Israel Needs A National Unity Government

No one in their right mind actually believes that we have a National Unity Government, even if Bibi and Ganz protest to the contrary.

One can fling around the term as much as one likes, but we all know that the current government’s primary concern is to prop up Benjamin Netanyahu and take care of the sectarian interests of its components.

How else can one explain the fact that the swimming pool in our friend’s apartment block has been closed down, but mikvaot continue to function as normal? Why should people be able to protest in their thousands close to the prime minister’s residence, while only 30 people are allowed to pray outside a synagogue?

The truth is that the government is in shambles, and contradictory and illogical regulations as to what is permitted and what forbidden have led people to take the law into their own hands. They don’t trust our political leaders and rightly so.

We are required to remain within a kilometre of our homes, but those participating in protests can travel to Jerusalem and Caesarea. How are the police going to be able to determine whether people are driving to work or going to visit friends?

What Israel desperately needs at this time when people’s very survival and financial welfare are in jeopardy is a National Unity Government, whose principal task apart from meeting Israel’s security needs is to address these two issues.

Such a government should include all sectors of Israeli society including Israel’s Arab citizens many of whom are on the front line in our hospitals dealing with corona patients. The only condition for joining such a government should be the preparedness to set sectarian interests aside until life returns to normal. That is what we would expect in times of war and that is what we need now.

Only then will people feel that they have a government that can be trusted and respected.