 |
| Here I was voting in Israeli Elections, 2026 |
As regular readers know well, I was part of a panel of a variety of Israelis who had been UNDECIDED about which political party to vote for in the Israeli Elections. The panel was organized by Jonathan Feldstein of Genesis 123 Foundation. We all come from various political opinions, very Israeli, in a country with a version of a parliamentary democracy. If you listen to the recordings of our discussions, you're bound to hear the honest tolerance between us all. Israeli elections result in a very wide variety of political parties in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
It's almost forty-eight 48 hours since the polling booths closed, and it may take weeks until we have a new government, a coalition with a majority of the one hundred twenty 120 Knesset Members. That's if there's a coalition.
Forming/Negotiating a government isn't a simple matter of putting puzzle pieces together, which is why I'm not going to write about the results, which still aren't in and don't give us easy clues. Instead I'll explain why I picked the little paper I did pick from the large choice you can see below.
For decades I haven't trusted the Likud to give us the strong, secure, confident, proudly Jewish sort of government we need to survive. Menachem Begin, whom we cheered and trusted, made a very dangerous mistake from from the very beginning of his term as Prime Minister when elected in 1977. He very proudly stated that he wouldn't be replacing the avowed Leftist socialist employees in the government offices, judiciary, foreign affairs, defense, development, education, housing etc. The only office which was changed ideologically was Finance, because his longtime political/election partners in GaHaL, the Liberal Party, was unabashedly antisocialist. They replaced government monopolies, like Agrexco-- which controlled Israeli exporting, with private enterprise and capitalism.
Getting back to the twenty-first century and Binyamin Netanyahu... He lost my support after I heard him speak at the First International Jewish Bloggers Conference in 2008, which I describe in Impressive. At that time Netanyahu wasn't Prime Minister, but he had been a few years before, and he was campaigning, promoting himself in every way possible to return to the position. I'll never forget what he said:
"When I'm Prime Minister again, and I will be Prime Minister again... I'll do it as a CENTRIST."
I'll never forget it, and honestly, that's close to what he has been when you examine his actual policies. To me the Center isn't leading us anywhere. It's being too fearful to win a war. Sometimes a leader, and a country, must take risks. They lead to progress. A leader must be in the front, not the middle.
OK, three years after the State of Israel was attacked, and the military and political "departments" showed utter failure in its response and taking responsibility, I decided that I couldn't give my vote to any party in the coalition or high echelons of the IDF in the years leading up to October 7, 2023. I also wanted to vote for a party led by someone not afraid of defying Bibi Netanyahu.
Yes, that didn't leave me much choice. Plus I wanted the party that mentions VICTORY as a goal. I chose Avigdor Liberman and voted for his party Yisrael Beitenu ישראל ביתנו Israel is Our Home. A bonus is that Liberman isn't a newbie to Israeli politics. This is also important. I actually feel pretty good about my choice.
I have no idea about who will manage to negotiate a new coalition, if at all. It's not in my hands; all I could do was to vote. I'm still waiting for the Likud and its loyal voters to realize that they have failed, not only in the elections, but in showing any morality or sense of responsibility for the security mess the country's in.
And please don't say there's peace, because it has been quiet. First of all, soldiers are still being killed, civilians, too. The enemy didn't surrender, and we didn't win. For years, decades more exactly, we've been suffering through this never-ending intermittent war. We get bombed, we bomb back, then there's quiet which Bibi claims is a victory... and then within a couple of years it starts again. October 7, 2023 was a bigger version of the attacks including kidnapping, rapes, torture and more.
I want a government that isn't afraid to fight to win. I don't think that this week's election results show this... Maybe, Gd willing, the next elections...
No comments:
Post a Comment