“I don’t know what the people want, I know what they need,” Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, once said. The sentence is quoted from time to time as an example of a leader who refuses to submit to populism, and the good of the people, alone, guides him in all his actions. It is equally possible to interpret the sentence the other way around, as the words of a dictator whose power has gone to his head: You, the voters, are not of interest to my grandmother. I will do what I want, and you will flow.
Which brings us to the drama unfolding these days surrounding U.S. President Joe Biden and his insistence on continuing to run for a second term. American columnists compare Biden's refusal to face reality to that of King Lear, the hero of Shakespeare's tragedy, who in his old age could not distinguish between a lover and an enemy, between a truth teller and a flatterer, and thus lost his kingdom and lost his life.
If Biden doesn't sober up, the tragic phase of this story will occur in November, when Trump returns to the White House, or, alternatively, when Biden miraculously wins and becomes a dysfunctional president. Right now we are in a heart-wrenching phase: a beloved and virtuous leader who lives in denial - and there is no one
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet in two weeks in Washington with President Joe Biden
(Photos: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters, Debbie Hill/AP)
One of the qualities that Biden has prided himself on throughout his life is his mental fortitude, his ability to overcome personal tragedies and political defeats. Like Shimon Peres' political life here in Israel, he never gave up: When they threw him out the door, he climbed in through the window. This character trait guides Biden even today, but it is interpreted differently: not as mental strength but as detachment from reality, as lack of self-awareness. Biden may lose not only the power he currently has and the power he seeks for himself in the coming years, but also his past achievements. As fears about Trump's return intensify, resentment against Biden intensifies: you and your ego, you are to blame.
Biden is not the only leader suffering from a lack of self-awareness. Those who seek to reach the status of a national leader discover sooner or later that self-awareness is an excess weight that is better shed on the way up: The climb is easier with eyes closed.
The difficulty starts with us, the voters. We expect our leader to be both: Both attentive to the surrounding voices and impervious to them, both a team player and an individual, both a pleasant songstress of Israel and a cruel king.
The obvious example is Golda Meir, who in her obscurity bears considerable responsibility for the failure of Yom Kippur 1973. The same Golda and the same opacity gave the country a determined, strong, sober leadership during the war, when the generals, heroes of glory and Dane at their head, collapsed around her.
If Biden doesn't sober up, the tragic phase of this story will occur in November, when Trump returns to the White House
Meirav Michaeli is an example from the same party, but from a different era and different orders of magnitude. On the eve of the last elections, everyone who had their eyes on Michaeli warned that if she did not join forces with Meretz, Netanyahu might return to power, that she was betting not only on herself and her party - that she was betting on the fate of the country. She insisted, and the results bore this out: if the two parties had run together, Netanyahu's coalition would have had 61 mandates, not 64. It is likely that the coup by Rotman and Levin would have looked different. Maybe everything that happened here in the last 20 months would have looked different. After the elections, she did not resign as party leader, nor from the Knesset. She did not resign even after her party elected a new leader.
Netanyahu is the most fascinating example of all. His ability to focus on himself, his achievements, his virtues, the injustices done to him, was always extraordinary, even compared to other politicians. But if I'm not mistaken, in recent years something has changed in him. Criticism of him bothers him less. Any criticism is rooted in abysmal hatred for him and his family - therefore it has no value. He swims in the aquarium that was created for him: quarrelsome family members, incompetent assistants, media people who are flattered by their art. They allow him to close his eyes wide.
In two weeks Netanyahu will take off for Biden's Washington. The distance between the two, in their current state, is smaller than is commonly thought. Both cling to power as if the government could not do without them; The country is important, but their ego is more important; Both are addicted to polls but internalize only what is convenient; Both do not meet the job requirements - one because he can't, the other because he doesn't want to. If they do meet they will have something to talk about - including their wives. Maybe Hunter, the troubled son, will also join and like him the troubled Yair from Miami.
Imagine a picture: the six go out, surrounded by their security guards, to the Rose Garden of the White House. "Together we will win," Netanyahu declares; "Together we will win," Biden repeats after him, and everyone buries their heads in the sand, to the glory of both countries.