Netanyahu is a Man of the Past

Netanyahu is a man of the past

The Knesset election did not end with a clear decision. Instead, a direction for the future, ahead of the next election, is emerging.

Haaretz Editorial | Jan.23, 2013 | 3:18 AM | 

Israelis awaken this morning to a day of uncertainty. The voting is over, but the election is not. The soldiers’ votes, disqualified votes, the electoral threshold − all of these will still move the numbers this way or that. But to learn some lessons, no waiting is necessary.

Israel on Tuesday expressed no confidence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After four years at the country’s helm, together with his natural partner, MK Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu lost about a quarter of his strength despite − or perhaps because of − the merger with Lieberman. Netanyahu, Israelis said on Tuesday, has failed. He has failed in the political sphere, the foreign policy sphere and the socioeconomic sphere.

His failure is a failure of leadership, which will continue to cast a pall over us if he survives in power. Netanyahu plunged from Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu’s 42 MKs to about 30 because the Israeli public felt that his government had not understood the deeper significance of the protests of the summer of 2011.

The results show that the public balked at the right-wing radicalization of Likud, from the disavowal of the Bar-Ilan speech and the harmful goading of the international community in declaring the E-1 construction plan. The isolation into which Netanyahu and Lieberman led Israel worried the voters, who want good relations with the United States, under President Barack Obama, instead of more apartments in the settlements and threats of war on Iran.

The public was also worried about the collapse of Netanyahu’s economic policies, which were typified by lack of fiscal responsibility and have led to a huge deficit of some NIS 40 billion. Netanyahu’s pledge not to raise taxes and the lightning appointment of Moshe Kahlon to deal with the housing crisis, only added to the lack of faith in Netanyahu.

Yair Lapid, the big winner, now bears weighty responsibility, together with his partners in the center-left − Labor’s Shelly Yacimovich and Hatnuah’s Tzipi Livni. They must prevent Netanyahu and Lieberman, and their natural partners on the extreme right and the ultra-Orthodox factions, from continuing to bring Israel down domestically and internationally.

They must not be tempted into joining Netanyahu as his apprentices by a pottage of portfolios and honors.

The Knesset election did not end with a clear decision. Instead, a direction for the future, ahead of the next election, is emerging. It shows that Netanyahu is a man of the past.

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What Israelis really want: To be left in peace

Israel made a decisive statement regarding what it wants: it wants only to be left alone, a quiet, good life, peaceful and bourgeois, and to hell with all those pesky nagging issues; Lapid epitomizes this attitude.

By Gideon Levy | Jan.23, 2013 | 4:13 AM | 

A patently apolitical candidate has become the big winner of the most patently apolitical elections ever held in Israel. A former columnist and TV presenter, who rarely wrote or spoke of political issues, not in his political columns nor in his TV weekly magazine, made an instant switch to politics, even then not uttering much in the way of political statements. On Tuesday, Israel gave him a resounding “yes!” Yes to the young, yes to the new, yes to the apolitical. He was anointed as crown prince, second in importance only to King Bibi, who turned out to be almost naked. Had it not been for the union with Yisrael Beiteinu, it is doubtful if Likud would have been the largest party in the coming Knesset. A hollow election campaign has resulted in an equally empty result – a bit of everything and a lot of nothing.

Israeli elections yet again ended in a draw – a tie between left and right, if those are the correct terms in Israel. The elections deflated the Bennett legend, with Habayit Hayehudi turning out to be another Shas in the number of seats it won, no less and no more. Not what we thought and not what we feared. Israel on Tuesay voiced a very hesitant “yes”, which was almost a “no”, to the aspirations of Shelly Yacimovich to become a real alternative to Netanyahu. The party she heads will not even be the second largest in the Knesset, to its shame. This signals the end to her pretensions to reconstruct the Labor party, counting on drawing strength from the social protests two summers ago and from masses of young-old voters, obedient and conformist, who ended up not delivering the goods. Her dreadful sleight of hand, attempting to hide the occupation under the carpet, did not help her much.

In contrast, Israel said “yes” to a straight shooting party such as Meretz, which doubled its strength in a dignified showing. Israel also said “no” to the fragments of tiny parties that did not pass the electoral threshold. The good news: the racist Otzma Leyisrael as of this writing is out. The bad news: as of this writing, the subversive “Eretz Hadasha” (new country) didn’t make it either.

Above all, Israel made a decisive statement regarding what it wants: it wants nothing, only to be left alone. Voters want a quiet, good life, peaceful and bourgeois, and to hell with all those pesky nagging issues. Lapid epitomizes this attitude, being the role model for the all-Israeli dream. He looks good and dresses well, he’s well-spoken and well-married, lives in the right neighborhood and drives the right kind of Jeep.

With that, he doesn’t say much. He’s not an extremist, heaven forbid, that’s not who we are, nor does he stick his hand in the fire, that’s not us either. He stays away from any divisive issues, just as Israelis prefer. Even when they took to the streets in that magical summer of 2011, remnants of which event were still evident on Tuesday, their protests turned out in retrospect to be encapsulated only in songs by popular singers Shlomo Artzi and Eyal Golan, without real substance. Lapid fits this mold perfectly, as characterized by protest singing in the city square, with no clear agenda and angry protest. “Let us Live in Peace” was the slogan of the General Zionist party in the 1951 elections. Let us live in this land was the slogan of many Israelis yesterday. Let us live without Arabs and Haredi Jews, without wars and terror attacks, without the world and its preaching. Now, as it was then, this represents pure escapism. On Tuesday, Israel affirmed escapism.

