But a married woman! Now Bibi’ll go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, maybe he’s gone to the Western Wall, or he’ll say the phrase ‘With God’s help.’ But he’s not fooling anyone.” “One thing is to have an affair with a shiksa-but a married woman! With a shiksa, even the rebbes do it. ![]() “Finessing his being secular was nothing compared to other things, like adultery,” Bar-Illan said. And yet when we were talking about Bibi’s attempts to win over the ultra-Orthodox vote despite his own ultra-secular habits, even his admission of adultery, Bar-Illan rolled his eyes and spoke on the record in a way no Washington equivalent ever would. On matters of policy, Bar-Illan is a spinmeister extraordinaire, the fellow who happily goes before the camera crews to defend the latest action of the Prime Minister. One afternoon, I went to see David Bar-Illan, a former concert pianist, who is among Netanyahu’s closest aides and very few friends. The strangest thing about Netanyahu is that although he commands support-his stalling tactics on the peace process have won him a center-right majority-he commands little respect. Left or right, everyone refers to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, by his childhood nickname, though familiarity in his case has not bred affection. The rarest phrase in the fifty-year-long history of Israel is “No comment,” and certainly no one has ever uttered the following sentence: “I have no comment on Bibi.” The desert blooms on the moisture of harangue. If Paris is the City of Light, Jerusalem is the City of Opinion.
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