He Thinks We’re Idiots: Netanyahu’s Defective Goods, Sold Again

From free education and fighting the cost of living to being “one step away from victory”: Netanyahu is counting on no one checking his old promises. Shimon Sheves presents the catalogue of lies and suggests that this time, we surprise him at the ballot box.

Six days before the election, Benjamin Netanyahu’s entire campaign rests on one fundamental assumption: that we have the memory of a goldfish, and not a particularly sophisticated one at that. That every four years, we can be sold the same defective goods in new packaging, and no one will bother to check what was written on the previous package. How do I know? Let’s do the one thing he hates most: put his 2022 promises next to what actually happened.

“We will bring down the cost of living,” he promised in his victory speech. The ministerial committee on the cost of living met six times before the war broke out, and has since all but disappeared, much like the change at the checkout. Municipal property taxes, which he promised to freeze, soared. VAT, which was supposed to go down, did not fall. It went up. A basket of 80 popular products has become nearly 20 percent more expensive since September 2022. And what about the “State Basket,” launched in the spring with 100 discounted products and NIS 50 million allocated for advertising? Only one retail chain signed up, covering just a third of its branches, and the initiative was quietly buried after six months.

In October 2022, Netanyahu even promised to “freeze mortgage increases.” A week later, his office announced that he had misspoken and had actually meant a freeze on municipal property taxes. Even that promise did not survive until election day. Free education from birth, incidentally, is a promise Netanyahu has been making for 15 years. The children it was meant to benefit are practically finishing high school.

Netanyahu, of course, also promised to restore Israel’s deterrence and “national pride,” and to defeat Hamas. He warned that if he lost, you know what would happen. Well, we certainly know what happened: October 7, the greatest catastrophe in the country’s history, with approximately 1,200 people murdered and 251 taken hostage.

He promised to “expand the circle of peace.” Saudi Arabia never came on board. So who did join the Abraham Accords? Kazakhstan, with which Israel has maintained diplomatic relations since 1992. That is roughly like celebrating a wedding with a woman you have been married to for more than 30 years.

He promised to restore Israel’s standing as a “rising power among the nations.” Today, an arrest warrant has been issued against him by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and since October 7, he has visited only the United States, the UAE on a secret trip, and Hungary. After Viktor Orbán’s fall, Hungary renewed its commitment to the International Criminal Court and made clear that it would honor arrest warrants. Even Budapest is no longer a safe destination for him. A rising power with nowhere to fly. And along the way, Israel has become a pariah around the world.

Wait, there’s more. Even some classics. In February 2021, Netanyahu declared on television that “Ben-Gvir is unfit to serve as a minister.” Less than two years later, he appointed him Minister of National Security, where he proceeded to wreck the national security of Israeli citizens.

Now Ben-Gvir claims Netanyahu promised the European Union that he would not be part of the next government. If that is true, Ben-Gvir has nothing to worry about. It’s a promise from Netanyahu.

In April 2024, Netanyahu announced that “we are one step away from victory.” This past Sunday, two and a half years later, he explained that he had no regrets: “We are close.” That must be the longest step in human history. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon faster.

So, after failing to keep even a single one of his promises, an impressive achievement even for a pathological liar like him, let’s move on to the new catalogue. Here is a small selection from a single interview Netanyahu gave this week on the Kol Barama radio station.

“Anyone who doesn’t study should go enlist,” Netanyahu said. In that very same interview, he pledged to pass the draft-exemption law in the next term because “we were only missing one vote.”

Asked about the arrest of Haredi draft evaders, he called it “unacceptable” and “a deliberate attempt to undermine the process of recruiting Haredim without coercion.”

Recruitment without coercion. Remember that phrase. It may yet find its way into the textbooks, somewhere between voluntary income tax, an unlimited-calorie diet, and a traffic cop who politely asks you to pull over.

And when exactly will the exemption law pass? “Will we be able to do it before the government is formed? Who knows?”

I know. And so do you.

The campaign’s central slogan is “Right or Palestine,” accompanied by the familiar warning that Gadi Eisenkot will form a government with Mansour Abbas. Those with long memories will recall that in 2021, Netanyahu toured Arab towns as “Abu Yair.” Mansour Abbas later said that Likud had offered him a coalition agreement and that he had met Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Balfour Street. Bezalel Smotrich, meanwhile, testified that “Netanyahu wanted to form a government with Abbas. We stopped him.”

In other words, a government with Abbas is an existential threat, unless Netanyahu is the one heading it.

One final example, from this past Sunday. Netanyahu boasted about his “friendship with President Trump.” On that very same day, he also admitted that “in two years, a president, male or female, could come to power who would be very hostile to Israel.”

At the same event, he promised to add approximately NIS 450 billion to the country’s security budget over the next decade. The man who promised four years ago to lower the cost of living is now promising to spend hundreds of billions more. As usual, you will be the ones footing the bill.

I remember Yitzhak Rabin in the United States after a terrorist attack, sitting for two hours over the wording of a single sentence for a press release. I suggested, “We will continue the negotiations.” But the negotiations were stalled, and Rabin refused to write anything that was not true. In the end, he settled on: “We will work to continue the negotiations.”

“Words matter,” he said.

Two hours over a single word, simply to avoid lying. Netanyahu, by contrast, needs just one radio interview to say one thing and its exact opposite, and he still manages to finish before the news.

Why does he do it? Because until now, it has worked. He is not really trying to persuade us. He is counting on no one checking, and on the media mouthpieces applauding every version, including tomorrow morning’s version, which will contradict the one they were promoting yesterday. In my book, The Truth About the Lie, I wrote that a lie works only as long as no one checks it. The moment someone does, it collapses.

Make this your rule: whenever Netanyahu promises something, check what he promised last time. And if you feel like a laugh, check what he promised the other side yesterday.

On October 27, we will find out whether he was right about us, and whether the same promise can really be sold to us one more time.

I suggest we surprise him.