Reflections on the election

Before the days of digital GPS maps I got lost on the wrong side of Dublin trying to get to the airport. I stopped to ask someone for directions and in prefect ironic Irish humour I was told “I wouldn’t start from here.” It feels like an appropriate metaphor for the election results. But it’s not funny and we have no alternative choice but to start from here. The question is where do we go, and who do we go with. Wherever there may be.

I take the simple but not naïve view that peace is better than war having had personal experience of both. That sometimes it’s easier to find peace with my external enemies than within my own family, as a family broigas is one of the few diseases that continues after death. That principles matter but can be complicated when the principals involved, like Bibi, have no principles that they wouldn’t sacrifice for their own expediency and personal needs.

I probably spent too much time in Tel Aviv and picked up the energy for change and not enough in Kiryat Shimona where the electorate seem to think that the architect of forever wars also has the solution for peace by interpreting that not as peace but as a  piece of all the surrounding countries and land and by keeping our enemies further away ,that will bring peace.  The asymmetric war of home-made rockets and drones seem to contradict that point of view. And I am not sure we would have gone to war in 1967 or 1973 for the sake of lebensraum. We went to war to defend ourselves not so that settler immigrants can nearly 60 years later behave like terrorists by usurping the land from the locals they don’t like.

Down to tachlis. What is the best way forward and what are the options. First, it’s better than it feels and looks. When accused by a woke person (remember them) some years ago that I did not understand the science of critical race theory (CRT) and therefore was ignorant of my own prejudices I replied by paraphrasing Karl Popper and Eric Fromm and that CRT is not science but just a non-sense theory and  that I not only understood my own prejudices but can articulate them quite well. Particularly to people who expound their theories as fact and their moral indignation at my beliefs permits their hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. Have you met the UK Green party.

Having got that off my chest this is how I see the options for a better future. There is precedent to think that Bibi cannot be trusted not to renege or manipulate any deal he agrees to. Therefore, there needs to be a heavy price to pay if he does anything like this again. A sword of Damocles over his head that will chop it off if he fails to follow what he has agreed.

Eisenkot and the others may need to hold their noses and make an agreement with the devil or Bibi as he is known to his friends. They got outmanoeuvred pre-election by Bibis hate and fear agenda and to placate their more right-wing voters by putting  themselves in a corner by stating no deal with the Israeli Arabs and the idea of two state solution has passed and to placate their left-wing supporters by saying no deal with the extreme religious Zionists. On the basis that there has never been a one-party government this has left them with no choice other than to do a deal with Likud, the religious or the Arab parties . Which is the pragmatic solution, which is the wise one. Any such choice dents some of their principles although they are on record as saying somewhere if needs must. And needs must.

The deal could be this if they go with Likud. Netanyahu will insist on being Prime Minister for the first year. It allows him to buy time and to manipulate around the others. Never underestimate him. This must be conditional on two things. First the Oct 7^th enquiry starts the next day and as it just may find Netanyahu implicated and with some responsibility , unless someone else was PM then . Its mandate and finding can be over 2 years or under 1 depending on how he behaves. Second his presidential pardon will depend on this and be conditional on it as well. Otherwise, it’s back to court on those accusations and the court of public opinion if the oct 7^th enquiry finds some link between allowing Qatar to give cash to Hamas to buy weapons, being PM at the time of the murders and that it’s the fault of everyone else because he was asleep at that time. Indeed, he was!

Odious as doing a deal with Netanyahu is the more complex issue is doing a deal with the Arabs. Again, there is precedent .Arab parties have twice formally taken part in the government. Irrespective they will have 19 seats in the Knesset that is nearly 16% of all seats. This means they are relevant even if not directly part of the government. Raam is considered the more moderate of the two Arab political groupings. It has disavowed its historic links to more fundamental Islam and even has Jewish members. Problem is even together with the Eisenkot group it falls short of a majority of 61. The other Arab groups is The Party List. Their views can cause heartache to Jewish Israelis post Oct 7^th. The real stumbling block is they have not and apparently will not declare Hamas a terrorist organisation. Well neither does the BBC . Who seem to think they are militants like some British trade union from the 1970s. Unlike Hamas I don’t remember them murdering, kidnapping and raping people. Language matters but facts on the ground and peace matter more.

Then there is the complex cop out. Lieberman will never agree to a deal with the Arabs but seems to be changing his tune over a deal with the religious. Question is which religious parties . The hardline nationalists of Smotrich and Ben Gvir are perhaps beyond the pale but despite not really serving themselves in the IDF their followers do. The less political Haredi parties are more concerned with their own parochial issues and maintaining subsidies for torah students. Shas argues internally about IDF service while UTJ remain opposed. And a few haredi do volunteer to serve. Maybe there is a compromise. Serve by pikuach nefesh ( saving a life) they can serve in a hospice, hospital, old age home or similar that allows them time to do good and follow their prayers and teaching.

To reflect a reality and not just a theory of democracy in Israel it feels intuitively to people like me and those that think alike that 20% of the population holding 16% of the seats should be part of the government. This could be the least bad deal in the absence of any really good deal. It shows Israel as the only broad working democracy in the middle east and probably starts very quietly behind closed doors before any trust can be built. What I mean by that is there will be no loud public agreements or statements. Just a very basic working agreement to start with on a few things both can agree to support something. We all want to keep Netanyahu . Ben Gvir , Smotrich and most of the extreme nationalists out of power. May be some of the funds spent on subsiding the Torah studies of those that don’t work , fight, or even recognise the secular state be spent on the Arab community. Real help to stop Arab gang warfare . A really big issue for the Arab community. In return they would vote against any attempts to pass a no confidence motion, help change the speaker and ensure that the law and judiciary remains independent from political interference and pick and chose what they would support and what they wouldn’t.

Perhaps Eisenkot can somehow keep his current coalition, bring in the religious with conditions, the Arabs without terms and conditions but a basic understanding and above all keep Bibi out.

Is any of the above going to happen. I honestly don’t know .But to me at least it would be a real step in the right direction to a more coherent and pluralistic solution.  A rebuttal to the Jew haters slogan of Apartheid and a first step towards an external solution that can lead to some form of Palestinian entity and an end or at least a slowing down of the forever war that Israel has been fighting since the 1940s. It may not be the best place to start from but we have no other choice to get where we need to.