Bibi's Bedtime Book: The Secret Diary of Prime Minister Netanyahu

[Matt Rees]

No Palestinian state this week. Can't say I really know why there isn't. At this point I’d be content to sign off on anything at all, just to get it off my plate. I’ve told the Americans that, but they seem convinced I’m some kind of hardliner—they think I’m bluffing when I say “Barry, where do I sign?” I think it’s because of the way I lift my eyebrow in my official photograph. I thought it was sexy and devil-may-care, but apparently it makes me look hawkish and too clever for my own good.

It’s been Passover here in Israel. I’ve had to smile and shovel down the usual seasonal foods. I even had to sit through a seder. We were slaves in Egypt, etc., on and on for six hours. You’d have thought we’d be done with all that now. It’s like Zionism never happened.

I gather they had a seder at the White House, too. Without me. Maybe I’ll have Kwanzaa at my villa in Caesarea this year and I pointedly won’t invite Obama. On second thoughts, the rabbis wouldn’t like it. They don’t like holidays where you sing in tune – strictly tuneless, out of time, Jewish mumble-singing is more their thing.

I went down to Shaul’s Shawarma stand to mix with the people. Mofaz insists on meeting there – he set the place up as something to fall back on if he doesn’t get to be Prime Minister instead of me; he could retire, stop wearing his colorless rep ties, and instead bore all his customers with stories of how his political career was a victim of the Ashkenazi establishment. He served me some kind of stinking horsemeat impacted under high pressure into a block so that it looked like an actual cut of meat. I called him “my brother” and went off to find a breath mint. I suppose he thought the joke was on me.

I’ll eat anything, provided someone else is paying, of course. That’s why I got into politics. Even when I wasn’t in office, at the end of a meal, I’d pat my jacket and say, “Sara, did you bring my wallet?” And some guy from Los Angeles would always reach out and say, “No, no, Mister Prime Minister, let me.”

Why do they say “Mister Prime Minister?” Or Mister President? These are nouns, aren’t they? You don’t call the man who fixes your toilet “Mister Plumber.” On the occasions when I’ve met this Rees fellow I didn’t call him “Mister Writer.” It’s not even necessary for my wife to call me “Mister Big Shot” when she’s upset with me. “Big Shot” would do. I suppose “Mister” adds a grace note to her sarcasm.

Mainly such things are all about self-aggrandizement. Still, just so long as they pick up the tab for my steak and lobster, I’ll let it slide.

Talking of self-aggrandizement, Defense Minister Napoleon puffed out his little chest and humiliated the head of the army this week. Something silly to do with not extending the chief of staff’s term because he didn’t kiss up (figuratively, because in reality everybody would have to bend down to kiss that shortass). Perhaps he’d neglected to call him “Mister Defense Minister.” Or “Mister Bonaparte.” Or “My Emperor.”

Anyway, someone else’s troubles are usually a sign that someone’s too busy elsewhere to ruin my week. So it’s good news. I’ve barely been in the headlines all Passover.

Why am I shy of the press? I keep getting slated for being a hardliner, that’s why. Yet it’s little Napoleon who flattened Gaza and ballsed up the “peace process” a decade ago. I thought we were rid of him once he got onto the $50,000 a night speaking tour in the US. I suppose he had to come back for a while to keep in the public eye, then in a few years he can be President, which isn’t a real job (though I haven’t told Peres that.)

No, I don’t understand the press. Take that fellow Matt Beynon Rees. He came to my office a while back and smoked one of my long Cubans. I told him about my interpretation of the work of Emmanuel Kant, but all he wrote about in the end was a few things I’d said about building in our settlements in Judea and Samaria.

I gather Rees also concluded that journalism is a waste of time. He’s writing fiction now. Crime novels about a Palestinian detective. I must take a look at them. I gather my pal Arafat doesn’t come out too well in one of them called “The Samaritan’s Secret”. A shame. I’m rather fond of the sneaky old “ra’is”, of blessed memory.

Maybe I’ll give it all up and write some fiction myself. About an Israeli Prime Minister who’s misunderstood, who only wants to make people happy and give everyone he talks to exactly what they want. A state for the Palestinians. More ritual baths for the ultra-Orthodox. A free Mazda for the 6 percent of Israelis who don’t already own one. The Legion d’Honneur for the Imperial Defense Minister.

Yes, I might just write a book like that. I think it’d be a good read.

But no one would believe it.

[Prime Minister Netanyahu will be continuing to disclose his most secret thoughts exclusively on this blog].