The Dangerous Politics of Playing the Victim
CRITICS OF ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu have long compared him to illiberal nationalists, such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, and strongmen who have consolidated control to stay in power, such as Viktor Orban and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But to understand Netanyahu’s ability to survive against daunting political odds—he faces potential indictment for alleged corruption and recently failed to form a government—there is a better comparison: Aleksandar Vucic, the president of Serbia.
ARGUMENT
Netanyahu and Vucic each preside over unresolved violent conflicts in which their more powerful countries are widely viewed as the aggressors. Both began as propagandists who learned to portray their countries as victims to the world. And both later leveraged their narrative skills to drive their individual political ascents—by portraying themselves, simultaneously, as victims and saviors.
Like Israel, Serbia is a small country with outsized problems and one that lives in the shadow of vicious recent wars. The last one—fought in 1999 over Kosovo, with NATO intervention—has never been resolved.
Vucic rose
