Benjamin Netanyahu's term as leader of Israel is in its final days. Evidence of this was supplied generously in this week's rise and fall of Eli Sharvit's nomination as the next head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), a 24-hour episode that represented Netanyahu's final loss of touch with reality, morality, and the good of the state. The cancellation of Adm. Sharvit's candidacy was not about his abilities, personality, or record. It was about 'revelations' that he had taken part in the demonstrations against the Netanyahu government's constitutional coup. Like Nixon, when he fired White House counsel John Dean, Netanyahu hopes that throwing passengers to the sea will end the tempest into which he has sailed. Panic also made him besmirch police, which Netanyahu accused of treating his arrested aides 'like hostages,' in utter insensitivity to what this analogy makes millions of Israelis feel these days.