A Year of Decision – Unlike Any Previously

Israel prepares for a much needed election in one year’s time. Consequent to any rational analysis of the current situation and its antecedents (with sanity its only bias) one shudders to contemplate the prospects, given the latest polls and reading some of the reportage.

Isn’t it interesting that the two years since October 7, laden with events of enormous magnitude and existential impact on both direct combatants, as well as arguably the entire world, have failed to significantly change the political landscape? Yes there has been a minor shift in popularity – Likud down; The National Unity party up – with “minor” (most disturbingly) portending a great deal more than “shift”.  With all the widely acknowledged data about the failures of vision and tactics, as well as the cynical exploitation of political and religious fealty that ought to have zero impact on matters of security and survival, there is no evident groundswell of the kind that repeatedly brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets, both before and after October 7, 2023. What a shame, and what a shameful reflection on the so called wisdom of the electorate.

To all my fellow Israelis I call out: the atrocities of October 7 (and it’s aftermath in the Hamas dungeons) cannot be undone, just as is true in the case of the Holocaust’s horrors. The ongoing horrors and injustice in Gaza (and in the West Bank!), as well as the internal calumnies and injustice advanced by the current coalition, CAN be stopped, and mercifully still mitigated somewhat. This will obviously not happen with the current coalition, or with any bastardized offspring that may still wheel and deal its way to eventually destroying any semblance of democracy still remaining in Israel. Not so obviously, but almost equally likely, this will not happen under the auspices of any currently foreseeable coalition of “centrist” parties that will call the shots regardless of their reliance on the support of the few progressives. Meaningful, life-saving, change will only happen when a foreseeable coalition is prompted by the numerical force of a new Justice party, which should count on the support of all those who marched in protest against corruption and injustice. Current leadership of the “centrist” parties appears, without exception, intent on governing with eyes (and mindset) fixated on the rear-view mirror. We must elect leadership intent on learning from the past, but being determined to focus on constructively dealing with the present, with an eye to a different, and realistic, future.

This dramatic change of direction requires a change of vision of which, sadly, current centrist prime ministerial aspirants are incapable. Just listen to them in order to confirm this truth!  This change of vision can only come from open minds, and new voices, selected from the leadership of the protest movement, and not from the tired and tiresome collection of old-timers.    And although one can predict the counter arguments – “siphoning votes from the left and centre”; “little appeal to the rightists and die-hard religionists” – there is a preemptive argument that ought to override such justifiable concerns.      The new “Justice party” would target its constructive and optimistic message at all those uncommitted, disgusted, and apathetic, eligible voters, some of whom would surely not otherwise be motivated to vote at all. And, most specifically, the young who have not been eligible to vote previously, or unmotivated to do so earlier because no one else had articulated a vision calculated to inspire them in a future that current policies could not guarantee for Israel.                                     Israeli voters must harness all the frustration, pain, and anger that repeatedly brought you out to the streets, in order to force a dramatic change in the way Israel is governed, and the way it interacts with Palestinians everywhere.

Isn’t it time to relinquish the old-fashioned way of thinking? Can no one fathom the fact that beating the Palestinians to submission, and transforming them into compliant subjugates will not happen – will not be allowed to happen, even by formerly unstintingly and uncritical allies. Israel cannot suffer the re-election of anything resembling current and recent governments, functioning primarily for the benefit of old crooks, and of dogmatists hawking biblical nonsense to advance dangerous schemes that will kill democracy first, and Israel soon thereafter.

Israelis have the opportunity, the duty, to stop the injustice perpetrated on our society by our own government, and that which is continuously perpetrated on Palestinians, disingenuously in our name. The only way to do it is with the political pressure engendered by a broadly supported new political party that will hold the balance of power and wield it for the benefit of the people. There is time, and there are the means, including the infrastructure of the protest movement, to create a Justice (for all) party to contest the upcoming election. Anything else may spell doom.