Ben Caspit, formerly the outstanding political commentator at Hebrew daily Ma'ariv, who has had more than one run-in with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, claims to have no regrets about leaving the newspaper following the takeover by Shlomo Ben-Tzvi. "I have been redeemed from my afflictions. Ma'ariv cost me my health. I withered together with the newspaper," says Caspit.
There is no need to worry about Caspit. Even before he received his official dismissal letter from Ma'ariv, he had signed a contract to set up a new newspaper, to be called "Sof Shavua" ("Weekend"), that will be published weekly by Eli Azur. It will be sold to subscribers, and at sales points with a cover price of NIS 10. Caspit is also about to publish a book about Ehud Barak and his battle with Gabi Ashkenazi when the latter was chief of staff.
Why invest so much energy in a man who revolts you?
"My main feeling towards Barak is fear. You can't be disdainful towards a man with such a dangerous array of talents, with such high ability, almost always devoted to destruction. Everything he touches ends in tears. Anyone who thinks that we are rid of him and the damage he can cause, is gravely mistaken. My task is to tear the mask from his face.
"They also say about me that I hate Bibi, the herd of talkback writers who drool their hate on the keyboard, but I treated him with the greatest humanity in his most difficult moments, when he had twelve Knesset seats. I am the only journalist who met him, gave him a hand, said positive things about him."
Out of admiration for the man?
"I feel sorry for him. There are a great many points that I don't admire about him, but what has that to do with hate? I'm regarded as a crazy leftist, so how is it that I vastly prefer Liberman to Netanyahu?"
Caspit (52) is one of Israel's senior political commentators. He has a bachelor's degree in law, he presents several television and radio programs, and he has three books to his name.
Did they beat you?
"Perhaps they beat me. This week, Raviv Drucker broadcast an item about Sara Netanyahu meeting Attorney General Yehudah Weinstein with a request that the state should cover all the expenses of the family's home in Caesarea. I felt wretched. I published all these exposés of her unceasing attempt to make the state finance all her expenses in Caesarea two or three years ago. A few months ago, I got to hear about her meeting with Weinstein. I cross-checked and verified the details, but I didn't publish. In retrospect, I realize that I was afraid.
"I told myself, 'Enough of Sara Netanyahu.' I was broken by all the hue and cry after me. It had never happened to me in my life before. Even under Nir Hefetz, I published nearly everything I wanted. For me, it was like an earthquake, that I had a story that was significant and I didn't publish it.
"For 30 years, I had fought for stories like a bereaved mother bear, tooth and nail, with the philosophy that one must not sit on a story for more than a day so that it won't get away. And in the end, I'm alone, with three children to support. In the end, they won."
The battle, or the war?
"It's a tactical loss, because in the end, I'm here. Believe me, Vered, I have no intention of going anywhere. Since leaving, I have undergone an amazing, purifying experience as far as the public's reaction is concerned.
"They call me suicidal. I committed suicide for the sake of so many people, threw myself on the fence, I don't take prisoners. I did it for Olmert, who was never part of my milieu. I believe that he was wronged, and the same goes for Ashkenazi.
"The secret is never to think, 'What do I get out of this?' Nothing has ever come of my journalistic activity except trouble. I have become cut off from the entire defense establishment for the sake of a man who is no longer in it, and who has to undergo a cooling off period of years before he can go into politics. That is what drives me if I see wrongdoing, I go out of my mind."
If so, have you no mercy for Sara Netanyahu?
"Sara is the strongest person in the country. No-one is more powerful than her, including the prime minister himself. What she says goes. Her husband can't meet people she doesn't want him to meet. One of them is sitting opposite you. I'm a professor of Netanyahu studies. She has his operating system. Why did Naftali Bennett and his people leave Netanyahu's bureau? Bennett told me, 'We sit for months planning some measure with the prime minister, and then he returns from a weekend and says, Sara doesn't want it, and cancels everything.' In the end, he does what she says. She needs someone to send her an SMS every minute of the day to tell her who's with Bibi. I have to have mercy on a thing like that?
"Bibi is convinced that he loves Sara. It's completely genuine, when he holds her hand. It's authentic. We're taking about a woman who runs my country. Ministers are scared to death of her. In his schedule, they called Limor Livnat 'Joshua Matza' throughout his first term."
Sara Netanyahu and Ehud Barak declined to comment.
The full interview (in Hebrew) is in "Lady Globes" magazine, on sale at Steimatzky.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 6, 2012
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2012