrod)
The annexation of West Bank land, which he promised before the March 2020 elections, was cast away mere months later without a second thought.
Netanyahu steps into a role with his entire being. It is how he bypasses his own lies. "You have to believe what you say," he reportedly coached others in the past.
But now Netanyahu seems different. He boasts of his achievements and takes credit for the work of others, even his closest allies. He knows that his base adores him. After all, they call him the king.
His supporters will never expect a moral stance from him, nor will they want him to show weakness. And while he is on trial for corruption and made to appear in court and be judged – undoubtedly an embarrassing position – the prime minister radiates contempt for the judges and promises that all his detractors and all those conspiring to "bring him down" will fail in the end.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands before a judicial panel during his criminal trial for corruption in Jerusalem last year
(Photo: Contact)
This prime minister has been in power for too long. He conflates the county's interests with his own.
Some say he once had values. Perhaps he did, but unfortunately today he has none.