Fourth Election: An Embarrassing Prospect? (Judean Rose)

Fourth election on Israel’s horizon? No worries. There’s nothing wrong with Israel possibly having a fourth election and this is not a failure. It’s how the public uses the free and democratic Israeli election process as a way to refine its political views.

What we see now is a maturation process, a societal coming of age.

Those of us on the right would never vote for Gantz or Lapid. Not during the first election, and not in subsequent elections. But a part of me, the part that is angry with Bibi, played Devil’s advocate: “Traditionally, there has been more building under left-wing Israeli governments,” I would tell people on social media, going for shock value.

I wanted to wake people up. I wanted to tell them: “Bibi has frozen settlement de facto, beyond what Obama ever required. Stop pretending that a right wing government has enacted right wing policy!”

But it’s more than that. Netanyahu has failed to stop the leftist courts from destroying settlements, he’s promised buildings that have never materialized. He waits for people in other countries to decide when Israel will exercise its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. (What kind of sovereignty is that???)

These things make me mad. But I am also angry at Bibi over old history: the votes for Disengagement; the way he promised reciprocity, then gave away Hebron. I’ve written about these things before. I don’t wish to write about them again. But the collective memory of these actions make me sometimes not want to vote for him.

Please note that my anger at Bibi comes from my passion for Israel. When Bibi does things that in my opinion, harm my beloved country, it makes it harder for me to vote for him. So in past elections, I’ve voted for smaller right wing parties, and even toyed with not voting at all.

But this time I knew that it was time to stop effing around, so I voted Likud.

It took three elections to get me to that point, quite frankly. And the thing is, maybe it will take four or more elections for everyone else to get to that point, too: the point where we have a clear majority of Israelis who want the same things for our country. 

Where we all—or at least most of us—understand what it takes to get there.

Because it sure ain’t Gantz and Lapid.