We tend to embrace the argument that Job says is "righteous and evil, evil and good" - even when there is no argument. For example, too many people think - or at least say - that corruption pays off for elected officials, or that populist policies achieve more than courageous leadership of choice in the right steps. But in most cases this is a misinterpretation. The Israeli Institute of Economic Planning found that, last year, for a decade, 34 senior officials were convicted by 22 municipalities and 7 local councils, apart from those pending indictments and legal proceedings at various stages. The Institute recently published a fascinating study of the link between the chances of choice of a victim and the corruption cases, and discovered a significant link between corruption and a decrease in the chance of choice - the opposite of what is common to Hallin.

Whether you support or politically oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you cannot help but agree that he is the generic candidate for election as the "Decade Man" in Israel. Nor can his political rivals attribute to him at least some of the tremendous achievements of the State of Israel over the past decade. But much of the credit he won this decade comes from two and a half years of his post as Finance Minister, from February 2003. In conversations with bankers, businessmen and researchers in the field of economics, I have been hearing a great appreciation for Netanyahu as Finance Minister for years. For two and a half years, he has worked vigorously to save Israel from a financial collapse and at the same time has built a solid economic infrastructure, which we enjoy to this day. Allegedly, his actions were anti-popular as finance minister, and included a deep cut in ultra-Orthodox allowances, a series of privatizations that allegedly hurt organized workers, damage to centralization of banks and more. However, the result was an alliance with the ultra-Orthodox and much appreciated by the economic community.

In contrast, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon responded to the direct call of the social protest in 2011, when he went to address the cost of housing in the central part of the country. During his tenure, the sharp rise in housing prices was halted, and many "eligible residents" hold a winning certificate in the apartment they own, but his party, "all of us," has been wiped out. In other words, Moshe Kahlon was not rewarded politically and publicly for his populist steps.

This mechanism is no different from parenting. Little children often ask their parents to "buy me," but the parent who is appreciated by his children is not the one who positively accepts more requests, but the one who manages to convey a coherent and logical message in his consents and objections. This should also be based on economic policy: not submission to loud claims, but logic, way, and clear boundaries.

Despite his success as finance minister, Netanyahu has in the past decade chosen to play on another field. One of his associates told me just a decade ago, "Netanyahu believes that now Iran is a greater challenge to Israel than the economy." He was worried, and disagreed with him. Only after years did he understand what Netanyahu understood then. On a strategic level, "cost per dweller" was a big mistake, but it is dwarfed by two far more fateful moves - diplomatic, security and military against the Iranian challenge, and economically - managing natural gas reservoirs since the Tamar reservoir was discovered in 2009 until the gas flow "Whale" on the last day of 2019. Despite all the difficulties that have been raised, Netanyahu has maneuvered in impressive virtuosity between the difficulties so as not to stop the most important economic venture since the establishment of the state.