On Tuesday, Lapid acquired power that he most likely did not anticipate, and that he may not know what to do with. It is difficult to know if he can put some content behind the power given to him, but perhaps there is room for hope. For someone who managed to change his conduct and mannerisms in the course of the preceding campaign, shedding some of those that characterized his columns and TV appearances, growing and maturing in the process, it is possible that he will grow into the role thrust upon him on Tuesday. Perhaps with the power will also come some meaningful utterances and a willingness to fight.

A new day is dawning upon us, a dawn of a day in which Israel only wants to be left alone with all its comforts. Only grant it Lapid and quiet, the terrible quiet at the brink of the abyss.

A Boring and Dangerous Election

A Boring and Dangerous Election

30.12.2012, by Rabbi Donniel Hartman

As an optimist, new elections generally inspire me to hope. As new parties and new personalities enter into the fray I find myself anticipating the new ideas and thinking that will enter into our political discourse and open up new horizons for Israel. This optimism often causes me to vote for the latest new party, the one that has not yet disappointed me. My track record hasn’t been that great, but as an optimist I am not inclined to allow past failures to color my hope for the future.

This election season started with great promise, and indeed new parties and very talented individuals have emerged across the political spectrum. The problem is that this influx hasn’t generated the expected new ideas. It is possible that this is the consequence of an election whose outcome is already clear, with the only issue up for grabs being the elements that will constitute the right-wing bloc which will lead the country afterward - whether Likud-Beiteinu will get 35 or 38 seats, or the Bayit Hayehudi, 12-15. The parties aren’t campaigning to win, for who will win is already clear. The campaign is about increasing one's party size by one or two seats over the latest projections and most significantly, avoiding mistakes which might lead to a decline of one to two seats.

These elections are boring. They are not only challenging for an unrepentant optimist such as me, but they are dangerous for Israel and its future. Israel and Zionism are about ideas, about ways in which the national homeland of the Jewish people will represent and embody aspirations for justice, decency, and intelligence within our foreign, military, economic and social policies. They are about creating an exemplary society, which while grounded withinrealpolitik, nevertheless continually aspires to change it for the better. When Israel stops leading with ideas, and our politicians are the great protectors of the status quo, Israel becomes ever-more distanced from its true purpose.

One of the more exasperating examples of the mediocre rut into which our political thinking has descended is the debate within the Likud-Beiteinu Party as to whether to include in the party platform Prime Minister Netanyahu's 2009 Bar-Ilan University speech supporting a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. The speech put an end to the affiliation of the Likud Party with the dreams of a Greater Israel and tacitly admitted that settlements in certain areas of Judea and Samaria would have to be dismantled for the sake of peace.

The reason given by some of the more moderate voices within the party for removing it from the platform is that given Palestinian Authority President Abbas's apparent policy to sidestep direct negotiations with Israel, we should not "reward" him with such a prize. There are others, who today play a far more central role in the leadership of the Likud Party, who want it removed for it contradicts their ideology, which still holds fast to the fantasy of a Greater Israel.

What both hold in common is the belief that the current status quo is sustainable and plays in Israel's favor. They are at home in a politics devoid of new ideas and may consider expending effort to produce them only after they are inspired by evidence of new thinking on the other side. This is not a path which produces a greater Israel but a smaller one.

A second example of mediocrity is being exemplified by the Labor Party's decision to avoid speaking about foreign policy in its current campaign, under the hope that a focus on economic and social justice disconnected from the party's past peace platform may "fool" one or two mandates away from the Center-Right. This is a policy well at home in the current election culture and may ensure Labor the accolade of being the biggest party amongst those who lost. It is, however, a poor service to a party which in theory aspires to lead, and an even poorer service to the country.

In a democracy the opposition plays a central role as generators of ideas and as watchdogs against stagnation. When the opposition is leading the charge down the path of complacency the dangers to Israel's future are multiplied.

When functioning well, an election season serves to put forth noble and naive ideas, which everyone knows need to be and inevitably will be tempered by the reality of the day after the elections. Cynics may argue that a campaign is about putting forth the lies that the population wants to hear. I believe that its purpose is to set forth the goals which give the electorate a window into the minds and hearts of those who aspire to represent us, the goals to which they are committed so long as reality doesn’t get in the way.

We need to reconnect to the political discourse of hope and aspirations. Of course we have peace plans. Let's talk about them, debate them, and figure out which ones best serve our values, goals, interests, and concerns. The fact that we may have nobody to talk with has never stopped Jews from talking. We are the People of the Book, who have spent 3,000 years putting forth ideas and chiseling away at the rock of reality until we penetrate it.

Let the dreaming and talking begin. May the next month until the elections be filled with a competition over innovation, a rivalry to discover new ways to change the status quo and place Israel on a trajectory to a better future. The job of the politician is to lead. Please begin to do your job.