Bye-Bye Bibi?

The last 24 hours in Israel have not been kind to Benjamin Netanyahu. The latest developments: Yitzhak Mordechai and Benny Begin, candidates for prime minister, withdrew on Sunday. Mordechai threw his support to Labor party challenger Ehud Barak. That followed the decision on Saturday of yet another candidate, Azmi Bishara, to also withdraw. Our resident correspondent, Jesse Schulman, offers CBS.com this analysis.

He's one of the most skillful political salesmen alive. His mastery of media manipulation is second to none. His instinct for the jugular is unmatched.

So why is he in danger of losing his job?

Opinion polls give Netanyahu's challenger, Ehud Barak, the lead. They disagree on the size of the lead, but they're unanimous that it's comfortable and growing. Netanyahu looks set for a defeat on Monday.

Netanyahu, the salesman, isn't to blame. The problem is Netanyahu, the product.

His central (though carefully coded) message, is the same as ever: Fear and loathing of the Arabs. Outsiders can't always read this code; imagine an Israeli trying to decode David Duke. But, to his audience, it's far from subtle.

This time, though, it isn't catching on. One reason is that Netanyahu's successful campaign of three years ago capitalized on the national nightmare of suicide bombings. The casualties and the TV images were truly horrifying, and the fear on the streets palpable. Netanyahu skillfully and relentlessly fanned the flames, and reaped his reward at the ballot box.

There were no bombings during this campaign. Even had there been, this time they would have been on Netanyahu's watch as prime minister, and therefore far trickier to blame on his opponents.

The Palestinians Are Off The Table
The deeper and far more important reason though, is that the conflict with the Palestinians isn't the top priority in Israel's internal debate any more. Israel's top priority now is Israel.

How times have changed. About a year before the Arafat-Rabin handshake of the White House lawn, this reporter remembers wondering if he was going to be punched by a committed peacenik, for the offense of saying Israel had no choice but to talk to the PLO. Back then, even a true-blue dove found that obvious truth treasonous enough to want to deck me.

Nowadays, even Netanyahu voters believe a Palestinian state is a foregone conclusion.

With the Palestinian issue off the table, Palestinian-bashing doesn't work so well.

Not that Netanyahu hasn't tried. His most-repeated campaign slogan is, "If Barak wins, Arafat wins," but it hasn't caught on.

Barak is an ex-general who spent more than three decades in uniform, and was Israel's most decorated soldier ever. Netanyahu accuses him of willingness to cave in to Arafat, of readiness to endanger Israel. Between the lines, in code, he is calling Israel's "Number One Soldier" the secret tool of the Arabs, a traito to Israel. It's like calling Mike Tyson a wimp.

"To Bibi, Or Not To Bibi, That Is The Question"
That's what veteran Israeli pollster Hannoch Smith says this campaign is all about.

Netanyahu began his term of office as a hero to his supporters. Since then, he has fallen dramatically from grace. In three years, Netanyahu has alienated almost the entire upper hierarchy of his own party, the Likud; he's caused members of his own cabinet to flee to the opposition (imagine Al Gore joining the Bush campaign) and convinced even many of his own supporters he's a liar. The standard joke here is, "He makes a promise, but he doesn't promise to keep it."

His performance in office has left him highly vulnerable to charges of double-dealing and incompetence. He narrowly escaped indictment for influence-peddling, and one of his most important remaining allies was recently convicted of taking bribes.

Even his natural blue-collar constituency, however much they may applaud his tough-on-the Arabs posturing, are beginning to feel they've been played for suckers.

(Let it be said, Barak doesn't generate much enthusiasm either. "Neither of them deserves us," one teen-age Israeli told me.)

What Kind Of Israel?
Beyond platforms, even beyond personalities, this election is about identity. Israelis have sharply differing ideas about who they are and what their country should be.

Should it be an Israel whose national identity is determined by traditional religious practice and by faithfulness to the Land of the Bible?

Or should it be an Israel that sees itself as a part of the modern world, and doesn't want the past to get in the way of the future?

Netanyahu's core voter believes in the first vision. Barak's core voter believes in the second.

Netanyahu embraces the militancy of the radical West Bank Jewish settlers, who believe God gave them the right to deprive the Palestinians of land and liberty. He embraces the Ultra-orthodox Jewish political leadership, whose claim to be the sole representatives of authentic Judaism infuriates so-called "secular", non-observant Israelis. Netanyahu said once, when he didn't know he was being recorded, that backers of the peace process "have forgotten what it is to be Jews," thus defining a 3,000-year-old religion as the personal property of political hardliners.

Barak is willing to trade parts of the Promised Land for an accommodation with the Palestinians. That means he appeals to voters who see the West Bank as a real place on the map, and who see Israel's continuing control of most of it as a problem that needs to be solved, rather than as a fulfillment of prophecies in the Bible.

Barak doesn't talk much about religion, but he has placed himself at odds with the Ultra-orthodox over issues like draft deferments for religious students. The rabbis fear he'l erode their funding and undermine their power. That makes Barak's candidacy attractive for Israeli Jews who see their religious identity like that of most Americans - based on ethnicity and personal conviction, rather than laws and a clerical hierarchy.

The Russians
The contest for leadership of Israel is likely to be decided in Russian. Three quarters of a million new immigrants have arrived in Israel from the former Soviet since 1989. They are highly educated, politically engaged and instinctively anti-establishment. They are also overwhelmingly secular, rather than traditionally religious.

In the last elections they voted overwhelmingly for Netanyahu, swayed by his promised toughness with the Arabs. Many of them, too, are disenchanted, chiefly because of Netanyahu's closeness to the Ultra-orthodox, some of whose leaders have publicly called the Russians "prostitutes, pork-eaters, and crooks." Barak has worked hard for their vote. If he can get even half of it, Netanyahu is finished.

Unity Versus Division
There is one more, final reason Netanyahu is in trouble. He has pursued the politics of division, of "us versus them," accusing his political opponents of being enemies of Israel and of Judaism. It's helped bring his core voter to the polls, but it has repelled many Israelis, who see sowing division as reckless.

Netanyahu has based his bid for re-election on a dangerous strategy. And unless he's able to work a dramatic political reversal, it seems set for failure on election day.

Written by Jesse Schulman
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