Israeli Elections: Which Political Party is Really Best for the Future of the State of Israel?

Sometimes too many choices aren't good, and that is how I feel right now on the eve of the 5775, 2015 Israeli Elections. We're only in the middle of March, and as I write the year I wonder if we will end up with elections again really soon. Will they be 5775, 2015 or 5776, 2015 or 5776, 2016?

When I choose which party to vote for I choose by what should be best for the country, the State of Israel, its security, economy and future. I look at the economy in the "big picture," not how things may affect me personally.

I'm of the generation that heard United States President John F. Kennedy say:

"...ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

I want to hear that from my Israeli political leaders. I have no respect for those promising cheap apartments in affluent neighborhoods, because that isn't good for the State of Israel.

I also want to hear Israeli politicians talking about the privilege of serving the country, whether as a soldier or in a special volunteer program. They shouldn't refer to these as burdens or for "suckers."

I'm an old-fashioned Israeli patriot and I'm proud of it.

Proudly Israeli as a Jew

Last year at Yafiz, we had a variety of little boy sports outfits for sale.  They are faux soccer team uniforms kiddie size for all sorts of international teams.  As soon as the "end of season sale" had started, I quickly bought one to fit my grandson this year.  It's funny.  I doubt if he would have wanted to wear it last year, since then he wasn't very interested in sporty things. But this year I've seen him in it a number of times.  Kids grow up and change.

For some reason, it isn't very "in" in some Israeli circles to be patriotic.  Of course, we ought to define "patriotic."  On the Left of the Israeli political spectrum, the concept of "patriotic" is very different from on the Right.  The Left wants to see Israel is a state for all its residents, stressing multiculturalism. They worry that Arabs aren't comfortable living in a country established as a refuge for Jews to be a Jewish State for the Jewish People.  So they are trying to dilute the Jewishness of Israel.  The Israeli singer Ahinoam "Noa" Nini is one of those, so there were many complaints that she had been hired as a featured singer at the Jerusalem Day celebrations.

Gabay said that Nini has, on several times in the past, voiced her support for the Arabs and the Palestinian Authority, saying that their claims were more valid than Israel's. Nini, a radical leftist, does not belong on a Jerusalem stage, Gabay told Arutz Sheva. “Jerusalem Day is a national holiday that represents the unity and sovereignty of of the city. A singer who makes speeches and expresses support for a Palestinian state, with its capital in Jerusalem, cannot sing on this day. She can participate in other events, but not this one,” he added.

The point of Jerusalem Day is to celebrate the fact that the parts of Jerusalem, which had been illegally occupied by Jordan from 1948-1967, were liberated by the IDF on the third day of the 1967 Six Days War.  Someone who thinks that our victory harmed the enemy-Jordan, Syria and Egypt had planned on destroying Israel- and identifies with the enemy isn't much of a patriot.

I listened to Israeli President Shimon Peres's Jerusalem Day speech and he too, another extreme Leftist, stressed that Jerusalem should be for all its residents, not primarily Jewish ones.  This is very troubling and dangerous for our continued existence.

I'm not advocating banishing all Jews from Israel.  I just consider it of the utmost importance to make it clear de facto and de jure that Israel is to always be a Jewish country, not a multinational, multicultural one.