Bad Things Happen To Bad Leaders

It is shocking to me how much Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu have in common these days: Both see themselves as great strategic chess players in a world where, they think, everyone else knows only how to play checkers. And yet both completely misread the world in which they were operating.

In fact, they misread it so badly that it looks as if each is not playing chess or checkers but rather Russian roulette — all by themselves. Russian roulette is not meant to be played alone, but alone they both are.

Putin thought that he could capture Kyiv in a few days and thus — at a very low cost — use Russian expansion into Ukraine to forever blunt European Union and NATO expansion. He might have gotten close but for the fact that his isolation and self-delusion resulted in his getting his own army wrong, Ukraine’s army wrong, the NATO allies wrong, Joe Biden wrong, the Ukrainian people wrong, Sweden wrong, Finland wrong, Poland wrong, Germany wrong and the European Union wrong. In the process, he has made Russia into an energy colony of China and a beggar for Iran’s drones.

For someone who has been at the top of the Kremlin since 1999, that is a whole lot of wrong.

Netanyahu and his coalition thought they could pull off a quick judicial coup, disguised as a legal “reform,” that would enable them to exploit the narrowest of election victories — roughly 30,000 votes out of some 4.7 million — to allow Netanyahu & Company to govern without having to worry about the only source of restraint on politicians in Israel’s system: its independent judiciary and Supreme Court.

Interestingly, at the first formal meeting of Netanyahu’s cabinet, in December, he listed his government’s four priorities: blocking Iran, restoring personal security for every Israeli, addressing the cost of living and the shortage of housing, and widening the circle of peace with surrounding Arab states. He did not mention upending the courts, apparently hoping to slip it past the public.

Wrong. A vast majority of the Israeli public got it immediately and responded with the largest public backlash to any proposed legislation in the country’s history.

The opposition is now throughout Israeli society and beyond: Netanyahu got his army wrong, his technology start-up community wrong, Joe Biden wrong and, polls show, most Israeli voters wrong. He got the base of his own party wrong, too: There hasn’t been a single large-scale grass-roots demonstration in support.

For someone serving as prime minister for the sixth time, that is a whole a lot of wrong.

So, what comes next? Both Netanyahu and Putin are blaming outside agitators and foreign funding for their problems. It is right out of the dictators’ handbook. While Putin regularly blames the U.S. and NATO for his military failures in Ukraine, The Times of Israel reported last weekend that Netanyahu and his family had begun hinting that the U.S. State Department was the hidden hand funding the huge protests.

One more similarity that leads to a huge difference. Putin and Netanyahu have both surrounded themselves with yes-men, party hacks and total ciphers — no one with any independent political standing or ethical backbone who can stand up and say: “What are

Netanyahu and Putin have gotten an awful lot wrong.

you doing? Stop. This is wrong. Cut your losses.”

But this leads to the one big difference between them.

The world is divided into more than 24 time zones. Russia alone spans 11. Israel fits into one. Putin can afford a long war of attrition in Ukraine, where he never has to admit he was mistaken. He has huge margins for his errors. Israel does not. The wisest Israeli leaders have always understood that they need to carefully guard their resources and bond with their allies — through not only shared interests but also shared values.

Yet Netanyahu’s extremist coalition is now taking on the Palestinians and Iran militarily while ignoring the wishes and values of its most important ally, the U.S. government; its most important diaspora community, American Jews; and its most important source of economic growth, foreign investors. And it is doing all of that while dividing the Israeli people to the brink of a civil war.

It’s madness. Or, to put it differently: Russia can survive a leader who plays Russian roulette. Israel might not.