Comment and Opinion
Ynet: Hardest job in the world, by Eitan Haber
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“I think it was Golda Meir who said, “Whoever wants to be prime minister in Israel – deserves it,” but she still accepted the Mapai veterans’ request that she serve as premier. The body of the previous prime minister, Levi Eshkol, was still on the second floor of the house on Ramban Street in Jerusalem when the senior Mapai members gathered on the first floor and decided that Golda would be the successor. A tormented Golda accepted the party’s “verdict.”
Anyone who chooses politics as a career and way of life wants to eventually become prime minister. The road is long, difficult and filled with struggles and suffering. In most cases, those who do land the job are worn out and rigid. They’ve gone through so much on the way to the top.
You don’t have to love or hate a prime minister to belittle his or her statements, actions, failures and achievements. My late colleague Zeev Schiff once said, “You can’t succeed in this position. The best you can do is not fail.” An objective observer will say that being prime minister in Israel is the most difficult and demanding job in the entire world.
In the entire world? Yes, in entire world. The president of the United States, for instance, deals with a small fraction of the problems the prime minister of Israel has to tackle. The American system of government is designed in such a way that many of the problems are solved before they even reach the White House. Thus, the president intervenes and leaves his mark on central, sometimes historic issues.”
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