The Blogs: 6 Days to Elections: Time for a Change

Monday was a noisy day in the air above Jerusalem. All afternoon and evening we heard the continual din of jet aircraft overhead. For the record, we do not have commercial flights overflying the city so we know when we hear that sound it is the Israel Air Force doing something other than practice flights. Now we know it was a fake staged attack on Iran where our fighter jets stopped just short of the Iranian border and turned back.

According to news reports, the mission involved dozens of fighter jets and aerial refueling aircraft flying more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from Israel through Syrian and Iraqi airspace and then back to Israel. The aircraft followed a route consistent with a potential military strike against Iran, according to Israeli and US officials as cited by Axios.

Many of us here agree with the suspicion of American officials who think Prime Minister Netanyahu may have deliberately attempted to provoke an Iranian military response by conducting a massive aerial exercise just days before Israel’s October 27 elections.

According to news reports, Washington was notified in advance of the operation, calling it a demonstration of military strength intended to deter Iran from attacking Israel ahead of the elections. However, there is also a suspicion that Israel may have hoped Iranian forces would open fire on the approaching aircraft, potentially providing justification for Israeli retaliatory strikes. No doubt our military planners knew Iran’s air defense systems would detect the approaching aircraft as well.

Why would we do this just a week before our elections here, elections where Netanyahu is in a battle for his political life? If we are concerned, as well we should be, about Iran’s buildup of offensive military capability, would we not be just as concerned on October 28^th (i.e. a day after our elections here) as we were on Monday, October 19^th?

According to reports emanating from Israel’s security establishment, our defense threat experts see no evidence of an imminent attack against us by Iran. As such, it is not unreasonable to deduce that our Prime Minister authorized the exercise in the hope that Iran would respond, attack us as they have been regularly attacking Gulf countries over the past month, thereby bringing us into an active war footing once again.

The benefit to Netanyahu, of course, is that he could legitimately call the Knesset into session and urge them to authorize the postponement of the elections, saying that in the middle of a war it would not be possible for all eligible voters to get to the polls safely and without risk. In a word, there is every possibility that the action of the Prime Minister in authorizing this foolhardy exercise at the time he did so was a clear act of putting his political interests ahead of the good and welfare of the government and nation he is sworn to protect. There are many names for such an action. You all know what they are and I need not list them here.

However, what is clear is that it is time for him to leave politics. Just the fact that millions of Israeli citizens would seriously consider that Netanyahu could act in this self-serving way, whether or not that was his intent, should be enough to disqualify him from ever being at the head of government again.

When we go to the polls next Tuesday, October 27^th, thinking Israeli voters should have only one objective in mind and that is to elect a replacement government that is committed to the successful continuation of the Zionist enterprise along with the good and welfare of the entire nation, nothing else.

As such, IMHO, we must elect the “opposition bloc” which is composed of four parties.

Yashar headed by Gadi Eisenkot (my personal favorite), whose identifying party symbol will be Derech (דרך), which translates to “the way.”
B’yachad jointly led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, whose symbol is Rak (רק), which translates to “only.”
Yisrael Beytenu headed by Avigdor Lieberman, whose symbol is (ל), which is simply the letter Lamed in the Hebrew alphabet.
The Democrats headed by Yair Golan, whose symbol is (אמת), which is the Hebrew word for Truth.

Oddly enough in the most technically oriented country in the world we vote with paper slips each of which designates a different party, with the slip we pick put into a small envelope which we seal and place in a sealed ballot box. Seemingly inefficient on the surface but actually quite secure.

If these four parties prevail, between them they will most likely still not have enough mandates to form a majority government. Nevertheless, they will show enough strength that President Herzog will, hopefully, decide to invite them to form a government and will charge Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party to lead the effort as the polls show he is slated to receive more votes than any of the other three.

To be sure, dramatic changes will not happen overnight. Yet the first step is to send the message that our current government’s leadership needs to be thanked for their service and shown the door. They may have tried their best but for what we desperately need now, their best is not sufficient.

As for what happens after October 27^th, Prof. Shmuel Rosner stated this very well in a piece appearing this week in the Jewish Journal where he wrote (originally in Hebrew but this is his English translation):

“A decisive outcome at the ballot box might make us forget one crucial thing: the nation remains the same nation, the challenges remain the same challenges, the difficulty of getting along remains the same difficulty and the tribalism remains the same tribalism. Israeli society is struggling to break free from fundamental structural problems – some due to unavoidable circumstances, others due to leadership that has preferred to sharpen divides and foster polarization rather than bridge gaps and promote calm. If there is a winning camp – and it is by no means certain that there will be – it would do well to remember that an election victory is a means, not an end. It is the beginning of a process, not its conclusion. It is an opportunity to succeed – not success itself.”

All true but we must begin the process on Tuesday, October 27^th when we, the Israeli public, have the single opportunity to make our voices heard. We dare not shrink from that responsibility as from that day forward, what happens is “on us.” Let’s hope we are up to the challenge.