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Houdini’s (Bibi’s) Escape Plan · John’s Newsletter

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Good morning,
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  SPEAKER_00: everyone,
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  SPEAKER_00: and welcome to Around the world in 20 minutes,
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  SPEAKER_00: where we try to make sense of the beguiling new planet we find ourselves on.
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  SPEAKER_00: And wow, Harry Houdini may just have escaped again.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's certainly still among the living.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bibi Netanyahu,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Harry Houdini of Israeli politics,
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  SPEAKER_00: who seems to be locked up in all kinds of accoutrement And this is particularly
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  SPEAKER_00: a trick of daring do at the moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: After falling asleep at the switch when Hamas came over the border and the Iran war,
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  SPEAKER_00: to put it mildly, not going the way he might have liked.
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  SPEAKER_00: In spite of those strategic disasters in both cases,
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  SPEAKER_00: he's still among the political living this morning.
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  SPEAKER_00: That much was pretty much preordained.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nobody thought either Bibi's bloc led
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  SPEAKER_00: by his party Likud plus other more far-right parties,
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  SPEAKER_00: Zionist parties,
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  SPEAKER_00: settler parties,
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  SPEAKER_00: Orthodox parties on the right of the Israeli spectrum were going
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  SPEAKER_00: to get anything like a majority and they didn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Eisenkot,
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  SPEAKER_00: Gabby Eisenkot,
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  SPEAKER_00: Gaddy Eisenkot,
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  SPEAKER_00: who is the former general,
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  SPEAKER_00: of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: is our all Israeli leaders when they leave power,
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  SPEAKER_00: former head of the IDF, a plain spoken bluff man, kind of the anti-BB in many ways.
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  SPEAKER_00: Incredibly trustworthy and personally honest.
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  SPEAKER_00: Quite a contrast to the fluent but slippery BB through the years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eisenkott's party, which is a mix of everybody else.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's an utterly incoherent group of people.
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  SPEAKER_00: You have Naftali Bennett on the right, a former colleague of Beebe's.
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  SPEAKER_00: You have Lapid in the middle,
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  SPEAKER_00: kind of telegenic,
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  SPEAKER_00: kind of middle survivor of what's left of the center-left aristocracy that used
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  SPEAKER_00: to run it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was kind of the thinking.
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  SPEAKER_00: But what's going to follow are weeks of political haggling.
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  SPEAKER_00: And at this, Harry Houdini is a past master.
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  SPEAKER_00: So now I can just about see Houdini,
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  SPEAKER_00: Beebe's escape plan from this seemingly insurmountable problem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before I start,
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  SPEAKER_00: shout out to my friend Jim,
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  SPEAKER_00: who has said to me many,
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  SPEAKER_00: many times as we talked in D.C.
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  SPEAKER_00: We talk, we have breakfast almost weekly to talk about the Middle East.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Jim is one of the absolute best analysts at it out there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And he just said, look, I'm paraphrasing here.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are a graveyard of people who predicted Netanyahu's demise
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  SPEAKER_00: and he's still there, that this guy is almost unsinkable, that voting against him.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you certainly can see why he's dominated Israeli politics for the last 30 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think he's been prime minister for 19 of them,
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  SPEAKER_00: loomed over the other 11,
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  SPEAKER_00: and has been the dominant figure and doesn't seem likely to go,
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  SPEAKER_00: to use a phrase we're using this week from Dylan Thomas,
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  SPEAKER_00: gentle into that good night.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what can we say that we know at the moment about the Israeli election?
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  SPEAKER_00: They're still counting votes.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're over halfway.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think they've counted about just over 50 percent of the vote.
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  SPEAKER_00: But certain patterns are clear.
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  SPEAKER_00: First of all, there was a huge turnout, 77 percent.
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  SPEAKER_00: Exit polling had both the Likud bloc and...
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  SPEAKER_00: And Eisenkotts block at 51 seats, and you need 61.
