The Blogs: In Today’s Israel, Lying Is a Governing Method | Shimon Sheves

The war against Iran has shown us, as a public, that in today’s Israel, lying is a method of governance

As in most of Netanyahu’s not exactly cheerful days, we again ended up the winners in words – and the losers in the campaign. The ayatollah regime is still there, as are the nuclear program and the ballistic missiles. Please, Mr. Prime Minister, just once stand before the public and tell the truth.

This is probably the most predictable thing in Israel under the rule of Netanyahu and his partners. Once again, we were sold “total victory.” Once again, we were told about decisive victory, about destruction, about historic transformation, about a new Middle East. But after some forty days of war with Iran, what remains is not total victory, and for now not even victory, but a fragile ceasefire born not of the enemy’s collapse but of exhaustion, attrition, fear of further escalation, and the understanding that even superpowers have limits.

The regime in Tehran has not collapsed, not fallen apart, not disappeared from the world. It is still there, speaking, threatening, bargaining, and negotiating the terms of an end. And that is the difference between a campaign and a reality that refuses to conform to it: in the campaign, we strike in waves, destroy, and win big – enormous, in fact. In reality – weeds, thorns, and lies.

The same is true of the nuclear issue. All the grand slogans turned out, what a surprise, to be slogans. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, on the eve of the war Iran had 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent – enough in theory for ten atomic bombs. And yet the war ended, and it turned out that the cursed uranium, too, refuses to bend to the narrative and the proclamations – it is still there, in Iran.

And the missiles? Well, according to IDF leaks and reports from various “sources,” we managed to destroy 90 percent of the launchers and 150 percent of the missiles, and – astonishingly – the war ends when, according to an American intelligence assessment, only about a third of Iran’s missile array can be confirmed as destroyed; another third was likely damaged and can be repaired, and a significant stockpile is still in their hands, waiting for the next round. Missiles, it turns out, are not impressed by words and declarations either.

Israeli citizens entered this war with historic, sweeping support – coalition and opposition alike. They agreed to sit in protected rooms, absorb missiles, and put life on hold, so long as the bombastic declarations offered by Netanyahu and his allies would come true and buy us a period of calm. What did we get in return? Dead, wounded, and damage worth billions.

As always under Netanyahu, those who pay the price are the citizens, abandoned twice: once when they were promised security, and again when they were told that everything was already fine. The residents of the north are the most horrifying example – people, some of whom were uprooted from their homes already in October 2023 because their government failed in the most appalling way imaginable; some of them somehow returned to rebuild, and now they are taking missile fire nonstop from the very same Hezbollah that, according to the declarations, had already been “defeated.”

“Decisive victory” and “victory” are proclaimed, while the ruins and defeats are meant to be ignored.

Just before the war, my book The Truth About the Lie was published, describing how Israeli politics has become a well-oiled mechanism of consciousness engineering, spin, and lies. A process that reached its peak under the master himself, the greatest swindler in the history of Israeli politics – the used-furniture dealer B. Netanyahu. Unfortunately, this war is being conducted almost exactly according to the book’s descriptions – crooks, deranged figures, and the abandoned, issuing baseless declarations, leaking information that harms our closest allies, spinning endlessly, and drowning an already exhausted public.

In this Israel, the lie is not a malfunction, and not even an exaggeration for a press conference. The lie is a method of governance. A fabricated reality is created in words, and then the public is required to align itself with it. Say “decisive victory,” and expect us to ignore the ruins. Say “victory,” and demand that we ignore the defeats.

But alas, reality refuses to cooperate. Again and again and again, it does not behave according to the declarations. It does not bow its head before the lies. It does not set itself according to the spin. It simply is – reality. And in reality, a country cannot be governed through lies. One can try, but look where that has brought us – exactly where we were headed.

It is therefore no surprise that a government living on lies, promises without substance, and bombastic declarations has nothing to offer the public except a promise of the next war. Wars are easy to promise, but in a world of lies, it is difficult to end them with a political settlement. And when the blow becomes clear, there is no escape from promising the next war – which, like a compulsive gambler, is supposed to deliver the hit.

The emerging doctrine of these days, “the eternal war,” seems to me more dangerous than any individual round. A serious state cannot live forever by the sword, by emergency call-up orders, by closed schools, by internal refugees, by billions thrown away, and by citizens living in fear.

So, Bibi, tell the truth. Just once.

I therefore propose that the prime minister stand before the public, just once, and tell the truth: I am a miserable prime minister, who formed a miserable government of horrors, failed in the worst possible way, and led Israel to the greatest failure in its history. He even managed not to seize the golden opportunity that came his way to transform the Middle East; instead, he chose to fail again and again and again.

I, Benjamin Netanyahu ben-Tzion, a liar son of a liar, as my senior coalition partner called me, am going home to lie to the grandchildren a little and let someone else fix this before it is too late and nothing remains here.

And to us, the citizens, I will remind us that very soon there will be elections here – hopefully fair ones – and in them we have the chance to return Israel to the language of truth, from which repair can begin.