Special JPost interview with PM Netanyahu: ‘Who turned out to be right?’
by Herb Keinon, jpost.com via elderofziyon.blogspot.ca, Sept. 24, 2014
Having now spent nearly nine years as prime minister, without a serious political challenger anywhere on the horizon, Netanyahu is a man who feels not only confident, but vindicated. He is looking out at the world with a barely suppressible I-told-you-so attitude.
Netanyahu is a leader who feels he has correctly predicted the future, often going very much against the grain to do so.
He accurately foresaw the disastrous consequences that would follow the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip; he predicted the Arab Spring would not – as the Thomas Friedmans of the world gushed – give birth to “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” in the Arab world; and he pushed hard, and successfully, for tough economic sanctions against Iran, saying this would have a significant impact on the country.
He also feels vindicated by the recent Gaza operation – that it proves to all the absolute necessity of the security requirements he has so long demanded from the Palestinian Authority, before signaling a willingness to withdraw from any additional territory .