Election Day — Our Fourth One

Election days in Israel are semi-holidays. But holidays are supposed to be fun. I find no fun in our elections and I dread the day when one is announced.

I voted in our April elections and was bitterly disappointed at the results. We ended up as a nation without a government.

Weeks before the September second election day I was overseas and purposely flew back home to Israel to cast a slip of paper into a blue colored box. What a wasted trip home! More disappointment and still no government.

Gantz and Netanyahu cannot agree on terms for joining a unity coalition government. Gantz wants the haredim out and Bibi wants to keep them in. Gantz insists that Netanyahu enter election solely representing the Likud party. Netanyahu will not separate himself from the bloc which includes ultra-Orthodox members. Too many of them.

So at this unhappy time in our society nothing has been achieved and nothing looks promising.

So I have decided not to vote in our probably third election in a few months.

Rather, I will wait to cast my ballot again in the fourth election. By that time my gray hair will have turned snow-white as I ponder my decision which of the dwarfs to vote for.

I must, of course, refuse to bite the beautiful red apple offered to me by the witch of Balfour street who, together with her loud-mouth elder son offers a quid pro quo. Vote for “him” and get a free apple.

If “he” were elected, the apples would turn into apple-sauce, a loosely held together of a loose concoction, perfect for a loose government with no power to govern.

Benny Gantz will either win (hopefully) or lose (chas v’chalila) without my vote. Other thousands of well-intended citizens will make the decision with a view to terrible days on the way on the yom ha-din, Bibi’s Day of Judgment.

Perhaps a miracle could happen. Imagine if our President Reuven Rivlin were to use his presidential power to declare himself our new Prime Minister and surrender the Office of President to a respected law-maker and Knesset member, someone as ideal as Gidon Sa’ar.

We then would have an outstanding prime minister and an admired president. A government at last ! They say miracles do still happen in Israel !

Our “second-class” citizens, the Israeli Arabs (make no mistake regarding their status in the Jewish state) will be content with both men, men of integrity, who will treat them as equals in our Knesset.

In pre-war anti-Semitic Poland, the Sejm (Polish Parliament) had a Jewish member sitting among the many Poles, most whom disliked a Jewish presence. But the Jewish member was treated cordially and with respect.

We need to take a lesson from the anti-Semitic Poles. The anti-Arab members of Knesset must treat their Arab fellow members with cordiality and respect. It may herald the coming of the Messiah !

The Trump-Kushner proposed and yet un-announced Peace Plan has not intimated its intentions in spite of the fact that Jews and Palestinians will reject it a priori.

Rumor has it that with guidance of Jared Kushner, Trump’s right-hand man, and David Friedman, the American ambassador to Jerusalem, there may be a mention of one-state rather than two.

The impossibility of it is due to the fact that the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs out-number the Jews and our Jewish State would no longer be Jewish.

We may have good cause in the near future to reject the terms of the peace plan.

In the meantime, I refuse to vote in the third election. I am saving my energy for the fourth one !

Oy vey !!