Leadership Is Tested by Hard Choices: The Change Bloc Must Form a Government

Photo: Nitzan Shorer, Dan Hadani Collection, National Library of Israel, CC BY 4.0P

The citizens of Israel streamed to the polls in great numbers to bring relief to the distress in which the country has found itself for far too long.

The citizens spoke their minds in the clearest possible way: the Netanyahu government has finished its term!

True, the situation now is not simple, and it differs from what the polls showed up to Election Day. But this is reality, and we must deal with it.

To halt the country’s continued deterioration at home and abroad, the Change Bloc must form a government as quickly as possible – to send the government of destruction home and to give hope to the citizens of Israel, and to the country itself, which finds itself in a difficult position in the world.

Israel’s Arab citizens are citizens of the state in every respect, and they cannot be excluded from the country’s decision-making. The treatment of Arab citizens by the government of destruction is racism and discrimination bordering on apartheid, and it runs counter to every democratic-liberal conception.

What is deeply troubling is that it is precisely the religious parties of the extreme right that lead the racism against Arabs in every sphere – even though such racism contradicts the very spirit of the Jewish religion. One need only read the Book of Leviticus (the Torah portions Kedoshim, Emor and Behar) to understand how a Jew is obliged to treat the stranger. Here is a brief reminder for those who read the weekly Torah portion every Sabbath – perhaps they have forgotten:

1. “And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:10)
2. “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong.” (Leviticus 19:33)
3. “The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:34)
4. “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corner of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest; thou shalt leave them for the poor, and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 23:22)
5. “Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for the home-born; for I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 24:22)
6. “And the sabbath-produce of the land shall be for food for you: for thee, and for thy servant and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant and for the settler by thy side that sojourn with thee.” (Leviticus 25:6)
7. “And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is Mine; for ye are strangers and settlers with Me.” (Leviticus 25:23)

Abraham our father, to whom and to whose descendants the Land was promised, behaves with great humility when he comes to buy the Cave of Machpelah, and says to the children of Heth: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” (Genesis 23:4). Yet now, those who have appointed themselves God’s emissaries on earth regard themselves as the masters of the Land – both toward the Arab citizens of the state and toward the Jews who do not share their racist outlook.

Netanyahu has served as prime minister for a total of almost twenty years – longer than any prime minister before him. This is exceptional by any measure. Power corrupts, and great power held for a long time corrupts sevenfold. Here we can learn from the United States: George Washington set the custom of serving only two terms, and in 1951 the limit was enshrined in the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution – and not without reason. They understood that a longer tenure is liable to bring about decline and corruption in the conduct of the ruler.

The deterioration of our country, to the point of endangering the destruction of the Third Temple, stems from Netanyahu’s prolonged rule, which has brought about moral corruption and ruin at home and abroad. Therefore, Netanyahu must end his term – and that is what the citizens of Israel said in this election.

Today Netanyahu rules his government without restraint, and his government has absolute control over the Knesset. Through the regime overhaul, they seek to control the Supreme Court as well, and they are quite close to achieving this. That would make Netanyahu a sole ruler – a dictator – and would bring about the end of the state.

The Netanyahu government, composed of the most extreme right in the country, has brought indescribable ruin upon our country:

• It deliberately brought upon us the regime overhaul, which divided the nation and was perceived by our enemies as weakness – and in its wake came the disaster of October 7, the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
• It has dragged education down to a dismal level – our children’s results in the OECD’s PISA tests are below the average of the developed countries in reading comprehension, mathematics and science.
• It has reduced Israel’s international standing to that of a pariah state, from which many nations are distancing themselves, and which is approaching sanctions similar to those imposed on South Africa.
• The lawlessness it permits in Judea and Samaria toward the Arab residents there is intolerable; this is not how a Jewish state conducts itself.
• The intolerable situation into which this government has brought us is causing the best of our sons and daughters (doctors, scientists, high-tech professionals and others) to leave the country – a danger both to the security and to the economy of the state’s continued existence.

Space does not permit listing all of this government’s failures and wrongs.

Therefore, this government must end its term as quickly as possible, so that we can begin to repair the grave situation into which the country and its citizens have fallen.

And therefore, the Change Bloc must pull itself together, read reality, and act immediately to swear in a government with the majority it holds. Yes – together with the Arab parties: they are legitimate partners in government, since they represent about one-fifth of the country’s citizens. And let no one be confused – Netanyahu himself would have brought them into his government without hesitation had they been willing to go with him (as he tried to do with Ra’am in 2021); now he is trying to ostracize them.

This is the place to remind the leader of the Likud movement and his colleagues of the words of Ze’ev Jabotinsky.

In his book The Jewish War Front (1940), in the chapter “The Arab Problem Without Dramatics,” Ze’ev Jabotinsky – leader of the Revisionist movement, the parent movement from which the Herut movement (the forerunner of the Likud) emerged – writes:

“In every Cabinet where the Prime Minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall be offered to an Arab, and vice versa.”

“Proportional sharing by Jews and Arabs both of the burdens and of the benefits of the State – this rule shall apply to parliamentary elections, to the civil and military service, and to budgetary grants.”

Here it is also fitting – indeed obligatory – to recall the words of Israel’s Declaration of Independence:

“The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

“We appeal – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”

In conclusion:

If we, the citizens of Israel, want the good of our country, its continued existence and its prosperity, we must integrate here in the Middle East, home to hundreds of millions of Arabs. The examples are before us: the peace with Egypt, which has held for almost fifty years; the peace with Jordan, which has held for more than thirty years; and the Abraham Accords. This is the path on which we must advance. Advancing on this path means finally resolving the Palestinian problem, and integrating the Arab citizens of the state as citizens with equal rights, just as Jabotinsky and the Declaration of Independence said. The results of this election are probably an excellent opportunity to take a serious step forward in integrating the state’s Arab citizens into its decision-making. May it be so!