
An inside look at the life of Benjamin Netanyahu
Amnon Cohen
The Bibi Files gives us a look at the sordid affairs inside the household of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The documentary consists of excerpts from over 10,000 hours of recordings of police interrogations of Netanyahu and his associates which were leaked to the makers of the film. The footage is damning, exposing the corruption of Netanyahu, where he accepted bribes and favours from capitalists Arnon Milchan, Sheldon Adelson, and Shaul Elovitch, in return for political favours.
In the case of Shaul Elovitch, he prevented his bankruptcy by organising funds for him, in return for getting favourable coverage, bordering on adulation, in ‘Walla! News’ which was at the time the main internet news site in Israel. In the case of Arnon Milchan, Netanyahu mobilised the Israeli foreign ministry to press the US State department not to cancel Milchan’s visa allowing him to reside in the US.
The film also contains commentary by the former head of Israel’s security agency, Ami Ayaon, who says: “After the catastrophe on the 7 October, the war became another instrument to stay in power. He survived in a state of war. He survived in a state of instability. He survived when we fight each other”.
The footage of the police interviews shows the arrogance and sense of entitlement of Netanyahu, his wife Sarah and his Son Yair. Netanyahu is clearly lying when he describes the allegations against him as “ridiculous”. Sarah describes her husband’s treatment by the police as “outrageous” saying: “Do you know how much respect he gets when he visits America?” Their son Yair – who lives in Miami, apparently under the tutelage of one of Netanyahu’s billionaire benefactors, thereby evading military service during the war – describes the police as like the Gestapo.
The fact that video footage of the police interrogation of the PM has been released shows the deep splits among the capitalist class in Israel. Netanyahu – an Israeli Trump-like figure – has been in power for most of the last 15 years. Big sections of the Israeli capitalists correctly fear him, his provocative actions, and his alliance with ultra-nationalist settler parties. Regional instability threatens their investments and undermine their profits. The judicial system has been used to try to depose him. Netanyahu, like Trump, responded by painting himself as the ‘enemy of the establishment’ (despite having been PM for so long). This was also the basis of Netanyahu’s ‘judicial reforms’ which attempt to give him control of the judiciary, to prevent the courts from convicting him in his four trials which have been ongoing since 2020. In order to carry out these ‘reforms’, Netanyahu brought fascistic far-right parties like Ozma Yehudit into his government.
The documentary does a good job of exposing the corruption and arrogance of Netanyahu and his inner circle. But it sees him as the source of the crisis in Israeli society. But the rise of reactionary right populists like Netanyahu and Trump are not the cause of the crisis of capitalism but its reflection. Netanyahu’s survival for so long, despite his responsibility for calamities and his corruption, is the result of the failure to create a political alternative, because no alternative which bases itself on capitalism can offer anything to ordinary Israelis. Ultimately a workers’ party armed with a socialist programme which offers a future to ordinary working-class people is necessary.