Many years ago, in the 11th grade, I watched "The Exorcist." Concerned friends prepared me and my buddies, warning us of the impending fear and terror we would soon experience. A creative solution we came up with was to laugh throughout the entire movie, realizing, after all, that it just a movie. It worked pretty well at the time, and many other times over the course of my life. That is until I encountered politics.
Specifically, my horror came in the form of Ehud Barak, who, in 2013, in one of his customary fearmongering sessions, warned us of the existential threats facing Israel, its democracy and the High Court of Justice: "We are facing a political tsunami most of the public isn't aware of. … Israel's delegitimization is on the horizon. … It's very dangerous and requires action." His prognostication in June 2011 that Syrian President Bashar Assad would survive the revolt in his country half a year at the most, is one his more famous bull's-eyes.
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Barak isn't alone. The demographer Professor Arnon Soffer, one of the more prominent champions of the "shrinking Israel" school of thought, declared in 1987 that "by the year 2000, Israel will no longer be Jewish."
"We've lost the fight against the Palestinian womb," he and his cohort cried out in feigned despair, while also completely discounting the feasibility of immigration from the former Soviet Union.
Enter Yair Lapid, who in December 2015 stated: "Our international situation has never, ever, in the entire history of the country from 1948 until today, been so terrible." He repeated the same message three times in one sentence, wanting us to believe we had fallen into the abyss. We can add the bevy of warnings against "religious coercion" and an imminent "halachic state" – all from the same school of thought, all casting a dark and foreboding shadow.
As expected, the current election campaign is being used to frighten us with prophecies of doom about Israel and its democracy. Barak is back on the scene to sound the alarm over Israel's besieged democracy and to tell us we are still teetering on the edge of oblivion. For the Left and its industry of hot takes, this election is Israel's last chance to save itself, from itself of course. But from the Left's point of view, Israel has been on the verge of self-destruction for the past 40 years now. We should take these scare tactics for what they're worth.
How ironic that the Left accuses the Right of fearmongering and calls Netanyahu "the national bully." This is true: The Right did issue warnings, but it was mocked and vilified. The Right cautioned against the Oslo Accords and was called "messianic." It warned against the Gaza withdrawal and was derided from the Knesset plenum. Netanyahu sounded the alarm over Iran's nuclear program, yet was accused of wrecking Israel's diplomatic relations with the world and the United States in particular.
It takes quite a bit of chutzpah to accuse the Right of fearmongering when the only thing you have to offer is 40 years of threats and warnings – not a single one of which has come true. Israel hasn't devolved into fascism; rather its democracy is more free and vibrant than ever. Watch out for the incoming tsunami, but Israel is widely courted in the international arena; every measurable parameter is pointing upward. How do I know this?
MK Ofer Shelah, Yair Lapid's colleague in the Yesh Atid party, said this in a recent radio interview: "Israel is the strongest country in the region, with the strongest army, the strongest economy, and the strongest international standing."
And the main thing to recall, as the song goes, is not to be afraid at all.