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  SPEAKER_00: So nobody's even at knocking distance of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: However,
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  SPEAKER_00: in the actual count of the vote,
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  SPEAKER_00: and again, just a few percentages in the system can sway the numbers a lot.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a done deal at 50% because of the fragmented nature of the Israeli political system.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just a few percent here or there can really move the numbers quite dramatically.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I know this from having Been a veteran of many other Israeli elections.
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  SPEAKER_00: But at present at 50%, Bibi is slightly overperforming at about 55%.
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  SPEAKER_00: Still not near the 61 but ahead.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eisenkotts group slightly underperforming at the moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, normally this group, which is treated very badly...
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  SPEAKER_00: In terms of discrimination through the years, doesn't bother to vote.
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  SPEAKER_00: They boycott the election because mainline Israeli parties don't trust them
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  SPEAKER_00: over matters of security and strategy,
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  SPEAKER_00: and so they're never allowed into governments.
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  SPEAKER_00: At best,
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  SPEAKER_00: they can wink and nod at a government and support it in a supply-side,
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  SPEAKER_00: parliamentary way,
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  SPEAKER_00: issue by issue,
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  SPEAKER_00: case by case,
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  SPEAKER_00: maybe voting with the government but not being a part of the government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, the days of them boycotting, I think sensibly enough for them, are over.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they put their two main Palestinian groups, there's Ram and then another one.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they're going to move up from about 10 seats to
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  SPEAKER_00: the Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens from 10 seats to 18.
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  SPEAKER_00: So one way or the other,
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  SPEAKER_00: they are the So with 50% of the vote counted,
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  SPEAKER_00: Bibi's at 55, Eisenkotts at 49, the Pentagon's at 49.
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  SPEAKER_00: Palestinians are at about 16.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that would seem to favor Eisenkot because the Palestinian Arabs loathe Bibi
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  SPEAKER_00: as he loathes them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's no way in God's green earth they will ever serve in a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's very clear that their only option is either to stay outside
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  SPEAKER_00: of governing altogether or reach some sort of deal.
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  SPEAKER_00: With Eisencott,
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  SPEAKER_00: and indeed,
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  SPEAKER_00: if you add the 16 to the 49,
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  SPEAKER_00: this is where I say to my high school kids, math skills actually matter.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're at 65, you're over the magical 61, and you can form a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, this could either be a government government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where the Palestinians, the Ram Party and the other one whose name escapes me are within.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or you farm a party where they support you issue by issue and you work out some sort
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  SPEAKER_00: of deal as to what you're going to do.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that would seem to We still favor Eisencott.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Bibi, the escape plan of Houdini is now clear to me.
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  SPEAKER_00: And again, I don't ever famously like to talk about hypotheticals.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's such a waste of time.
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  SPEAKER_00: People do it in the community and I go nuts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ferguson loves to do it because it means he doesn't actually have to stand
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  SPEAKER_00: by his own really shoddy analysis.
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  SPEAKER_00: But in this case,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do it because I think, again,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of the strengths of realism and Morgenthau's realism,
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  SPEAKER_00: And so let's,
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  SPEAKER_00: for a minute, do this, because I think, for once, this hypothetical is useful.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're Harry Houdini, you're Bebe, and you're looking at these numbers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do you say at the 50% mark?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well,
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  SPEAKER_00: So first, I did better than everybody thought.
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  SPEAKER_00: They thought Eisenkott's bloc was slightly ahead in the last week of campaigning by
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  SPEAKER_00: a seat or two,
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  SPEAKER_00: that they were ahead and that the president of Israel Herzog has to go to one
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  SPEAKER_00: of these groups and have them try to form a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if Eisenkott's grouping were ahead, well, you'd have to go to him.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then he could talk to the Palestinians and some sort of deal could be worked out or not.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he would have first crack of the bat as the largest single member of
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  SPEAKER_00: the coalition and of the voting.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, that didn't happen if these numbers hold.
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  SPEAKER_00: And again, they can move radically.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just a few percentage points can swing them.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to be clear about that at the moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: We simply don't know, but we can start playing around.
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  SPEAKER_00: If Beebe's at 55 and Eisenkott's at 49,
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  SPEAKER_00: he can say, hey, President Herzog, I know you hate me, but it doesn't matter.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're going to follow the Constitution.
