P4 Amcha Yisrael – it’s all about the people

As promised in my last post, this time I want to write about some of the people we met at an Amcha Yisrael (עמך ישראל) chug bayit (parlour meeting).

On the evening we met Ofer Winter, Netali Shem Tov, Sigal Kraunik-Atia, Alam Ibrahim and Moshe Har Zion.

I was surprised to meet so many of the party’s members in a single evening, and it was good to see the warmth and respect between them. The party makes a point of the fact that its members come from all over the country: Netali from Metula in the far north, Sigal from Be’eri in the south. That may sound like a slogan, but one of Israel’s real problems is that there is no regional representation in the Knesset, especially after all the reshuffling that happens once a Knesset is sworn in. Personally, I found it refreshing.

Ofer Winter

The evening opened with Ofer, who speaks with real passion. He comes across as someone who thinks differently, is idealistic and doesn’t give up. My guess, and some of this is public knowledge, is that his “different thinking” didn’t always sit well with the prevailing groupthink in the chain of command at the time. In 2015 he received a defence R&D award for creativity from MAFAT. He served under Chiefs of Staff Ashkenazi, Gantz and Eisenkot, and in 2018 became military secretary to the defence minister, serving Lieberman, Netanyahu and Bennett. According to Ofer, he was offered a senior place on the Likud list but turned it down, saying he had no interest in being a puppet within Likud.

Netali Shem Tov

Next was Netali Shem Tov from Metula. With a background in journalism (former Channel 13 news anchor), she brings deep knowledge from the field, and she too says she turned down offers from bigger parties. Most of her speech focused on organised crime, protection rackets and the intolerable conditions many people live under. Northern Israel is hit particularly hard: protection rackets affect businesses not only in Arab villages but in Jewish communities as well. It is widely known where in the north much of this activity is run from, yet clearly nobody has got to grips with it. Closely related is the problem of illegal weapons, not only in Judea and Samaria but within Israel proper. By some estimates up to 100,000 illegal firearms are in the wrong hands, and God forbid they are ever turned on Israeli communities or civilians in a repeat of the Guardian of the Walls (Shomer HaChomot) riots.

Sigal Kraunik-Atia

We then had the privilege of hearing Sigal Kraunik-Atia, surely the most powerful speech of the evening. Her husband, Arik Kraunik, was the security coordinator of Kibbutz Be’eri and was killed on October 7th. That morning Ofer, who held no post at the time, drove down from the Galilee with his personal weapon and went to fight around Be’eri. It was he who found Arik’s body and evacuated it. Sigal, who did not know what had happened to her husband, learned from an interview with Ofer what he had done, and was able to locate the body and bury him. She spoke about the destruction she witnessed, about friends who were murdered, and about a close friend who is still in rehabilitation three years later, whose baby was shot in the head while she was holding it.

Her passion and determination shone through: never to forget, never to let Israel repeat the same security mistakes, and to remember who the enemy truly is. It is human nature to forget; pain fades, and people make mistakes, sometimes the same ones twice. Some opposition politicians today speak the way many people spoke before October 7th. We must stay on guard, remember the victims and not repeat those mistakes. We badly need people who won’t accept the existing solutions and old ways of thinking, and who will think outside the box.

Final thoughts

With the election on 27 October, there isn’t long to decide. From the brief but genuine words and the passion of the people we met that evening, I’m confident that if you’re looking for something different, this group has stepped up to offer it. As for policy and what is realistically achievable, I’ll come to that in part 5.