Loud-Mouthed Dudi Amsalem

It’s not surprising that Israel has become such a divided country with people like Dudi Amsalem in power.

During the Likud faction’s meeting this week, the first since the outbreak of war, Amsalem remarked: “If the government falls, the Left will come to power and they’re Bolsheviks”.

Israel is fighting a war brought upon us by a total misconception of whom the Hamas are. The government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu wrongly believed that they could be bought off with money from Qatar and allowing Palestinians from Gaza to work in Israel. We are now all paying the price for that mistake.

As a former tank commander, Amsalem ought to know better than to refer to his fellow Israelis as Bolsheviks, particularly when they are out there on the frontlines risking their lives in defence of our country.

The Bolsheviks were, of course, the members of the Communist party, who seized power in Russia following the 1917 revolution.

Amsalem has been involved in Israeli politics since the early 1990’s and knows the scene well enough to recognize that the very survival of the Left is far from guaranteed. Meretz failed to pass the threshold in the 2022 elections and Labour’s future is far from guaranteed with only four seats in the current Knesset.

Irrespective of one’s political views, that is unfortunate, because a healthy democracy demands a robust opposition.

Amsalem’s scare-mongering that the Bolsheviks will come to power is, of course, nonsense. The only possible comparison between them and the current situation is that the present government could potentially be overthrown by its opponents once this war is over.

Not only did Bibi fail to understand Hamas’s game plan, but his coalition has also been slow in meeting the needs of hundreds of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes, and addressing the financial distress of farmers and small businesses struggling to survive.

If that leads to the collapse of the present government and the likes of Dudi Amsalem going into Opposition, that can only be good for Israel.