The Conditions for Winning the Next Elections in Israel

Elections are won by politicians who inspire hope. Voters want to elect people who provide them with a sense of positive emotions from the moment that they cast their ballot. We don’t want to enter the polling place with a dilemma regarding who is less likely to disappoint me. We have to believe that the people we elect will make our lives better, safer, and more peaceful. In the United States, it might be about the economy. In Israel, it is about who has a vision and a plan to keep us safe from the strategic dangers that we face – this primarily focuses on the relations of Israel with the Palestinians and also the demise of our liberal democracy that has been brought to us by Netanyahu and his governments. At least that is what concerns those of us who want to remove Netanyahu and his coalition from power.

There is an axiom that we have to face and accept – even more so after the war in Gaza, even with October 7 in our daily consciousness: Israel will never have security if the Palestinians do not have freedom, and the Palestinians will never have freedom if Israel does not have security.  That is the equation that we must come to terms with. Another axiom aligned with this is that peace will never be built based on walls and fences that separate the two peoples that share this land from the river to the sea.

Peace has become an almost non-existent word in our political vocabularies because it is so difficult to imagine a reality of peace – after the failure of Oslo, after the violence of the second intifada, after the failures of disengagement from Gaza, after October 7. All of those failures are at the hands of political leaders who rejected the objective of leading us to genuine peace. They feared peace because they refused to relinquish control over parts of the land. They refused to implement obligations within agreements that were signed even by their own governments. The leaders on both sides failed to lead to peace as they enhanced conflict narratives and realities and rode the waves of fear, suspicion, and racism that stoked the flames of violence on both sides of the conflict. This was also all inspired by distorted versions of theology that sanctified martyrdom and myths of land ownership granted by the God they speak to.

The forces working against us
We face very powerful forces in our elections in Israel. We have to challenge a cult leadership that manipulates political alignments in ways such that political leaders who actually hate each other end up running together. We have to confront a large population of ultra-orthodox who receive religious dictums instructing them on who to vote for, with almost zero self-thought and personal assessment. This is combined with a demographic reality that lowers our chances of winning from the outset. These very powerful forces and trends need to be confronted with political wisdom and savvy that forces us to step over lines that were thought to be red lines until now.

Unite
Lapid, Eisencot, and Golan must unite into one election block that runs together.  The most important thing that could save Israel is to run as one list and to come out as the largest list in these elections. Uniting these parties into one list is a huge challenge in which egos and sometimes ideologies block the way. There is no room for not uniting because of nuanced differences between these parties. They all agree on saving Israel’s liberal democracy, protecting the judicial system, ensuring that the media is free. They all agree that Israeli society and political life must be based on the values delineated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. They all agree that all Israeli citizens must serve the country either in the military, the police, or a national or civil service. They all agree that Israel must be a society based on the equality of all of its citizens. They all believe that Israel must seek peace with all of its neighbors. They all should agree to the axiom of security and freedom written above. They can find enough of a shared ideological base to run together and then after they win, they can function as separate factions within the Knesset – but first they must win.

Unite
We cannot remove Netanyahu from power if the Arab parties do not unite into one list as the center and center left in Israel must do as well. In order to beat Netanyahu and his coalition, the Arab participation in voting must rise to at least 70%. If the Arab united party gets 15+ seats, Netanyahu will lose the elections. There are differences between the various Arab parties, but they all share the most important imperative that Netanyahu must never serve as prime minister again. After the elections, they can negotiate separately with the party selected by the president to form a new coalition. As we know, there are Arab leaders who want to be part of the coalition and government and there are those who wish to serve from the opposition. But first they must run together and then recommend to the president that whoever heads the list that will win from the current opposition forces will be supported to form a new government. They must continue to vote confidence in the new government, even when there are differences of opinion, because the danger of another right-wing Netanyahu-led government is too great for all of us – Jews and Arabs alike.

