The obsession with Netanyahu is hiding something far uglier.
How has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu come to be seen as the embodiment of evil? Is he really the monster that the media often portrays him to be?
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This is a guest essay by Cynthia Lazar, a retired psychiatrist and Canadian Zionist who writes about Israel and antisemitism.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
In a recent New York Times Magazine article, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is presented as the main reason for this prolonged war in Gaza. It accuses him of using war as a strategy to maintain power.
The writers’ biases are evident, since they ignore any information that counters their narrative. The fact that Netanyahu, who has repeatedly agreed to peace deals and ceasefires — while Hamas remains intransigent — is almost entirely absent from this 15-page character assassination. In the third-to-last paragraph, the writers admit that Hamas must bear some responsibility, but this seems like an afterthought, added to counter accusations of bias.
All three journalists are based in Israel, and although they claim to have conducted 110 interviews in Israel, the U.S., and the “Arab world,” the focus is almost exclusively upon Israel. Hamas and Hezbollah are little more than ghosts. They admitted that neither Netanyahu nor anyone in Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office would contribute.
This article gives the entirely mistaken impression that the end of war lies entirely in Israel’s hands, when it is Hamas who could have ended this at any time for 21 months by returning the hostages, laying down their weapons, and disavowing their plan to repeat October 7th again and again until Israel is destroyed. Hamas never had to start the war.
Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran are both presented as victims of Israeli aggression, rather than Islamist entities that collectively sent thousands of rockets into Israel deliberately aimed at civilians. That northern Israel, which shares a border with Hezbollah-infested Lebanon, had been entirely depopulated of 100,000 Israeli civilians for over a year is missing from their analysis.
Most telling is that Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood are not even mentioned once, let alone their overt genocidal ideologies. There can be no understanding of Netanyahu’s drive for total victory without recognizing the extremism inherent in a holy war that Hamas started and Iran supports.
One of the writers, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, is particularly well-connected in Israel to senior members of the IDF, but there seems to be no admission that many of his sources have a deep animosity towards Netanyahu and would be eager to see his defeat. Are they really credible unbiased sources?
Ilan Goldenberg, the American official (who renounced his Israeli citizenship) quoted in the article, has defended giving money to the Palestinian Authority in spite of its pay-for-slay program, in violation of the Taylor Force Act (a U.S. law that restricts American economic aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ceases payments to individuals who commit acts of terrorism or their families).
Goldenberg even insisted that the U.S. releasing sanctioned funds to Iran, as part of the Obama-led 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, would improve Iran’s economy rather than be used to fund terror across the Middle East. His naiveté or complete misunderstanding of Islamist extremism is boundless.
The article also focuses on the devastating costs of prolonging the war. Yet, in the second-to-last paragraph, the writers admit that some may see Israel as safer today as a result. Even at the New York Times, it’s hard to completely ignore the “defeat of Hezbollah, the collapse of the Syrian government, and the wounding of Iran.” I would add the elimination of almost the entire top tier of Hamas leaders and fighters, as well as eradicating the smuggling of weapons to Hamas through Egypt via the Rafah crossing and Philadelphi corridor.
As for Netanyahu, he is hated by some in Israel and many abroad. He has been a polarizing figure for years and is not without serious flaws. By attempting to start a judicial reform process in Israel, he created division and instability within Israeli society that precipitated the October 7th attack. The judicial reform process did not cause the massacre, but Hamas leader and architect of October 7th, Yahya Sinwar, observed Israel’s internal struggles and imagined the time was ripe for Israel’s destruction.
Hamas spent its entire 17 years in control of the Gaza Strip planning this attack, including building an absurd amount of tunnels and training its fighters to murder and kidnap civilians, including children, women, and the elderly. Therefore, it’s folly to blame Netanyahu entirely. Even when Israel’s Left-wing parties ran the country, and regardless of whether Arab Israelis or Israeli settlers were members of governing coalitions, Hamas never veered from its ideology or plans — to kill all Jews and establish a caliphate.
At the same time, Netanyahu was among many in Israeli government, defense, and intelligence establishments with the misguided conception that allowed Hamas to divert billions in aid and build a complex Islamist fortress that covered the entire Gaza Strip. By mistakenly believing that Hamas would rather build lives for its people than kill Jews, he ensured the success of October 7th.
This erroneous belief was shared by most of the IDF’s top brass. After October 7th, Netanyahu claimed Hamas was built up in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority, preventing the establishment of a terror state as Israel’s neighbour. Either way, hindsight being 20/20, it was a catastrophic error.
Netanyahu is also hated for mainstreaming Far-Right politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to positions of power. When they spout off about Jewish supremacy or clearing all Palestinian lands for Jews, Netanyahu remains silent, allowing antisemites to ascribe to Israel the worst possible motives.
Netanyahu is, however, less influenced by them than the New York Times suggests. When he organized the cabinet meeting to drastically increase aid into Gaza to overcome the starvation being orchestrated by Hamas, he did so on Shabbat, disingenuously claiming that he did not wish to disturb his religious cabinet members, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, on the Sabbath. You don’t keep winning elections in a democracy for almost 20 years without a certain amount of wiliness as a politician.
Many decisions that a wartime leader makes will result in deaths. Netanyahu faces an impossible dilemma: weighing the tragic toll of civilian deaths in Gaza against the imperative to protect future Israeli lives — including soldiers operating in Gaza and the very real threat of future terrorist attacks and kidnappings — all while assuring the nation that the safety of Israeli hostages remains a top priority. The anxiety that results in the Israeli public is almost sure to require a fall guy to blame.