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  SPEAKER_00: My bloc got the most votes, so I get to try to form a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Even though the Palestinians won't even talk to me, nor I talk to them, but I'm first.
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  SPEAKER_00: If it were tied, and he was already trying this out last night, I mean, he's amazing to watch.
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  SPEAKER_00: This man isn't subtle, but he's effective.
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  SPEAKER_00: His last campaign picture, and was...
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  SPEAKER_00: And a bunch of Palestinians.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what he was saying without saying it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And again, not subtle, tacky, but often effective.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you have a look at that ad.
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  SPEAKER_00: If that were the case,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it were even,
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  SPEAKER_00: Bibi said, well,
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  SPEAKER_00: then my party, Likud, got the most seats, even if the two groupings are the same.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that would have been true at a tie, which is what things look like in the exit polling.
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  SPEAKER_00: In which case, I still get to try to form the next government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, if he's actually ahead, he's grouping a number of seats.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's a no-brainer.
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  SPEAKER_00: He should try to get to form the next government.
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  SPEAKER_00: But of course, this government would amount to nothing.
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  SPEAKER_00: But Bibi doesn't really care about that because,
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  SPEAKER_00: as is the tradition in most countries,
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  SPEAKER_00: while you're trying to sort through coalitions together,
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  SPEAKER_00: the prime minister,
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  SPEAKER_00: the daily running of the countries,
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  SPEAKER_00: of the state,
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  SPEAKER_00: would be left to the outgoing prime minister, which in this case is Bibi.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the longer this goes and the more frustrating this is, the better.
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  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't mind that.
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  SPEAKER_00: So he would spend a week or two talking about,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: that he wanted to talk to the Palestinians or he didn't want to talk to them
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  SPEAKER_00: or they wouldn't talk to him.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, cue the soap opera and absolutely nothing would get done.
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  SPEAKER_00: And after those couple of weeks,
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  SPEAKER_00: Eisencott,
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  SPEAKER_00: as the guy with the second most votes,
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  SPEAKER_00: would get a chance to try to form a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he's already laying out parameters to really narrow Eisenkot's choices.
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  SPEAKER_00: Before the voting,
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  SPEAKER_00: Bibi said forthrightly that there's no way in God's green earth
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  SPEAKER_00: the Palestinian Arab Israeli citizen should be anywhere near power,
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  SPEAKER_00: that that is such a security risk.
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  SPEAKER_00: He would never do that.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's putting pressure on Eisenkot,
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  SPEAKER_00: who said based upon Zionist parameters,
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  SPEAKER_00: his word choice is there, they can't be in a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: Slightly different language, Eisenkot seemed to be leaving open the door to a supply chain.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what I'm saying.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not exactly raging doves.
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  SPEAKER_00: After they won the 1973 war,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Yom Kippur War,
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  SPEAKER_00: they had been surprised by a day or two initially by Sadat and the Syrians.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so although they beat them in the end,
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  SPEAKER_00: the minute the war was over, they took responsibility.
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  SPEAKER_00: I
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  SPEAKER_00: mean, that's the pattern in Israeli politics that you kind of honorably fall on your sword.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: Bibi will be,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know, carried away from the prime minister's office with claw marks on the wall.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's going to do ever.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so he wants to avoid this reckoning at all costs.
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  SPEAKER_00: By laying down the parameters that anybody who would actually serve with them
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  SPEAKER_00: or wink and nod at them is putting Israeli security second,
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  SPEAKER_00: he's putting immense pressure on Eisenkot not to reach a deal with
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  SPEAKER_00: the Palestinian Arabs.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the game he's played.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the escape plan is this.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a stalemate.
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  SPEAKER_00: You keep the stalemate going as long as possible.
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  SPEAKER_00: You say Likud was the largest party and maybe the grouping got the largest percentage of seats.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they get to try to form a government.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Palestinian Arabs,
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  SPEAKER_00: of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: there's no hope of that, but it wastes time while he's still the caretaker.
