Bibi’s Barack Rip-Off

Barack Obama established that he has political coattails that helped Democrats get elected to Congress this year.  But do his coattails extend as far as Israel?  And will they help a right-wing Israeli nationalist war horse get elected?  That’s what Bibi Netanyahu’s banking on.

Change We Can…Rip Off

The N.Y. Times brings word of one of the great digital rip-offs of recent political history.  If you visit Bibi’s website you’ll find his web designer has almost entirely ripped off Barack Obama’s website down to color scheme, text placement, and even slogans.

Everyone loves a winner, but this is ridiculous.  Bibi and Barack share absolutely nothing in common.  Of all the Israeli candidates for prime minister in the upcoming election, Bibi is the one Obama has to want least to succeed.  Bibi is the old war horse.  Barack is the new, new thing.  Bibi is the Ashkenazi grandee.  Barack is half-breed rabble rouser.

You’ve gotta hand it to Bibi.  He has no new ideas either political or digital, so he steals from his betters.  He has no creativity.  That’s why the most right-wing of Israel’s candidates can claim with a straight face that he too is the candidate of change.

He imports his website and themes from abroad and attempts to graft them onto an Israeli political reality.  But just like in the natural landscape Bibi is the invasive species and not the native plant.  He wants bragging rights assuming the Israeli voter will be jazzed that he’s modeling his campaign after a trendy young U.S. politician.  Somehow this will find resonance for the Israeli voter.  Notice that Bibi’s site has Twitter when there are only a few thousand in the entire country who use it.  And given what we know about Twitter users here, how many Israeli Twitter users are going to be Bibi fans?

At this rate, he might as well steal Obama’s entire campaign lock, stock and barrel.  He could put on blackface, start working out, lose a few pounds, claim he’s a half-Mizrahi, and call for negotiations with Hamas.  Now that WOULD be a change.  And the voters would be so shocked they’d vote for him in droves.

Until then, Bibi habibi, get real.  No Israeli will believe that this leopard could change its spots.  He’s the same old wine in old bottles.  Nothing’s changed.  The same failed policies you saw when he was last prime minister are what Israelis will get if they give him another chance.

You’ve got to credit Bibi’s scumbag advisors with trying to make lemonade out of the lemon of a candidate that they have.  This gives the word chutzpah new dimensions.  Please remove any food or drink from your mouth as you may accidentally spew as you read this:

…Dore Gold…a close Netanyahu adviser, said the Likud leader liked and respected Mr. Obama, so it was not strange that he had taken a page from the president-elect. Mr. Gold said the two meetings they had held so far, in Washington in 2007 and in Jerusalem last summer, had gone well.

“I was at both meetings, and it was clear that the two leaders established a very good chemistry very quickly,” he said. “We are convinced that the Obama administration will be open to hearing new ideas from Israel on how to make progress in the region.”

Mr. Netanyahu is positioning himself as the candidate of new ideas both for Israel itself and for peace with the Palestinians.

Just what are those bold, innovative ideas for peace with the Palestinians?

The ideas revolve around economic opportunities, aides say, cutting red tape to improve the Palestinian economy; building peace from the ground up, not the top down…

The aides are convinced that negotiations with Palestinian leaders will lead nowhere and the best steps Israel can take, as it waits for Palestinian attitudes to change, involve building the Palestinian economy.

What a cruel hoax this man is playing.  The Palestinians will never be fooled by this narischkeit.  I hope Israeli voters aren’t either.