The LIKUDn’t

In a few days Israel holds its elections. I’m not one for hyperbole, but this promises/threatens to be the most fateful election in the country’s history. That’s not just me saying this: my academic colleagues (and numerous non-academic individuals as well) agree that Israel is at a fateful juncture with the next government’s policies decisively determining its eventual fate – democratically, diplomatically, economically… you name it.

Anyone regularly reading my weekly column, and The Times of Israel in general, well understands what the stakes are. This online newspaper tries to be as objective and balanced as possible – and so have I. However, given what’s at stake, this time I feel the urgent need to leave my academic persona behind. The headline already hints at what I’m about to present. However, first some important background.

Under Menachem Begin, the Likud (emerging from Herut) was not merely a “right-wing” party. It was a highly liberal-democratic political organization. “Liberal” as a counterweight to Israel’s Labor Party with its overweening, socialist-collectivist approach to economic and social matters; “democratic” by adhering closely to the political rules of the game e.g., PM Menachem Begin’s response in 1979 to the Supreme Court decision nullifying his government’s expropriation of Palestinian land in Elon Moreh: “The Supreme Court’s decision must be honored… that’s self-evident.”

Fast forward several decades to the present government, and Justice Minister (!) Levin’s attempts to undermine the Supreme Court with the false accusation of its being altogether “Left-Wing” (or overly liberal) – something perhaps true a decade or so ago, but certainly no longer with several conservative jurists added to its ranks. Worse: in July this year, Levin pushed a Likud-led government to declare it wouldn’t accept two different Supreme Court decisions (regarding the irregular manning of the Second Channel Council’s Board of Directors, and the ruling nullifying the Knesset’s election of the State Ombudsman due to illegal shenanigans).

In short, the inherent problem isn’t a nationalist Right-wing Likud – something completely legitimate in democracies. Rather, it’s the non-liberal, even anti-democratic, party that the Likud has become. However, elections are hardly ever merely a matter of democratic constitutionalism; hard-core policy is what most voters are concerned with. And on this score – as the title of my post here suggests – Israel’s governing party is not the Li-could but clearly the Li-couldn’t.

• It couldn’t eliminate Hamas, despite hard and fast promises (and much loss of IDF life and limb) to do so. Worse: Hamas is now resuscitating its military capabilities despite the IDF having taken over half of Gaza!

• It couldn’t even carry out its “Judicial Reform” program (with some accuracy, others call it “Judicial Revolution”).

• It couldn’t defeat the Iranian nuclear threat – even with solid American military support. Some reports have Iran only a few weeks or months away from having “The Bomb.”

• It couldn’t garner continued international support for Israel’s Gaza Campaign. Quite the opposite, most countries are now in the anti-Israel camp regarding Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.

• It couldn’t/wouldn’t move forward with alacrity to set up an international force in Gaza that had the potential to actually replace Hamas as Gaza’s de facto ruler.

• It couldn’t even maintain American Jewry’s consensual support, not to mention the U.S. Democratic Party where more than half of its Congresspeople now vote against Israel on relevant matters (and there’s a slow erosion of Republican support as well).

• It couldn’t reach any form of working, interim (or permanent) agreement with Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Lebanon to reduce tensions in the Middle East.

• It couldn’t stem the historic outflow of Israeli citizens leaving the country – by most estimates a net emigration (“yeridah”) of approximately 150,000 Israelis, most of whom are highly educated but worn out by the country’s multi-crises, some induced by the government itself (see above). One clear statistic has been reported: between the three years 2023-2025, more than 1350 doctors have left Israel (equivalent to a large hospital or two): https://www.timesofisrael.com/1370-doctors-left-israel-over-past-3-years-research-finds-the-equivalent-of-a-hospital/.

• It couldn’t prevent numerous Likud MKs from being investigated, some already indicted and standing trial: PM Netanyahu; MK Tali Gottlieb (for divulging details of a SHABAK operative who is married to an opposition MK – she left the party to join up with Ben-Gvir); MK David Bitan. These in addition to past Likud MKs already found guilty: Oren Chazan; Naomi Blumenthal; Michael Gorolovski. And even a Likud-stalwart, past President of Israel: Moshe Katzav. All these in the 21st century alone.

• It couldn’t keep the education system from near collapse: there’s a shortage of approximately 15,000 teachers appropriately educated in their teaching field – being filled by non-professional substitutes (even so, the system still has a shortage of 3,000 teachers this year). The latest international PISA results showed one of the largest educational declines in Israel’s history. In reading, Israeli children scored 436 well below the international average of 463. People of the Book? Not for long…

• It couldn’t pass the “Draft Exemption” law for the ultra-Orthodox. One could well argue “Thank God” for that, but it’s still another indication of the Likud’s inability to get much done.

• It couldn’t (or wouldn’t try to) stop the outrageous behavior of the “Hilltop Youth” terrorizing innocent, rural Palestinian families (not to mention most recently seriously injuring a middle-aged, female American journalist) – leading to a political crisis with even Israel’s strongest supporters e.g., Germany that publicly and vociferously protested the Likud Government’s continued lack of action. Eleven European countries (plus Canada) have now economically sanctioned all trade with Judea & Samaria companies.

• It couldn’t get its coalition partner Minister Ben-Gvir to do much about the rapidly rising murder rate in Israel’s Arab community: 252 killings in 2025 vs. 109 in 2022 before the government came to power.

I could go on with other couldn’ts, wouldn’ts, and didn’ts, but the picture is clear. Overall, in a mirror image, one can state that we are dealing with the “Li-Could”. It has been “successful” in losing much of Israel’s international support, even among most of our strongest allies; it has “successfully” turned normal political opposition activity into massive protest campaigns, tearing asunder the country’s already fragile social fabric; it has “succeeded” in continuing the country’s longest war, far beyond what was militarily necessary (and still wishing to “finish the job” against Iran, as reported this week); and it has “managed” to exhaust Israel’s core civilian sector groaning under the weight of hundreds of days of reserve duty (while still pushing to exempt the ultra-Orthodox!).

The time has come to get rid of the LIKUDn’t and replace it with a government that (already in 2021-22) proved that it COULD.