US President Joe Biden’s bombshell announcement on Sunday that he will not seek re-election -- the first sitting president since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1968 to voluntarily not seek a second term -- highlights the differences between the political situations in Israel and the US at this particular moment.
It was only seconds after Biden’s disastrous debate on July 27 with former president and now Republican party nominee Donald Trump that loud and influential voices began calling on him to step down, arguing that he was too old and no longer had the mental acuity to do the job.
Yet Biden shrugged those voices aside, and soldiered on, saying that at this dangerous time in the world, he was the only man with the experience and wisdom to do the job. In a campaign rally immediately after that debate, he said “the stakes were too high” for him to step down, and he implied that he was the only person who could beat Trump.
The polls showed that the American public thought differently, and that he should step aside, but he continued to say that he had no intention to do so and would run again.
His tone was reminiscent of that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, amid a months-long whirling crisis bedeviling this country, earnestly believes that he is the only person at this time who can do his job. For that reason, he and his supporters consistently rebuff calls for new elections or for him to step down, despite polls showing that the majority of the country wants to see new elections and wants to see him leave politics and not seek re-election.
For the last three weeks, Biden and Netanyahu have been very similar in that they were both facing public opinion that did not want them to continue, yet they both vowed to do so.
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On Sunday – just two days before the two were scheduled to meet in Washington – Biden threw in the towel. Or, to be more precise, his corner – his party and his handlers – put the towel in his hand and compelled him to throw it.
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It is obvious from Biden’s statements since the Trump debate that, left to his own devices, he would have stayed the course. It’s those leaders in the party who -- not so subtly -- forced him out.
And therein lies the difference between the political situation in the US and that in Israel at the present moment. In the US, the party leadership—concerned about the party's future and the likelihood that it would suffer a stinging defeat in November were Biden to remain in the race—pressured him and nudged him to step aside.
There is no such mirror image in the Likud. While its poll numbers are steadily improving, the polls still show that the Likud will take a drubbing in the next elections—whenever they are held—and, with Netanyahu as party head, will be relegated to the opposition.
Were Yisrael Katz like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Transportation Minister Miri Regev like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, they might be whispering into Netanyahu’s ear that for the good of the party -- no one would expect them to say for the good of the country -- it is time for him to step aside.
The last few weeks have shown that Biden and Netanyahu will cling to power to the end, both men feeling indispensable. The difference is that the Democratic party, in self-preservation mode, will not allow the president to do that, whereas, inside the Likud, Netanyahu’s grip on the party remains so strong that no one dares to tell him what the Democrats told Biden: that with him at the helm, the party will lose power.