General

Go Bibi, go to Washington and leave your sick country behind

Raanan Shaked 14/09/2020

You had one job and it was not to help re-elect Trump or rehabilitate MBS, it was to work for us, to heal us and lead us out of the crisis; can you even see us from the sky on your way to the manicured lawns of the White House?

Go Bibi go to Washington, to the UAE to Bahrain.
This country is no longer your concern. You see no relation to its hardships. This country entering its second lockdown, and may see a third, will hit another economic crisis, one that will make the crisis we are in now – with hundreds of thousands of unemployed – seem like child’s play.
Our aging parents are made to pay the price of isolation and loneliness, forced to fade away in solitude.
This country with people struggling to put food on the table is of no interest to you as long as your elegant meals are served to you on your flight out of here.
This country with its collapsing health system, failing social system and downtrodden citizenry, its out-of-work force, out-of-school students – having accepted all mitigation efforts during the first lockdown, with the best intentions – has become your private kingdom to do with it as you please as long as it is in your personal benefit.
Look at us, Bibi, not at Bahrain. To hell with Bahrain, who cares about Bahrain or the UAE? They can do nothing for the Israeli struggling to make ends meet.
A Tel Aviv shop going out of business after 60 years due to the coronavirus pandemic (Photo: Uriel Cohen)
Look at our lives, look the nearly 10 million citizens in the eye and see what we have become. No longer the technological hub or start-up nation. We are now first in morbidity solely because of your failures and those of your government which you rule on your own.
Can you see us from the sky on your way to the manicured lawns of the White House? It is hard to view the reality when you live in your alternate world of power, paranoia and legal battles.
A coronavirus ward at the Sheba Medical Center (Photo: AFP)
You had but one job. It was not to work for Donald Trump’s re-election, or to contribute to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rehabilitated public relations. It was working for us.
Your job was to manage the coronavirus pandemic and save our lives and livelihood from its effects as other leaders around the world have done for their people.
Your job was to remain alert, on duty, vigilant and think of nothing else but how you would get us out of this crisis.
You can claim you haven’t failed in your one job but that is just because you never really wanted to take it on. Other things were on your mind. If Israelis are out of work – they should take comfort in the peace deals you boast about. Those you made in exchange for the loss of Israel’s qualitative military edge.
Anti-Netanyahu protesters at Ben-Gurion International Airport (Photo: Moti Kimchi)
Call me a liar, malcontent and a leftist. Call me a traitor and a propagator of fake news but that cannot change the fact that you have failed in your one job, your historic job to heal us and not make us sick, the sickest among nations.
So go Bibi, just go.