I apologize to Benjamin Netanyahu if he was offended

by me calling him [place you insult(s) here]. I am confident that he is not [place you insult(s) here], as I called him and I shall refrain in the future from calling him [place you insult(s) here].

From the long history of public insults, scurrilous rumors and deadly innuendo, aimed at public figures, one learns that the best way to deal with such activities is to ignore them. Drawing attention of Joe Public by repeating these insults and raising hell in the media, only to get a backhanded apology of the kind outlined above, is definitely the worst way.

Here are three examples of that second kind of response by Bibi, collected just for year 2016:

March 2016:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, on Sunday filed a libel suit against a journalist for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth who alleged last week that the prime minister’s convoy stopped on a central highway because Mrs. Netanyahu was angry at her husband and forced him to get out of their vehicle.

September 2016

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has filed an appeal to keep the details of the amount of money his official residence spent on laundry from being made public. The laundry information request is part of a larger request by the Movement for Freedom of Information for details of all state-paid expenses for the family’s private home in Caesarea and official residence in Jerusalem for 2014.

And, to top it all:

November 2016: Netanyahu threatening to sue unemployed citizen over Facebook post

Yoav Salem, 56, said on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to sue him over a blog post shared on Salem’s Facebook page. The blog post claims – without evidence – that Netanyahu’s son, Yair, served as a courier to shelter the Netanyahu family’s money in overseas tax havens.

Does Bibi (or somebody appointed by him for the purpose) really sift through Facebook to find out what rumors are being spread about him and his near and dear? Does Bibi or that somebody keep trace of the repeated (true or untrue) allegations by a reporter?

It looks like, instead of growing more layers of thick skin, as appropriate for a politico, Bibi is doing just the opposite, getting more and more hysterically sensitive to various allegations bandied in the press. True or not, and there is the rub, of course, but it is another matter.

With all that hypersensitivity, isn't it a good time, you know... ?