My message to likud voters

As a new oleh, I take my opportunity to vote in the upcoming election as a profound privilege and responsibility. I have researched the platforms of several competing parties and attended 5 different house parties where candidates for Knesset representing 4 different political parties spoke and answered questions. I’ve initiated conversations with strangers and with almost every Israeli that I know and have intentionally met with new Israeli friends over beer in the evening to hear the issues that are important to them and their perspectives on the competing parties.

Everyone across the spectrum seems to agree that it is simply unsustainable to allow the Haredi to continue to avoid national service while everyone else’s children serve in the Army and most of the country does extensive reserve duty. Yet the situation continued throughout the four years of the prior Likud government even after October 7 and the prolonged war in Gaza made the need for more soldiers desperate. We all know the reason why the government did not change the policy.   Let’s be honest about it. It was simply because Netanyahu required the support of the Haredi parties to stay in power.

October 7 was the worst single largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It was also an enormous security failure. We still don’t know the truth about how it happened that Israel was caught so unprepared. Most honorable leaders would have taken responsibility for a failure of that magnitude that happened on their watch and resigned. Netanyahu did not resign in part simply because he is not an honorable leader. He has resisted the formation of an independent commission of inquiry to discover the reasons for the intelligence failure.

Netanyahu stayed in power after the October 7 massacre when Israel seemed incapable of effectively responding to the vile antisemitic propaganda that has subsequently swept the world. Who else is to blame for that except for his government and leadership.

I recently attended an event where two Knesset candidates from Ofer Winter’s Amcha Yisrael party spoke. One of them very eloquently declared that everyone responsible for the October 7 intelligence failure should leave office and yet affirmed his party’s intent to join a coalition with Likud as long as the new coalition was committed to ending the Haredi draft exemptions.

I stood and asked two related questions. 1) How could he square the circle and imagine that there would be a new Likud led government that did not also include the Haredi who would of course still demand continued exemption from the draft as condition for their participation? and even more importantly; 2) wasn’t supporting the same exact people responsible for the failures that led to October 7 and thinking they would do better this time with four new members in their coalition just an example of the famous quote (often though falsely attributed to Albert Einstein) that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

I met for beers one evening with a friend who was considering voting for Likud “despite his misgivings” about Netanyahu’s culpability for the intelligence failure that led to October 7 he worried that none of the other candidates for Prime Minister had the experience to lead the incredible military that we need to defend ourselves. I asked him why he seemed to give Netanyahu credit for being a brilliant military strategist when there were other candidates for prime minister who had actually been generals in that very army and Netanyahu’s strength has always been in politics and communication.

I have heard Netanyahu himself try to scare voters by calling the opposition “left wing” but seriously, why would anyone consider Lieberman or Bennett or Eisenkot to be “left wing”. Do you think that Netanyahu even believes his own lies or is he just saying whatever he thinks will help win the election. On what issue are they more left wing than you?

None of them currently supports the formation of a Palestinian state in either Gaza or the West Bank. I have heard Netanyahu trying to scare people by saying that the opposition will form a coalition with the Arab parties (as if that will be an existential threat to Israel) when there at least two other important truths to consider. 1) It is Netanyahu who has formed and will form a government with an anti-Zionist group (the Haredi) who will insist on policies contrary to Israel’s best interests as the price for their participation and 2) Avigdor Lieberman and his right wing Yisrael Beiteinu party have made clear that they will not join in any coalition that includes Arab parties. Personally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with allowing Ra’am to have a role in the government as long as their policy influence is restricted to support for services (police, roads, schools etc.) in their communities. But that coalition won’t happen anyway because we know that Lieberman refuses to consider it.

Netanyahu is brilliantly distracting people from the existential threat of his continued partnership with the Haredi by raising the specter of a left-wing coalition with the Arab parties that simply is not going to happen. Once again, he is lying. Need I ask if you think he knows that he is lying and just saying what he thinks will scare you into voting for him. Of course he is lying to scare people into voting for him. Does it even matter at this point?

I have not even yet mentioned the disgraceful situation of the settlers being allowed to terrorize innocent Palestinians who have done nothing wrong but want to stay on the land that we share with them. If you support allowing the setters to continue to terrorize innocent Palestinians, then nothing I say will matter to you, and you will probably be voting for Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party. But if you are just a regular Israeli who is considering voting for Likud because you are concerned about Netanyahu’s lie that Eisenkot will form a government with Mansour Abbas and his Ra’am party I ask you to consider this and vote strategically.

I still do not believe that Eisenkot will be able to form a governing coalition with Abbas even if he wants to because Lieberman will not agree to it. But the only scenario where that is even possible is if the change coalition comes a few votes short of the 61 seats it needs for a majority. Make that unnecessary by giving your vote to one of the center right parties or perhaps vote instead for Ofer Winter’s Amcha Yisrael in the hope that they will join a center right coalition government with Eisenkot as prime minister.

We all love Israel and want to keep it a strong democratic Jewish country.

There are problems that desperately need to be fixed, and those problems were created and exacerbated by Netanyahu’s government. It is time for a change. Israel can be better. We can be unified. It’s time for a post Netanyahu government.

Israel needs a new government that will be honest with its people, that will enforce basic laws and Jewish decency on those settlers who commit criminal assaults on innocent Palestinians. It certainly needs a government that will improve the education system for all, require the Haredi to perform national service in return for the benefits of citizenship and will require the Haredi schools that receive public funding to teach the children basic core areas such as science and math so that they have a chance to grow to become productive citizens.

This is an existential time for our country. We need to change the path that we are on and we need new leadership. Please don’t let your fears force you to repeat prior mistakes. Don’t believe the lies that Netanyahu has told to stoke your fears. We can be better.