The Blogs: I am Bibi, the great and powerful!

Don’t waste all your attention on that man behind the courtroom door. He wants to divert our gaze from what’s just as important – if not more so

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv on March 12, 2025. (Photo by YAIR SAGI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

With each passing day, life in Israel feels more like life in the Land of Oz.

Yellow brick roads leading to promised yet far-off Valhallas. Springtime fields of red flowers, where the powers that be want us to take a little breather and, yes, become drowsy and complacent. Hourglasses, where flowing sand reminds us that time is running out for dozens of our brothers and sisters.

There are tin men, scarecrows, cowardly lions and other nonsensical characters that make us chuckle and shake our heads. On the other hand, there’s a wicked witch who harshly cackles about bejeweled slippers and “BAs and MAs,” eliciting in us a deep sense of unease and loathing. And yes, there’s a hazy, swell-headed wizard in a great hall of power who bellows and huffs and presents himself as all-powerful and all-knowing – preferring that we not see the small, silver-haired mortal flailing frantically at creaky levers and hissing valves.

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” the omnipotent wizard bellows with authority and arrogance. “I am Bibi, the great and powerful!”

When the performance is over, we realize that the curtain is a courtroom door. The small, silver-haired man behind it is the prime minister of Israel. He is on trial for his political life and personal freedom, accused of nefarious acts aimed mostly at keeping himself in power.

He’s always preferred that we not see Bibi the accused, Bibi the defendant, Bibi the alleged crook.

But now, perhaps, this is what he wants.

ON MARCH 12TH, at the 17th session of his testimony in his own defense against charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Benjamin Netanyahu took a step far beyond his usual sarcasm, hectoring and bluster at the defendant’s table.

He “erupted in anger, shouting at judges after they instructed his lawyer to hurry up with his line of direct questioning,” The Times of Israel reported that afternoon.

“Netanyahu,” the report went on, “banged on the table in the Tel Aviv District Court, demanding judges grant him more time to counter allegations against him, and was told [by the judges] to lower his voice.”

Some observers say it’s a sign that Netanyahu is losing it, that his mental and physical health have been deeply affected not only by the trial, but by Israel’s longest-ever war, by dozens of hostages who remain in enemy hands almost a year and a half on, and by single-minded extremists who seek to realize their supremacist, messianic views in return for propping up a government long hemorrhaging public support.

But now I’m not so sure.

It’s entirely logical that Netanyahu, deservedly known as the greatest political magician the country has ever seen, is now using the trial as a sleight of hand. He wants to draw our attention away from our true troubles, highlighting instead Netanyahu the victim – victim of a judiciary he perceives as being squarely against him, victim of police investigators who, in his eyes, conducted a witch hunt solely – and inexplicably – to bring him down, and victim of a hostile media that for years (decades, even) has been out to get him.

Pay a whole lot of attention to me, the victim! Netanyahu now seems to be saying. Ignore the battlefield conflict that I can’t win! Ignore the hostages I won’t bring home lest their freedom brings to a close a war I’d prefer not be investigated! Overlook the price I have to pay to keep the nutjobs in my government so as to prolong my tenure and give me more of a chance to castrate the country’s judiciary before it castrates me!

Yes, pay attention! See Netanyahu for what he is – a pathetic liar and manipulator who is finally at the mercy of the democratic system of checks and balances he so loudly and so badly wants to destroy.

But let’s not take our eyes off the many other balls this talented political juggler is keeping in the air. The endless parade of dead and wounded soldiers being sacrificed in the name of a “total victory” that has yet to be properly defined and is more likely than not unattainable. Hostages who are dying or already dead thanks in great part to Netanyahu’s stubborn insistence that military pressure can free them so as not to resort to a painful quid pro quo. And Jewish supremacist and religious coalition partners who gleefully exploit the prime minister’s weaknesses to maintain their dream draft dodging, new settlements and a land empty of Palestinians, no matter what it takes to effect such an exodus.

Netanyahu has descended to depths no other Israeli head of government has dragged us, a situation that indeed warrants our close and constant attention. But there are so many other issues that are no less important to our future as a cohesive society and an important and respected member of the world community.

WE ARE IN a life and death struggle for the survival of a liberal, democratic state for the Jews, and a life and death struggle to bring home our hostages in yet another step toward healing a deeply divided and scarred nation.

Netanyahu thinks only of himself. It’s time for us to stop being led by the nose and start thinking instead of ourselves and the miracle that is Israel – that it remains strong, decent and unbeholden to the selfish whims of a man who will stop at nothing to remain in charge.

There is no place like home. Let it remain one we take pride in maintaining, nurturing and growing, not one we surrender to a man, his followers and allies who see only their own interests as worth fighting for.