According to most commentators, the elections this coming Tuesday – like the four rounds that preceded them – revolve around the question “yes or no Bibi”. If you vote for one of the four parties in the right-wing bloc, then you are a Bibiist, and if you vote for one of the parties in the left-Arab bloc, you are in the camp, just not a Bibiist. All other issues on the agenda are not relevant at all.
The idea that all Israeli politics can be reduced to a question about your opinion about the former prime minister has always been far-fetched, at least for the voters. Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, Gideon Sa’ar and their friends in ‘Yamina’ and ‘Tikva Gadsha’ are rightly accused of betraying the will of their voters in the fourth round, because they placed their hatred and jealousy for Netanyahu before the ideology they claimed to represent. In doing so, they ousted the right-wing bloc and established the first post-Zionist government we have known.
A year and a half have passed since the fourth election and a lot has changed. First and foremost, the “just not Bibi” camp no longer exists on the right. ‘Right’ has evaporated, Bennett is out and Shaked will disappear on the ballot. Sa’ar and his friends dispersed, most of them landed in leftist parties.
Life in Israel is also not at the point it was in March last year, when Netanyahu’s trial was in its infancy and it was still possible to seriously argue that the accused is a “criminal” and “corrupt”. During the months that passed, the indictment against Netanyahu collapsed, as one claim after another took the witness stand and dismantled it from every possible angle. At the same time, the ability of the left-Arab camp to claim that they are capable of running the country just as well as Netanyahu and the right-wing bloc has disappeared.
Netanyahu handed over to the Lapid-Bent-Ganz-Abbas government a country with a stronger regional and international status than ever before, enjoying a prosperous economy despite the global recession of the Corona virus. Today, basic national interests are threatened in a way we have not experienced in many years. Israel’s regional and global status has not been so weak since 2002. The Australian decision to reverse the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was nothing more than an expression of the contempt with which the nations of the world treat Israel today. In the economic arena, inflation is racing ahead and there is no end in sight. The middle class is struggling to keep its head above water when prices are rising much faster than wages.
If “Bibi yes or no” was the slogan of the previous four rounds of elections, today the time for slogans has passed and we are left with the real issue that is tearing society apart. It is not about the economy, or even outside and security, but about a much more basic issue that gives its signals in all areas of life here: sovereignty.
The issue of sovereignty has come up most clearly in regards to our relationship with the Biden administration. In the weeks leading up to the formation of their government, Lapid, Bennett and Gantz publicly pledged that once they took the reins, they would not “surprise” the US in everything related to Israel’s actions against Iran. The meaning of the promise was clear. From the moment they took office, the three completely renounced the operational independence of Israel. They vetoed the Biden administration any Israeli action designed to block Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal. Reports of sabotage at Iran’s nuclear facilities have been dramatically reduced since they took office.
The renunciation of political and security independence did not stop in Iran. As part of the agreement with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, on Israel’s water borders, Lapid and Gantz not only gave up territorial waters, but also handed over Israel’s sovereign natural resources to the terrorist state from the north. The terms of the agreement were the terms of Hezbollah and the folding of Israel was dictated by the Biden administration.
As for the Palestinians, reports from the last few weeks clearly indicate a new situation on the ground. Today, the Biden administration intervenes in the operations of the IDF in the Yosh down to the company and department level, through the American embassy in Jerusalem.
The situation in which an American administration, which hardly bothers to hide its bigotry and hostility towards the Jewish state, actually controls Israel’s foreign and security policy, is unprecedented. By emptying our sovereignty of its content, Lapid, Gantz and their partners are destroying our regional status and undermining national interests and national security.
In domestic issues, at the root of the rift between the right-wing bloc and the left-Arab bloc regarding the continuation of sovereignty are three main disputes. The first concerns the meaning of democracy. The voters of the right-wing bloc advocate the view that the meaning of democracy is that the public elects leaders who reflect its positions and values. The role of elected officials is to lead the people in a way that reflects the positions of the public that elected them.
On the other hand, a significant portion of the voters of the left-Arab bloc believe that the rule of the people is the “tyranny of the majority.” A true democracy is supposed to be “substantial” – a system of government in which unelected but “enlightened” officials and judges determine Israel’s path and protect it from the tyrannical crowd and its elected representatives. . In such a regime, the role of the people’s elected officials is to obey the wisdom of the bureaucracy and the court.
The ‘state camp’ in particular puts essential democracy at the forefront of its mind, but the other left-Arab bloc parties also advocate it because the judges of the Supreme Court, the prosecution, and the champions of the IDF General Staff share their progressive, elitist, and post-national worldview. A view that rejects Power in favor of reconciliation and the national interest in favor of an aspiration “to be on the right side of history.” The concept of “sovereignty”, like the concept of “victory”, are seen in their eyes as outdated and dark ideas.
The second main dispute surrounding sovereignty refers to Israel’s right to exercise its sovereignty within the territory under its control, and it manifests itself primarily in Judea and Samaria. Israel has both permanent interests and sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria. The Israeli administration in these areas, which, like Jerusalem, constitute the cradle of Jewish civilization and history, is legal according to international and Israeli law. The question of the final location of the eastern border is subject to internal and international debate, but until it is determined, the role of the Israeli government is to govern Judea and Samaria in accordance with national interests and security needs.
However, instead of performing its duty, the Gantz-led government is endangering all of Israel’s security interests and needs with its failed management of Judea and Samaria.
