Benjamin Netanyahu will become the longest-serving prime minister of Israel if he completes his current term in office. The “if”, however, has gained tremendous weight over the last few months. The man once seen as invincible is now the focus of criminal investigations that may, if allowed to proceed properly, prove that he is eminently vincible.
Last Friday, Mr Netanyahu's former chief of staff turned state's witness. To make matters worse, Mr Netanyahu's wife, Sara, is also under investigation for alleged misuse of public funds at the prime minister's official residence. And their notoriously vexatious son, Yair, has meanwhile been branded a "fascist" living in a "twisted reality" by children of one of Mr Netanyanhu's predecessors after he published a vitriolic Facebook post accusing his critics of being in the pay of foreign interests hostile to Israel. Sympathy for the Netanyahus in Israel, never that high to begin with, is at its nadir.
Under assault from all sides, Mr Netanyahu has decided to brazen it out. His attorney general is perceived by many Israelis to be dragging out the investigations to protect the prime minister. And the Likud party is whipping its elected officials to fall in line behind the prime minister, who, it says, can continue in office even if he is indicted.
Mr Netanyahu lashed out at a rally with supporters on Wednesday. Among his targets were the Israeli left, “fake news media” and the Oslo accords of 1993. This is a sign of things to come.
Mr Netanyahu is a master manipulator. His ability to put up smokescreens and create distractions has long been the secret of his survival. Palestinians and the region at large are bound to become casualties of his drive to remain in office at all costs. As his own former defence minister, Ehud Barak, said during last month's violent protests at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque, Mr Netanyahu will "set the country and the region alight just to extricate himself from the menace of the investigations".
None of this is not to say that Mr Netanyahu's departure would result in relief for Palestinians. His potential successors (Gideon Saar, Yisrael Katz and Gilad Erdan within Likud, and Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman from Israel's far right) are as extreme as – or even more extreme than – he is. A country incapable of correcting itself, one that is ever more uncomfortable in its own skin and unwilling to make peace: this is the tragic legacy of Mr Netanyahu's long reign. Even as he limps on, he has effectively stymied almost any hope for a just resolution or a fair settlement for Palestinians. And that is an even greater tragedy.
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Slow loris biog
From: Lonely Loris is a Sunda slow loris, one of nine species of the animal native to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore
Status: Critically endangered, and listed as vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list due to growing demand in the global exotic pet trade. It is one of the most popular primate species found at Indonesian pet markets
Likes: Sleeping, which they do for up to 18 hours a day. When they are awake, they like to eat fruit, insects, small birds and reptiles and some types of vegetation
Dislikes: Sunlight. Being a nocturnal animal, the slow loris wakes around sunset and is active throughout the night
Superpowers: His dangerous elbows. The slow loris’s doe eyes may make it look cute, but it is also deadly. The only known venomous primate, it hisses and clasps its paws and can produce a venom from its elbow that can cause anaphylactic shock and even death in humans
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
- Ovarian tissue surgically removed
- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
- Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
SQUADS
India
Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shardul Thakur
New Zealand
Kane Williamson (captain), Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Ross Taylor, Tom Latham (wicketkeeper), Henry Nicholls, Ish Sodhi, George Worker, Glenn Phillips, Matt Henry, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Adam Milne, Trent Boult
Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
The biog
Name: Sari Al Zubaidi
Occupation: co-founder of Cafe di Rosati
Age: 42
Marital status: single
Favourite drink: drip coffee V60
Favourite destination: Bali, Indonesia
Favourite book: 100 Years of Solitude