1.
Try to take a step back, ignore all the media noise for a minute and really examine the political platforms presented by leading political candidates Yair Lapid, Avi Gabbay, Benny Gantz, Ehud Barak and all the other would-be prime ministers. Spoiler: You won't be able to find any significant differences between anything they are offering and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's defense, economic or social policies. Oh, right, their claim is that, unlike Netanyahu, they aren't under investigation. That may be good enough to get them elected to the PTA but not to lead the world's most complicated and threatened country. Much of the Israeli public isn't buying into the police recommendations or the prosecution's attitude toward Netanyahu. This is a fact. And the reason the public isn't buying it is not that they are blind. On the contrary – it's because they see quite well the daily mudslinging directed at the very prime minister that has steadily steered Israel into the most glorious era in its history.
What can anyone possibly say? That the economy is failing? There is always room for improvement, yes, but it isn't difficult to see how much stronger the Israeli economy is today thanks to the leadership's consistent rejection of the socialist vestiges that had been strangling growth and stifling entrepreneurship. The less the government intervenes in the economy, the better. Add to that the natural gas discoveries off Israel's shores, which Israel stands to profit greatly from, and massive tax revenues that the government stands to collect soon, and Israel's economic future looks bright. Thank God. Netanyahu's opponents think they can do better? They're nothing but talk.
The security situation is not good? True, things can always be better, but think back to the start of the century, when Oslo backfired and blew up in our faces. Compared to now, it's like night and day. Today, the war against Iran is being waged wisely and boldly, and it is, above all, consistent. One of Netanyahu's greatest accomplishments is the American withdrawal from the dangerous 2014 Iran nuclear agreement, which he convinced U.S. President Donald Trump to scrap this year. The other candidates currently vying for the premiership wouldn't have made an effort to achieve this end, and even if they had, they would have been unlikely to succeed.
2.
As for Gaza, what will all those others do? Will they topple Hamas' rule and sacrifice our soldiers just to hand the territory over to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas? Why is it in our interest to intervene there? The only reason terrorism isn't rampant in Judea and Samaria is that, over the last decade, the IDF remedied the terrible mistake of having given territory over to terrorist gangs from Tunis and re-established control. The reality today is that Israel does not intervene in the lives of the Palestinians. It simply maintains a defensive envelope that protects us from them and protects them from Hamas, the Islamic State terrorist group and other villains. They enjoy extended autonomy, and that's all they can have. Not more. We already tried other suicidal ideas, both in security and in diplomacy, and we learned our lesson.
Besides, it's hard not to wonder how people continue to believe in these kinds of ideas, after all these grand experiments – ranging from Oslo to the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza – where we believed that tens of thousands of armed gang members would keep us safe; when we hear the Arabs' explicit wishes, indicating that none of them (including the Israeli Arab MKs) will ever be happy with just Judea and Samaria and will ultimately demand all of Israel; when we see the peoples of the region collapse under the artificial national lines that had been forced on them by colonial powers after World War I, and revert back to the only stable divisions the region can contain: dozens of religions, hundreds of ethnic groups and thousands of tribes. In light of all that, how can anyone still believe that the Arabs of Samaria will join up with the Arabs of Judea and the Arabs of Gaza and build a normal, stable state? And the Left is suggesting they do this not on the moon but in the heart of Israel!
3.
In any case, luckily for us, there is no prospect of anyone making this mad idea a reality any time soon. Since that is an established fact, what is the actual difference between the various candidates? Indeed, at the heart of the political debate, there is a thinly veiled tribal struggle over hegemony. Each candidate wants his or her tribe to lead the people. The winner will be able to influence the budgets and power given to the members of each tribe.
This struggle is an ancient one in our history. We remember it from the struggle between the house of King Saul and the house of King David; from the longtime rivalry between the tribes of the north and the tribes of the south during the First Temple era, as it was reflected in the biblical rivalry between Leah (the tribe of Judah) and Rachel (the tribe of Joseph, or actually Ephraim). During the Second Temple era as well, particularly among the Hasmoneans, there was a prominent rivalry between the priests (who seized political power) and the sages and groups representing the tribe of Judah, or the house of David, who held claims to the throne.
Since the Second Aliyah at the beginning of the 20th century and until quite recently, the left-wing tribe maintained exclusive hegemony over the Zionist enterprise. The laborers' parties and their political offspring were the exclusive power holders. It is true that there was a political upheaval in 1977, when a right-wing government rose to power, but the power centers that shape the country remained under the Left's control for quite some time, in academia, culture and the justice system.
The conservative Right isn't one for abrupt upheavals. It operates slowly. It is not a revolution, but rather an evolution. The result is a prolonged process that is still underway, whereby the country's leading elite is gradually shifting. This process is a centrifugal force that is now marginalizing groups that were once at the center. Parts of the formerly powerful groups have failed to accept this democratically decided shift and are unleashing their rage in an effort to reconquer the power they believe is rightfully theirs. In an underhanded effort to achieve this end, they are issuing threats that things will be very bad for the public unless they are elected back into power, and they are exerting pressure on the legal and legislative systems to eliminate their rivals.
Meanwhile, other parts of the now marginalized former power holders have become enemies of the Zionist enterprise. You can see them in Israel and all over the world, doing everything in their power to sully Israel's name with lies and urging the world to ostracize Israel. They invite foreigners to come in and intervene here, to "restore order." This happened in the past as well, when Judah Aristobulus II and John Hyrcanus II – both sons of Alexander Jannaeus and Alexandra Salome of the Hasmonean dynasty of the first century BCE – fought over the leadership and invited Roman military leader Pompey to decide between them, leading to the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 63 BCE.
4.
From a media perspective, it seems that the current candidates are hiding in the shadow of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who has recently returned to the political forefront after years of commenting from the sidelines. He has been singled out as the only candidate who can convince the public that he is a worthy alternative to Netanyahu. This week, Barak posted another manifesto on his social media accounts, reiterating the nonsense that has become a staple for every left-wing Israeli leader – arguing that if the public elects a conservative right-wing government it will be "sinking down toward a dark, nationalistic-messianic and racist future that would pose an existential threat to the entire Zionist enterprise."
Since we all have eyes and a brain, and the reality is actually the polar opposite of what Barak is describing, should we assume that he is losing his grip on reality? Probably not. Barak knows that his words are like the trash talk that must precede a fight, designed only to rile the opponent. There is not much substance to it. And since there is no real difference between Barak and Netanyahu, as I have said repeatedly, the unrelenting motivation to batter Netanyahu clearly stems from a personal frustration: Barak was Netanyahu's commander in the army, and now the underling's success has far outshined his commander's. To Barak, that is unforgivable. The commander's ego is more powerful than his motivation to serve his country. In the historical tradition of our people, this is precisely what leadership is not.
Barak is pursuing a large number of people on the Left to convince them to beg him to come back into the political ring and redeem the beaten leftist camp. But it is highly doubtful anyone will. In my eyes, he is the Left's false messiah – Barak was seen as a prophet who was meant to uphold Rabin's vision in Oslo, but instead he coined the phrase that ultimately buried the Left and ran contrary to the Left's reason for existence: "There is no partner," he said. This phrase is akin to Shabbetai Zvi's conversion to Islam – he has been revealed as a false messiah. Now go back and read his manifesto on the "nationalistic-messianic future." History sure has a sense of humor.
