Netanyahu will make history Saturday by reaching 4,876 days in office
By MIKE EVANSPRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu at the Annual Night of Heroes event in May in Jerusalem(photo credit: DAVID SAAD)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to make history this Saturday by reaching a milestone of 4,876 days in office, surpassing the longest holding of office by the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.With what he has accomplished for the State of Israel through his economic, innovative and security policies, he has transformed Israel’s global brand. It used to be a country that had to sell to succeed; now it is a country that everyone wants to buy from.I know firsthand what Muslim leaders in the Middle East are saying, from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Jordan’s King Abdullah; from Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salam to Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed. I’m hearing statements such as “I really respect him,” “I work closely with him,” “I want to thank him” or even “I want to come to Jerusalem.”Who could have imagined a day when an Israeli prime minister could break through such barriers? Netanyahu’s legacy could very well lead to peace between five or six Gulf states and Israel.One can also look at the astonishing breakthroughs that have come from the Israel-US partnership in the past three years: the recognition of Jerusalem, the moving of the embassy, the closing down of the PLO offices in Washington, the Taylor Force Act and the recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights. One must ask the question, Would each of these landmark policies have happened without Netanyahu’s leadership?I know firsthand of the tremendous bond between US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu. I am aware of what unites the Evangelicals, and I serve on the Evangelical leadership team, a group that supported Trump all the way to the US presidency. In addition, as the founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center, I represent 62 million Evangelicals. Without the Evangelical support, Trump would not have been elected. One of the major reasons they voted for him was because of his unwavering support for Israel.Netanyahu, like his father, does not have the need to be liked. He is driven by his pragmatic, Churchill-like mission, similar to Trump, despite the fact that they are both demonized by the political Left.In his East of Eden, John Steinbeck says it all:“After a while... you’ll think no thought the others do not think. You’ll know no word the others can’t say. And you’ll do things because others do them. You’ll feel danger in any difference whatever – a danger to the whole crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men...Once in a while there is a man who won’t do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They’ll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can’t finally give in, they’ll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside – neither part of themselves, nor yet free... They only do it to protect themselves. A thing so triumphantly illogical, so beautifully senseless as an army can’t allow a question to weaken it.”
The writer is a #1 New York Times best-selling author, the author of 95 books, the founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem and the Ten Boom Museum in Holland.