Unite
The Jewish parties that must unite from the center-left and the left must declare that the 21% of Israel’s citizens, the Arab community of Israel, are legitimate and their votes count. The next government must include Arab parties because we are a society that believes in equality of all of the citizens. We will have a government that will advance the Trump plan that includes a clear path towards a Palestinian state. The international community will continue to support and to pressure Israel and the Palestinians to accept the two-state solution. The next government of Israel must treat all of its citizens with equality, and measures must be taken to put an end to the threat of organized crime that murders so many Arab citizens without most of the murderers being brought to justice.  The next government must double the investment in education, especially in those parts of our educational systems that have been left behind and pushed back because of coalition priorities that shifted public money because of pure electoral concerns.

Inspire hope
War creates fear and is a tool of political control.  Peace seems elusive and far away, almost impossible. But we must change the discussion and understand that a vision of peace that is not detached from reality can inspire. We must begin to understand that the two-state solution saves Israel – it does not threaten Israel’s existence. The non-existence of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel threatens Israel’s existence. There will be no two-state solutions without deep and genuine cooperation between the State of Israel and the future State of Palestine. Our Israeli-Palestinian negotiated agreement will be based on wide regional cooperation on security and economic development that will provide guarantees for security for both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s regional integration will strengthen Israel in every way conceivable and that is fully dependent on Israel’s agreement to allow Palestinians to achieve their self-determination in a state next to Israel between the river and the sea.  Israel cannot be the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people, and all of its citizens, if Israeli control over the Palestinian people continues. The values of a liberal democracy do not coincide with the denial of the Palestinian people’s right and desire for freedom. If our leaders want to inspire hope it is not enough to only speak about separation from the Palestinian people. They must speak about a two-states solution living in peace as good neighbors.

Israel and the World
As a nation, we will continue to face an angry world that sees Israel as a state that committed war crimes in Gaza. Boycotts against Israel will spread further as Gaza begins to open up to the world. Israelis will feel less welcome almost everywhere they go. Antisemitism will continue to rise around the world. The only way to change Israel’s place in the world is by accepting a peace directive as a guiding principle for the next government. The next government of Israel that will be elected by uniting political forces and understanding that we cannot win without Jewish-Arab cooperation and coalition building will have to place an emphasis on the primary goal of ensuring security through peace. This includes keeping Israel and the IDF strong. But it also includes the recognition that Israel’s strength is only fully achieved through the strong regional and international alliances that we will have as a nation working towards peace with our Palestinian neighbors.  The political strategists guiding the campaign will poll and find convincing arguments to the leaders that talking about peace and talking about the Palestinians and their rights will lose votes. This is what they always say and they are always wrong. People will not vote for a political party that echoes the false militaristic slogans of Netanyahu, Liberman, and Bennett. Israel will not have security by following in the footsteps of the failed leaders that we have had for too long.  The war in Gaza must be the last war, and that must be the message of those who seek to replace Netanyahu.

Winning the elections
Two campaign issues that will probably top the agenda are the establishment of a national commission of inquiry on October 7, what led to October 7 and the dysfunctional Israeli government after October 7. The second issue is the drafting of Ultra-Orthodox into the army and national service. These two issues do not distinguish our values from those of Lieberman and Bennett.  Liberman and Bennett are annexationists who will continue to sustain the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and probably create an escalation in violence. They are not leaders who provide hope of a better Israel. They might govern better than Netanyahu and probably be less corrupt than Netanyahu, but they will not make Israel a safer place for us and our children. Bennett and Liberman represent a slightly better version of what has become the Likud of Netanyahu.  They are not our solution; they will remain part of our problem.

Yes, we wholeheartedly support the establishment of the National Commission of Inquiry and yes, we want a law that will guarantee that all citizens of Israel will serve the country in some form of national-civil service, whether through the military or in a non-military service. What sets us apart from Lieberman and Bennett is our belief and determination to ensure that Israel is a country in which all of its citizens are equal, that Israel is a country that preserve the values of a liberal democracy with a strong judiciary that guarantees our civil and human rights for all – including the minorities, and that Israel is a country that is truly seeking peace with all of our neighbors.  Adopting this agenda is how we can win the next elections.