ByAMOTZ ASA-EL

JUNE 5, 2026 14:29

Ehud Barak declared, echoing the solemn words of the cantor preparing to bridge Jew and God.

Here I stand, empty of achievement, said the decorated soldier who had just defeated Benjamin Netanyahu, pledging a fresh beginning amid cheers from the crowd filling Rabin Square.

It was spring 1999, and Netanyahu's first term appeared finished, clearing the path for a return to earlier ways. Within a year it became clear that Barak had continued from Netanyahu's approach, as did the two prime ministers who followed, all embracing the same shift away from prior standards of national leadership.

Barak, like Netanyahu, operated independently and made major choices with little input from others. His preference for solitary control showed early, even before his troubled term started, through deliberate placements of skilled individuals in mismatched roles.

For example, Barak sent respected historian and skilled diplomat Shlomo Ben-Ami to the internal security post, an area he knew little about, instead of assigning him to education or welfare where his talents could have shone.

Barak shared Netanyahu's view of superior intellect over others. His team turned over quickly, much like Netanyahu's, and his ministers served mainly as background in a solo performance. This pattern led Barak, just as Netanyahu had done, to lose his foreign minister David Levy.

More importantly, Barak embodied the era's core trait of insincerity. Netanyahu often vowed to eliminate Hamas yet supported its growth, while Barak pledged focus on social equity yet concentrated on international matters.

Barak's Diplomatic Efforts Almost Sparked Conflict

Beyond that, Barak mirrored the period's lack of seriousness. Netanyahu deliberately divided Israeli society, pushing the nation toward internal strife, while Barak plunged into complex peace talks without real expertise, resulting in widespread unrest.

Thus, like Netanyahu after his initial term, voters removed Barak early, delivering his crushing electoral loss. The prevailing mood persisted, and incoming leader Ariel Sharon remained part of this same period alongside Netanyahu and Barak.

Sharon won election to end the Second Intifada and succeeded in that goal. Yet he too lacked candor. Supporters had a right to learn of his Gaza withdrawal plan before the 2003 vote rather than after. Once he called for a party referendum on the idea, he should have accepted and followed the outcome.

Sharon had stated earlier in 2001 that he backed a Palestinian state. Still, the longtime champion of Greater Israel offered no account of when or why he reversed his long-held position.

Leaders from the prior generation acted differently.

In 1957 David Ben-Gurion reversed course on keeping the Sinai Peninsula captured the year before. He laid out his reasoning first to IDF commanders and later to the Knesset. The pressure from a joint Soviet-American demand was severe, and the pullback clashed with earlier remarks, yet he demonstrated that true leadership requires openness.

Under Ben-Gurion and those who followed, Israelis received consistent and genuine conduct. Menachem Begin did trade land for peace, but he never asserted that Sinai formed part of the biblical homeland he pledged to hold. He reserved that claim for the West Bank and Gaza, which he retained.

Sharon's reluctance to disclose his Gaza intentions, much like Barak's failure to prioritize social needs as promised, was copied by the Netanyahu era's fourth premier, Ehud Olmert.

Olmert extended the Gaza disengagement model to the West Bank without consulting official bodies. After the Second Lebanon War he quietly dropped this central campaign pledge, yet he never offered a public explanation during his time in office.

The Enduring Mark of the Netanyahu Period

This describes the political age that Netanyahu began, molded, and led: one defined by insincerity, superficiality, ad-hoc moves, and carelessness, quite apart from the legal issues facing these four premiers.

A fifth premier, Naftali Bennett, and briefly a sixth in Yair Lapid's interim role, appeared in this span. Their short terms limit assessment of their personal roles. Even so, their coalition's formation and collapse reflected the turmoil and cynicism of the Netanyahu years.

Netanyahu directed his lawmakers to interrupt and jeer Bennett during his inaugural address. Few scenes captured the era more vividly, as his allies misrepresented procedure by claiming a prime minister must come from the largest faction and acted in unruly fashion.

Then, true to the period's open cynicism, the group moved from falsehood to inducement by securing one of Bennett's lawmakers with a cabinet post under Netanyahu.

In short, these were the Netanyahu years, a stretch of political decline that began thirty years ago last week and may at last reach its overdue close next autumn.

www.MiddleIsrael.net

The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is the author of the bestseller The Jewish March of Folly (Yedioth Books 2026), now available in English on Amazon.