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Adam Gross

Israel’s only political path to unity and recovery

Israel needs a political pathway to unity and recovery

As Tisha b’Av demands the strengthening of our commitment to Jewish unity, and love without limits (‘ahavat hinam’), now is a better time than any to reassess a key root cause of our disunity – Israel’s reckless and poisonous politics.

What are Israel’s political pathways going forward?

There are four pathways, and only one leads to unity and recovery.

Pathway Onedespite widespread calls for new elections, the coalition can choose to carry on. There is nothing but their consciences to stop them. I think they will, and I think they will succeed. Ideologues within the coalition will continue to push polarising legislation in a spirit of hatred and revenge, G-d forbid, including a new attempt at judicial reform. The opposition will scale up protests, G-d forbid, without taking time to listen and understand the periphery, traditional and religious voters that support the coalition parties. No lessons learned. The vast majority of Israeli politicians, on all sides, really seem to be that bullheaded and shortsighted. We will be back to October 6th, G-d forbid.

This is, sadly, the default pathway, but it is a pathway of further death and destruction, G-d forbid.

Pathway Twothe coalition heeds the call and Israel goes to elections. It will be the most bitter and divisive election campaign in Israel’s history (and there’s quite some competition). All the trauma of October 7th and its aftermath, all the blame games, will be channeled into a negative, inciteful campaign, G-d forbid, where more hatred is directed at each other than at the genocidal enemies waiting at the gate. Israel’s degraded political class has shown it cannot campaign with the dignity, respect and responsibility that is fitting for the Jewish people. The new coalition – of whichever side, if it can be formed – will have to respond to their vote base with policies that are, G-d forbid, more divisive than ever.

We do not need elections like these.

Pathway Threethe opposition succeeds in peeling off the five members of the coalition necessary to collapse the government and form a new coalition. On the surface, this seems like a unifying path. But in reality, it is no less divisive than pathways one and two, and may even be more so. What are the major intra-Jewish fault-lines in the country? Religious versus secular. Ashkenazi versus Mizrachi. Center versus periphery. And who are those defectors the opposition hopes to peel off? Secular Ashkenazim from Israel’s center. This ‘betrayal’ would, G-d forbid, entrench bitterness among the periphery, traditional and religious voters that elected this coalition, exacerbating the underlying causes of division and hatred.

Again, G-d forbid, it is also the way back to October 6th.

Pathway Foura national unity government. One party – with the power to drive the formation of a national unity government – sets out terms for the formation of a government that is committed first and foremost to an agenda of unity and recovery. Any other party that agrees to those terms, subject to negotiation in good faith, can join the national unity government.

This is the only way out of Israel’s division and hatred – let us look at this option in more detail.

What does a national unity government need to do?

For a government to be truly about national unity and recovery, firstly it needs to include, represent and build consensus across Israel’s fault-lines – Mizrachim with Ashkenazim, religious with secular, periphery with center. To that should be added, Arab with Jew.

To achieve what Israelis, and the Jewish people, need of it, a national unity government must be more than a sticking plaster. It must provide the political cover for a period of deep listening to existing grievances and for the emergence of genuinely creative thinking that goes beyond existing zero-sum questions to address the wide range of difficult challenges that Israel faces today: the war and its ‘day after’; the Haredi draft; Jewish-Arab relations within Israel; judicial and constitutional reform; settlement; a more inclusive development trajectory for Israel’s periphery, including the recovery of the North and the Gaza envelope; the strengthening of Israel’s economy; and the reset and professionalisation of Israel’s international relations.

How can it be achieved?

The first and main requirement is to identify which party can lead the country into national unity. A separate question then becomes, who would participate in the national unity government.

By process of elimination, Shas is the only party that can force a national unity outcome.

Let us look at the other options.

It cannot be Likud. Whatever one’s opinion of PM Netanyahu, rightly or wrongly, he is not trusted by many of the parties that need to be brought into the big national unity tent. And Likud is not about to jettison the prime minister as its leader – experience shows, no one else has the stature within Likud to rival him.

It cannot be Religious Zionism or Otzma Yehudit. Their platforms are purposely ideological and uncompromising.

Also it cannot be United Torah Judaism, for the most part non-Zionist, as a parochial party with an aversion to government beyond issues relevant to its own community.

And it cannot be any of the opposition parties. They have no power to force a national unity outcome.

That leaves Shas. It has the power – enough seats in the knesset to sustain or collapse the coalition – to force this outcome. And it also has the motivation:

  1. A Zionist party that has shown the responsibility to understand when “clal yisrael” comes ahead of parochial interests.
  2. A party of pragmatism and moderation that has proven in the past it can work with all sides of the political spectrum.
  3. A party whose leadership can bridge Israel’s fault-lines by breaking Israel’s most important ‘glass ceiling’ – the first Mizrachi prime minister.
  4. A party in which, ‘hidden within plain sight’, is a rare diamond among Israel’s degraded political class, one who has shown capacity to bring to Israel a new governance style with emphasis on service and outcome, one who can inspire the country with honest, principled and inclusive leadership, building trust and unity within Israel, and changing minds around the world.

This leader must now show the strength and courage to take action for the sake of Israel and the Jewish people at this pivotal moment. 

About the Author
Adam Gross is a strategist that specialises in solving complex problems in the international arena. Adam made aliyah with his family in 2019 to live in northern Israel.
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