According to the Regavim movement, in the last year and a half, illegal construction by Palestinians in Area C – the area where half a million Israeli citizens live and where all the IDF facilities are located, as well as the Jordan Valley – has increased by 80%. This land robbery is putting their lives at risk of the citizens of Israel and their settlements, and harms the ability of the IDF forces to fulfill their missions. But the Minister of Defense does not work to reduce the dangerous phenomenon and even encourages it.
In doing so, in practice, Gantz establishes a de facto Palestinian state and eliminates the need for the Palestinians to reach an agreement with Israel. It endangers Israeli settlement since the purpose of Palestinian construction is to turn the settlements into isolated enclaves. Gantz’s conduct endangers the Israeli residents of the West Bank, millions of citizens who travel on the West Bank roads and work in the area, as well as the rest of Israel’s residents whose security depends to a large extent on the control of Judea and Samaria.
In the Palestinian takeover of Area C, each block has an address, and each tile has a purpose.
Watch the video that most clearly explains the findings of the “War of Attrition” 2022 report. (Link to the full report in the next tweet)
In five days –
Stopping the Palestinian state at the ballot box!(For the rest of the video>>>) pic.twitter.com/4wGrzq5jcM
— Regavim movement (@Regavim_IL) October 28, 2022
Gantz does not act this way out of security considerations. There is no security consideration behind his decision to turn the settlement blocs into threatened enclaves. Gantz is aiding the seizure of land in Area C by the Palestinians to promote his post-Zionist worldview, which ignores Israel’s national rights and interests in favor of subordinating foreign and security policy to the interests of the Biden administration.
The post-national and post-sovereign worldview of the government endangers the sovereignty of the state also in the Negev and the Galilee where Bennett, Gantz, Lapid and their colleagues agreed to grant actual autonomy to the separatist Bedouin and Muslim minority.
In accordance with the Rem’s request, the Bedouins were given the green light to continue and expand the wholesale land robbery and to expand their autonomous areas in the Negev. In Jerusalem and Haifa, in Lod and Acre, on the Negev roads and on the roads and in the Arab villages in the Galilee, Israeli law is almost never enforced against Arab criminals, including – and especially – towards those who are involved in separatist and terrorist violence against their Jewish neighbors. Police officers who confronted Arab rioters found themselves under investigation by the police and even candidates for trial. The suspected Arabs themselves were granted immunity, including release from detention, and closure of investigations by the state attorney’s office. This phenomenon empties the concept of sovereignty of its content.
And that brings us to the third issue of controversy surrounding sovereignty, before we go to the polls on Tuesday: the Jewish identity of the state.
During its short tenure, the Bennett-Lapid government joined the judiciary in its long-standing struggle against Israel’s Jewish national identity. The coalition began to falter following Health Minister Horowitz’s decision to allow the introduction of chametz into hospitals during Passover, a step that meant that Jews who keep kosher would not be able to comply with the halachic commandments when they are inside the hospitals either as hospitalized patients, workers or visitors.
Horowitz’s anti-Jewish initiative caused MK Idit Silman from ‘Yimina’ to withdraw from the coalition, but this was not the only blow to the image of Jewish Israel.
Education Minister Yifat Shasha Biton put an end to the teaching of the Bible and the history of the Second Testament in state schools. And with the cancellation of the trips to the death camps in Poland, in practice, the government canceled the study of the Holocaust in the education system. In practice, Shasha Biton’s decision to cancel the matriculation exams in history and literature canceled the Learning the subjects in the schools. After all, the schools build their curriculum around the matriculation exams. When there is no matriculation, there is no learning.
If Shasha Biton’s anti-Jewish reforms remain in effect – which will certainly happen if a left-Arab bloc forms the next government – this will condemn a generation of Israeli Jews to ignorance and emptiness. The ability to understand why the country deserves protection and preservation will be taken away from the younger generation. Instead of Zionist and Jewish education, Shasha Biton introduces gender studies and other progressive whims into the education system – starting at preschool age.
Kosher Minister for Religious Services, Bennett’s confidant Matan Kahana (now Gantz’s loyal soldier in the state camp), initiated reforms aimed at dismantling the rabbinical courts, emptying the authority of the kashrut system of the Chief Rabbinate, and taking over the religious councils of the cities of Israel. Communications Minister Yoaz Handel persecuted the ultra-Orthodox sector for wanting to stay away from smart phones, and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman focused most of his efforts on demonizing the ultra-Orthodox and severely damaging their economic situation.
Lapid and Gantz expressed their desire to empty the nationality law which defines Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. Your position, shared by Meretz, Yisrael Beytenu and Avoda (as well as the Arab parties), is nothing but a rejection of the foundations of modern Zionism and the founding documents of the State of Israel, starting with the Balfour Declaration.
In recent years the gap between right and left in Israel and in the world has become unbridgeable. The left prefers to present the dispute as a disagreement about the legitimacy of the right-wing leaders, but by hiding the essential – in fact, the existential – issue that keeps the camps apart, the left has succeeded in splitting the right-wing camp. The “soft right” people who share the negative attitude of the left towards the leader of the right, constitute a small minority within the entire right-wing camp. But at the hour of Saturday, they were big enough to bring the left to power.
The problem of the left today is that the soft right has already left the camp and moved definitively to the left, and we are left with the essential issue itself. On Tuesday we will not be required to answer the question “yes Bibi or no Bibi”. The question that must be answered at the ballot box is the most essential question: What is this country for? Do we believe in our nation-state and strive to preserve, fortify and strengthen it, or do we strive to replace the Jewish character of our country in favor of a globalist, progressive identity, free of Zionism and Jewish sovereignty?
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