Let's define just for one moment what a liberal vote is in Israel. A large part of the political parties in Israel claim to be liberal. Meretz claims to be liberal. Yesh Atid claims to be liberal. And the Likud is officially called the National-Liberal Party.
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The liberal approach puts the individual at the center of political life. Liberals believe in a person's right over their body and in their ability to mold their life according to their wishes. Liberals on the left will focus generally on fields such as LGBTQ and legalizing light drugs, and liberals on the right will focus mainly on the issue of market economy, reducing regulations, budgetary responsibility and free trade.
In general, liberals are the total opposite of the Mapai approach. While the modern Mapai'niks, members of the Labor or Blue-White parties, are interested in governmental intervention in most of their and their neighbors' lives, liberals are interested in policies that take the state out of economy and private life.
When discussing the rise in costs of bread and diapers, the Mapai'nik will push for state intervention. He will demand price supervision, subsidies for bakeries and the purchase of bread by the IDF and hospitals.
These suggestions were recently raised by Yair Lapid at the cabinet meeting. For liberals, such suggestions sound as though they have just been said by Lenin, with the Internationale playing in the background. Price supervision and subsidies harm the weaker sectors of the population, exactly the people whom they are supposed to be helping, and increased purchases of bread by the state will have no effect on prices and will only harm the IDF's ability to equip itself and practice, as well as hospitals' ability to purchase medicines.
Liberals who hear such claims look for a political home that can give real solutions to economic crises and reforms that will increase profits for each individual, and not those of bakery owners or of budgetary pensions. Customs on wheat in Israel is 50% and the Standards Institute prevents the import of diapers by imposing various trade limitations (by the way, the cartel on diapers controls the technical committee 5627 of the Standards Institute). The liberals are waiting for a politician to talk about these issues.
The liberal voice in Israel is not large. The leftist outlook still controls the economic debate in Israel. Teachers are subject to the Teachers' Union and media journalists are graduates of Galei Zahal [the army radio]. Liberals and their ideas are always underlying public opinion and the corridors of the Knesset.
There are three-four mandates that the liberals give to the various political parties are borderline between the camps, and could go either way. The Blue and White-New Hope alliance has already burned itself out with the liberals. A political party of budgetary pensions, blocking competition and subsidies for those who are well connected is not exactly the legacy of Milton Friedman. Lapid and his suggestions for differential VAT, subsidies and price supervision – are also out. MK Vladimir Beliak's attempt to promote liberal policies in Lapid's party are, in fact, appreciated by the liberals, but it seems that Lapid is the obstacle to promoting this policy by his party.
Yamina refugees, such as Ayelet Shaked and Abir Kara, are not identified with a market economy and they have many achievements to put to their name, but their party's blurry political future might deter many liberals from voting for them. Many have been burned also by repeat attempts to set up a liberal party, by Aleh Yarok, Feiglin or others.
The situation in the Likud is also complex. On the one hand, the Likud is a home to destructive socialists, such as Haim Katz or Miri Regev. Both, by the way, are like weeds sprouting in the Likud – Katz came from Amir Peretz' party and Regev came from the army, where she was spokesperson for the Disengagement. Both took advantage of internal democracy procedures in the party and distorted them for their needs.
On the other side are true liberals, who are fighting for individual freedom and a market economy, including Yoav Kisch and Galit Distal. Also new candidates in the primaries, such as Erez Tadmor, Elad Malka and Dan Iluz come from liberal groups in the Likud (a group to which I am proud to belong). I doubt if there is something that scares a neo-Mapai'nik more than liberals in the Knesset. A leader who prioritizes liberal policies will win a sweepstake for his camp.
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