Netanyahu’s Problem: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

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9:00 am Israel time, Thursday, March 12 2015

5 Days Until The Election

**In rather amazing testimony in Washington yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry shocked a Congressional panel by declaring that the coming deal with Iran will not be “legally binding” because it is merely “an executive agreement.” For this reason, Kerry continued, Congress does not “have the right to modify an agreement reached executive to executive between leaders of a country.”

In other words, the Iranians will be under no legal obligation whatsoever to follow the provisions of the deal that Obama and Kerry cook up–and Congress can do nothing about it. 

Incredible.

**It was only a few days ago that a chief adviser to Iranian President Rouhani commented that Baghdad is now a center of Iranian cultural identity. 

Yesterday, the international media reported the story that Iraqi forces had retaken Tikrit from IS. The truth, however, was vastly different. It wasn’t Iraq that had “retaken” Tikrit, but Iran that had “taken” it:

Famed Iranian General Qasem Suleimani (with white hair and beard) walks triumphantly through Tikrit yesterday. Suleimani believes that he is “bullet-proof” and regularly inspires his troops by walking in the front lines wearing no protective armor and carrying no weapons.

TODAY’S BLOG:

Your humble servant and his wife dined out last night with another couple here in Ashdod. From a political perspective, all of us are coming from the same place: we want the “Right” in Israel to win the election.

Nevertheless, the other couple spent the entire evening talking about how the government must do something to help young people buy an apartment— by making mortgages more affordable or by simply building apartments for young people which can be rented out at greatly reduced prices through the use of government subsidies.  One of the points that they continued to make over and over was that Israel needs to return to the social welfare system it put in place when the country was reborn in 1948.

Security is important, they said–but at this time in Israeli history, the cost of living is most important. Their thoughts are remarkably in line with a survey released yesterday by an Israeli publication, Calcalist.

The survey asked Israelis to put in order the six items which should receive the most priority by the new government that takes over after the elections.

Here are those results, again in order of importance:

1. Cost of living

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2. Peace with Palestinians

3. Housing prices

4. High taxes

5. Diplomatic isolation

6. Iranian threat

Cost of living was first by far; peace with the Palestinians–housing prices–taxes were roughly the same in importance, and diplomatic isolation and the Iranian threat were virtually the same in lagging far behind the other four priorities.

When asked what their vote next Tuesday will be based on:

55.2% of Israelis said “socio-economic issues”

28.4% of Israelis said “political-security issues”

There is a distinct feeling in the country that Netanyahu has “over-focused” on Iran and “under-focused” on bread and butter issues such as the cost of living and particularly the cost of housing. 

There’s a saying back in the United States that “Americans always vote their pocketbooks.” Benjamin Netanyahu would be doing better in this election if he had heeded James Carville’s famous advice to Bill Clinton: “It’s the economy, stupid.”