Caroline Glick – Misses The Mark This Time

I have a lot of respect for Caroline Glick and frequently agree with her. However, in a recent column she wrote “The Israeli left is far from dead” because the right-religious bloc (without Likud) will not have enough votes and will need to join with the left to form a government. This will give the left, which today has very little public support, the leverage to advance their ideological and political goals.

She proceeds to prove her point by illustrations from the Supreme Court which has decided that they have the power to overrule the Knesset while ignoring public sentiment. On this I certainly agree with her. However, she doesn’t have a solution to the opposite problem: Netanyahu rules the country as king and dictator and instead of implementing a means of succession, he has cut the legs off anyone who dares to disagree with him. (I certainly appreciate much that Netanyahu has contributed to the success of the country in the past but that doesn’t mean that he is still succeeding.)

I have written previously, that Israel needs to institute term limits for the prime minister position. Without such limits, the PM thinks of himself as the king and beheads any that threaten his power. His abuse of power is, in reality (though opposite ideologically) no different than that of the Supreme Court justices. In both cases those in power have total disregard for the interests of the voters. With term limits, there would be some likelihood that the PM would groom a successor to continue in the path he envisioned.

So the solution to Ms. Glick’s predicament of the right being forced to accept the left into the government, is rather simple. The right would win easily if Netanyahu stepped down. No one is indispensable, not even Bibi! When I saw that Ze’ev Elkin left the party, it clinched it for me. I’ve found Elkin to be intelligent and forthright, and he doesn’t seek the limelight. He was Bibi’s right hand man and for him to bolt the party is very telling. Likud, the right, and the country would be better off with a new leader on the right.