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  SPEAKER_00: It gives him a few weeks to ratchet up the rhetoric and And say to Eisenkot,
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  SPEAKER_00: basically you're a traitor if you reach any sort of deal with him,
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  SPEAKER_00: even if it's only a supply support deal with Ram and the other party from
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  SPEAKER_00: the Palestinian Israeli citizens outside of that government.
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  SPEAKER_00: So you make it almost impossible for him to do that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's the key moment of political risk at the moment.
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  SPEAKER_00: But while all this is going on,
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  SPEAKER_00: and this is a matter of weeks now,
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  SPEAKER_00: A political haggling for once, the guardian, the always wrong guardian.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you throw enough darts to the wall, you're bound to hit something.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And for Archer Mandela,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Mandela's here with me in the studio today,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: my faithful black cat who doesn't know the trauma he's in for as I'm about
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: to set sail for America this Saturday.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see you on the other end, both for the midterms and John's wedding.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be great, great week, exciting times ahead, a lot to tell you about.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: But ahead of that, I had to do this one.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So...
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  SPEAKER_00: Bibi's in charge.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's trying to narrow Eisenkot's ability to maneuver with the Palestinian Arabs.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in between, what can happen?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the United States and Israel could attack Iran again.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't brought this up because it's just rumor.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I try to leave that out.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we need enough clarity in the community.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I follow rumors all the time.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I listen to rumors all the time.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I weigh them up as a head of a political risk firm all the time.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is an art, not a science, but it is an art.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And some of us are Caravaggio and others of us are finger painting.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I leave you to sort out who's doing what here.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Caravaggio without the murder.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: this rumor has been flying around DC that the midterms were likely to go badly
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: for Donald Trump, certainly the House long gone.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you had to pick a number for the House,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the Cook Political Report's often pretty good.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they say the Democrats...
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Dems will get anywhere from 217 to 227.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is on the high end of what you'd have expected before,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: but I think the momentum is with the Dems.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: We think, of course, the Senate is going to go as well.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: If that's the case,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a disaster for the Republicans, but it does free President Trump.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those last two years in foreign policy to pretty much do as he likes,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: much as Bill Clinton tried to reach a deal with Yasser Arafat futilely best
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: as he could, though,
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: and Ronald Reagan successfully wound down the Cold War,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: and his third term FDR prepared themselves.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is what presidents do after they lose midterms is they focus on foreign policy.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the rumor going around DC is that with that out of the way,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: watch for Trump to ratchet things up with Iran again,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: and there would be a further escalation.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, play this into what we're saying about Houdini's escape plan.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's been a stalemate.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't form a coalition.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's the caretaker.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's narrowed Eisencott's choices,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: and suddenly the war bursts into flame again with Israel and
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: the United States attacking Iran.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah, if you're Bibi.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Under those conditions,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's hard to see how Eisenkot could form a government,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: even indirectly, with Palestinian Arab Israeli citizens.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to see how that would happen.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And yes,
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  SPEAKER_00: there might have to be another election after the war had continued,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: but that's down the pike.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eisenkot can't form this indirect coalition with them because the Iran war flames up again.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is why I've been bothering.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: With this counterfactual, with this supposition.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: If that all is true,
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  SPEAKER_00: and if we're Bibi sitting today in Israel,
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  SPEAKER_00: things look far better than you had any right for them to be.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Harry Houdini, bye.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: The skin of his teeth, I suppose, has just barely escaped yet again.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can see,
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: doesn't mean it's going to happen,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're not making a call about that,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I can see the way forward if you're Bibi, which I hadn't up until now.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, it involves continuing a catastrophic war with Iran.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But frankly, I can see the end of the tunnel, the light there, if you're BB.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody, hold on to your hats, as Betty Davis would say in All About Eve.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fasten your seatbelts.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're in for a bumpy ride.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Take care, everybody.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Please do give.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Again, tens and tens and tens of thousands of you are interested in what we're doing.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were very good on Brazil.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've been very good on this.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Please give us the 30 cents a day, the $100 a year.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Keep faith with us as we are with you, even as I'm trying to find time to pack.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody take care.