How much are Left-leaning Israelis victims of the Red-Green Alliance’s propaganda? For those unaware, the Red-Green Alliance refers to the ideological partnership between Far-Left (red) activists and Islamist (green) movements, united by shared opposition to the Western world and often Israel, despite deep contradictions in these two movements’ core values.
Left-leaning Israelis certainly read this propaganda in Israel’s Far-Left media outlet Ha’aretz, as well as in academic literature which tends to veer quite Left. Marxist and socialist ideology is intertwined with antisemitism. The class struggle scapegoated Jews and defined them as capitalist interlopers. It is almost impossible to separate antisemitism from their ideology, even if they relabel it “anti-Zionism.”
With Qatari money, Middle Eastern Studies departments on college campuses throughout North America and Europe have been overtaken by Islamists. Israeli academics don’t exist, thanks in part to the efforts of Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement against Israel and Israelis. Have they also been influenced by these erroneous ideas?
Outside of Israel, Netanyahu is despised even more. Perhaps after nearly 20 years in power, on and off, he may be the only Israeli politician that many people across the world can identify. A google search for “image of Netanyahu with blood dripping” yielded thousands of results. In Canada, La Presse, a French newspaper, printed a cartoon portraying him as Nosferatu, looking like Dracula. He’s often written about as the worst prime minister ever.
But is he really much worse than all other politicians?
Netanyahu is in the midst of a five-year-long corruption trial. He stands accused of having taken about $300,000 in gifts from a billionaire American-Israeli and Australian friends in exchange for giving them tax advantages. He’s also indicted for influencing the media to promote stories that portrayed him favourably. Apparently the prosecutors were unable to come up with any stories that portrayed Netanyahu in a positive light, the news outlet in question, but the trial continues. Netanyahu promised to suppress another major newspaper in Israel to give their rival a better chance.
These accusations are bad, especially if true, but is this so different from former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the Airbus affair, in which he accepted at least $225,000 in bribes 30 years ago. Or is it any different from Canada’s last prime minister, Justin Trudeau, trying to influence the results of the SNC Lavalin trial, which resulted in the justice minister’s resignation from cabinet? Trudeau also accepted a trip on a private jet from Agha Khan (the hereditary spiritual leader of the Nizari Shia Ismaili Muslims) to stay on his private island, a gift worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Maybe Israelis hold their leaders to a higher standard, since Netanyahu is embroiled in a lengthy trial that neither Trudeau nor Mulroney ever faced.
Regardless, Netanyahu is definitely not in the same league as Hamas leaders, who habitually steal billions of dollars in aid and openly shared their genocidal ideology. The Palestinian Authority’s longtime dictatorial head, Mahmoud Abbas, has only robbed his people of hundreds of millions. Abbas also broadcasts his perpetual promise that any Palestinian nation will remain free from Jews when the borders are drawn, although it is Netanyahu who is constantly accused of ethnic cleansing. And we know Hamas doesn’t care about its own citizens and has revealed its strategy to martyr its own civilians in order to vilify Israel.
Netanyahu certainly is not in the same class when it comes to murdering civilians like Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in Yemen, Hemedti in Sudan, and many others. I understand that these are very low bars, but Netanyahu has been condemned more than all of them combined.
Psychologically, what contributes to this demonization? Partly it is the collective projection that Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung described. Discomfort with our own negative traits and desires, such as greed and homicidal anger, are projected onto a convenient character. Anxiety is then diminished by disavowing those undesirable qualities.
Even better is ascribing them to someone else. Seeing the other as a distant evil one is far more comfortable than facing our own failings. Self-esteem can be strengthened by criticizing Netanyahu, to demonstrate our own virtue in comparison.
In Object Relations Theory1, Netanyahu would be seen as the “bad object.” The usual scenario occurs when an analyst is seen in a negative light as having the characteristics of a disappointing caregiver. This leads to an impasse in therapy, until those unconscious negative thoughts and feelings are interpreted.
Netanyahu may have contributed to these projections by presenting himself as the caregiver of the Jewish People, the only one able to keep Israel safe. He probably still believes this. He has been (democratically elected) prime minister for too long to avoid the scrutiny and denigration that eventually comes with a position of power.
Ultimately, though, it is hard to deny the antisemitism that keeps cropping up when criticism of Netanyahu is more closely examined. The double standards applied to Israel and its leader are glaring.
The final paragraph in the aforementioned New York Times Magazine article suggests that Israel is actually far less safe due to the destruction of its reputation internationally. Of course, the New York Times and its writers are blind to their very active, even proactive, role in Israel’s reputational destruction. Just yesterday, the New York Times had to issue an apology for printing photos of genetically ill emaciated babies as if they were victims of deliberate mass starvation.
Why does the New York Times — and so much of the mainstream media — keep bending their own journalistic standards when the target is Israel or Netanyahu?
Because it’s far easier to report from Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, where there’s free speech and open debate, than to dig for the truth inside Gaza, where every word must be Hamas-approved.
Because it’s more rewarding to echo the Palestinian narrative, built for gullible Western consumption, than to challenge it.
Because doing so flatters their ideological biases, aligns with many leftists’ out-of-touch worldview, and earns them applause in the echo chambers they inhabit.
And because we all know: “No Jews, no news.”
Object Relations Theory emphasizes that early childhood relationships, particularly with primary caregivers, profoundly shape an individual's later interactions and emotional development.
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For quite a while now, I have been convinced that the demonising of Netanyahu is nothing but Jew-hatred. The horrifying cartoons of him as a cannibal or a vampire, with blood dripping from his fangs. make this perfectly clear. As you say, there is no comparable demonising of mass murderers, past or present, such as Idi Amin, Khameini, Assad, or even Stalin or Pol Pot.
You give the NY Times and most mainstream media outlets far too much credit. They dont bend journalistic standards. They have none to bend.