Remember Ahead of the Upcoming Elections: Beware of the ‘Hendels’
According to the chairman of the “Reservists’ Party,” the deputy director of Rambam Hospital—who has treated wounded soldiers for years—is somehow unfit to sit at the decision-making table. Yoaz Hendel brings nothing but a pleasant illusion wrapped in the language of “sanity,” an illusion that ultimately leads to yet another Netanyahu victory. His arguments are simple, hollow, and built on the idea that “Zionism” means nothing more than a white Jewish man in uniform.
Anyone who didn’t watch Friday night’s news broadcast may not grasp what we’re talking about. The deputy director of Rambam Hospital, an Arab-Israeli citizen, stood in front of the cameras, speaking with calm authority: six wounded IDF soldiers had been rushed into surgery, and medical teams—Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians—were fighting for their lives side by side. No flags. No slogans. Just a basic human commitment to preserving life. So simple.
This same doctor, who saves the lives of Israeli soldiers week after week, is precisely the person Yoaz Hendel doesn’t want near the government’s decision-making table. He is “not Zionist enough.” He belongs to the minority, the “sector,” the twenty percent of this country’s citizens who are worthy of working, paying taxes, healing, building—but God forbid they should participate in decisions affecting their own lives.
Who appointed you, Yoaz Hendel, to determine who deserves full civic partnership?
Behind Hendel’s worldview lies the same old blend of condescension, racism, and small-minded politics.
Hendel is an intelligent, well-educated man, with a strong security background and significant experience in public communication—indeed, communication he honed while serving in Benjamin Netanyahu’s Prime Minister’s Office. He knows how to craft precise sentences, he photographs well, and in recent years he has cultivated a public image as “the reasonable man of the right.”
But there is a problem: behind this image lies the same tired mix of elitism, exclusion, and political maneuvering.
Voters who cast their ballot for Hendel in the upcoming elections risk wasting their vote on a party unlikely to pass the electoral threshold—and even if it does, it is almost certain to hand Netanyahu the premiership once again, blocking any alternative government.
How do I know? In one of the 2019 election cycles, at a moment when a historic opportunity emerged to form an alternative government that could halt democratic backsliding, Hendel and his political partner Tzvika Hauser sat in TV studios declaring they would not join with “non-Zionist” parties. And they didn’t merely talk.
According to their party leader at the time, Benny Gantz—who was poised to become prime minister—the two made it clear they would block such a coalition. The result: they prevented the formation of a blocking majority with Mansour Abbas, fractured the anti-Netanyahu bloc, and ultimately, after yet another election, handed Netanyahu the premiership on a silver platter.
Their argument was simple—and empty.
“I support Zionist parties only,” Hendel said in one form or another, as though “Zionism” were the exclusive property of right-wing parties, as though Zionism means only being a Jewish, Ashkenazi man in uniform.
But reality is far more complex. Twenty percent of this country’s citizens are Arab. They build the homes in which Hendel and his supporters live. They care for his family in hospitals and clinics. They are engineers, pharmacists, drivers, doctors, teachers, police officers, and judges. They defend the borders, and some even serve in security forces or in national service.
Only when it comes to sharing power—truly sharing it—does the “non-Zionist” label suddenly emerge.
Why? What flaw is there in a citizen who holds an Israeli ID card, pays taxes, sends their children to Israeli schools—whose only “crime” is that their name is Mohammad rather than Moshe?
When Mansour Abbas—a pragmatic, moderate leader who dared to speak the language of citizenship and sign historic agreements with a Jewish-led government—reached out to form a brave civic partnership, Hendel and Hauser shouted: Not Zionist! Not Jewish! They disqualified the one natural partner capable of bridging Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, center and periphery. A man who proved he was willing to do everything necessary for the sake of partnership and for the future of this country.
The result? Another Netanyahu government. More years of incitement, destructive legislation, deepening polarization, and ultimately—October 7.
Hendel’s new party, branded cleverly as “The Reservists” to tap into the most sacred Israeli sentiment—service, sacrifice, responsibility—does not represent true statesmanship. It is yet another chapter in the old Netanyahu-style politics: a polished wrapper for exclusionary ideas.
He brings no hope—only a comforting illusion.
The real future of this country—the only future—is in civic partnership. In understanding that a nation is not built solely by soldiers, but also by citizens: by a teacher in the Galilee, a nurse in Haifa, a metalworker in Acre, a journalist from Nazareth. By anyone who sees themselves as part of this home.
But Hendel ultimately envisions a state for Jews only. And not even all Jews—only those who think like him. This is politically dangerous and morally corrosive. It divides citizens into first- and second-class. It feeds Netanyahu’s narrative that anyone outside the “correct” camp is an enemy.
Yoaz Hendel does not bring hope. He brings a pleasant illusion of sanity that leads to the same old outcome: Netanyahu in power, the moderate public in opposition, and the country sliding another step downward. And anyone who believes that being a “reservist” is qualification enough to run the state would do well to remember that Rambam Hospital also has reservists—only some of them happen to be Arab. And they, not he, are the ones who save our lives.
