At countless intersections across the country, one can find billboards with pictures of a concerned-looking Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz with the caption: "Israel comes first." Gantz is an Israeli patriot and the caption is not false. To prove that for Gantz, Israel really does come first, and this is not just a cliché election ploy, it would be fitting if he were to bravely and unpretentiously announce that he is not a candidate for prime minister at this stage. Yes, out of concern for the state, Gantz should say that he knows he cannot leave its fate in the hands of politicians who lack the minimum experience necessary to run the country, given the multitude of challenges we face. Before aiming for the premiership, a period of training and qualification is necessary.
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Gantz should gain ministerial experience, learn the international arenas well, gain knowledge of the connections between governments in Russia and the United States for the benefit of diplomatic and security interests, practice building bridges to countries in Asia and Africa, including Arab states, and brush up on fundamental economic issues. It is only then that he can run for prime minister without needing the support of members from the Joint Arab List, a party that represents the Palestinians' interests. Israel does not have the luxury of being led by a rotating duo of inexperienced interns. Every politician can aim high, but when they do, they pose a serious risk of failing to contend with the threats at hand.
I met a businessman this week, the owner of a holding company. He tried to convince me to throw my support behind Blue and White. I responded by asking him if he was willing to put Gantz or his fellow party leader Yair Lapid in charge of one of his companies. His answer: "No. Not that. Managing companies requires skill and experience."
I replied, "You won't let them manage a subsidiary but you will leave the State of Israel in their hands?!" He didn't have anything to say to that.
I don't know how he will ultimately vote in the upcoming election. There are those citizens of Israel whose hatred for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outweighs their concern for the state and their own interests.
No threat to speak of
Yisrael Beytenu party chief Avigdor Lieberman has joined the campaign of hate being waged against the supposed threat of Israel being run according to Jewish law, one that has already been adopted by Lapid and the Meretz party. Every decent person knows that Israel is not and will not be governed according to Jewish law before the coming of the Messiah. It is not Jewish law that bothers them, but the Jewishness of the state. They want to see Israel void of any significant Jewish content, rid of Jewish symbols, with only the Hebrew language as the common denominator remaining; just another country on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Anything Jewish is religification, any attempt to preserve thousands of years of tradition is coercion, and the vision of the Land of Israel as the historic birthplace of the Jewish people is strictly a real estate matter.
Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl, Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, did not observe the commandments. And yet with their impressive historic intuition, they understood that absent Jewish tradition, legacy, and culture, there could be no country whose citizens would be willing to give their lives to establish and defend it. The underground fighters and IDF fighters fought and continue to fight fiercely in order for us to have a Jewish state, and not an American colony of all its citizens in the Middle East.
Tens of thousands of young people who adopted the Lieberman-Lapid approach now fill the cities of Berlin and San Francisco. A large majority of the Israeli public is connected to their Jewish legacy, loves the country, understands that we have returned to our ancestral homeland, and despises all those who try to disconnect the country from its Jewish values.
On Hebron
There was a time when the Jewish community in Hebron was led ideologically by the late Rabbi Moshe Levinger. This leadership welcomed and embraced any public figure that came to visit, regardless of their political stance. The connection to Hebron took precedence.
Unfortunately, things have changed. A small group of wheelers and dealers has taken over the community, and in order to garner voters for the Yamina party, it is making every effort to do damage to Netanyahu's visit to Hebron. A more responsible leadership would have risen above the trivialities and bestowed international significance to the prime minister's visit to Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs and his attendance at a memorial rally for the 1929 Palestine riots. Such a leadership would have ensured that thousands of Israelis attended the rally, all Israelis are connected to Hebron, and sent the message that the Jews in Hebron are there to stay.
Instead, these wheelers and dealers are turning Hebron into a political instrument, one they might find is completely useless. With a party like that, the Left won't need to work that hard to clear the Jews out of Hebron.
