The latest propaganda effort by Blue and White is focused on evoking the feel of a culture war: the sane and decent against the despicable and shameless bastards. Everything that comes from the Likud is dirty and base more than ever before. If Blue and White cusses, it's only because the others started. We've come to that stage where even how we treat filth depends on which camp you belong to. "Mafioso" and "Erdogan" – there is not one toxic label they haven't thrown at Netanyahu, all while playing innocent. Calling the Likudniks "shits" on TV on Friday night, just before kiddush, that's not "low" or "divisive;" that's a truth that Israel is expected to accept with an obedient nod. A disgrace.
It's an appropriate ending for Blue and White's campaign, which was based entirely on "saving Israel" and "rehabilitate statesmanship." But just a gentle blow on this powder of demagoguery is all that is needed to reveal the truth: We're witnessing a psychological terror attack against democracy. What medicine do Gantz and Lapid offer for all of Israel's ailments? It's very simple: neutralizing the ability of the people to determine the national goals, handing over the decision-making process to a thin layer of unelected jurists and clerks. That is how Yair Lapid plans to block the "revolting" from ruling. Lapid and Gantz are attempting to found the rule of judges, administrators and masters. Therefore, if there is one thing that Monday's elections symbolize for the nationalist camp, it is that it is a war for the image of Israeli democracy as we know it.
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War against the jurists. In my first oped for Israel Hayom, just before the second election, I claimed the political gridlock is not only due to Lieberman and the right-wing defectors who joined Blue and White. "The current political crisis is the result of an unprecedented event in Israeli politics," I wrote back then, "and mainly the legal system intervening in the democratic process." The background to this was the publication of the draft indictment against Netanyahu less than two months before the election. This was not simply a dry, procedural decision, but a product of a deliberation determined by a "council of sages" of the judicial elite in favor of the publication, and thus enlisted in the efforts to block Netanyahu and strengthen his rivals.
Since then we've seen more and more proof of the strength of the connection between Blue and White and the jurists. Prof. Boaz Sangero asked here on Friday: "How do we know that the decisions to repeatedly delay the investigation into the Fifth Dimension case (which seems to be very serious) were not political?" The Fifth Dimension, the Ashkenazi-Mendelblit case, the utmost eagerness over Netanyahu's unprecedented indictments – all these clearly show who the system wants in power and why.
Benny Gantz said this week that he accepts the "supremacy" of the judicial system over the political sphere; a claim that reveals ignorance, or else a basic signal to the system, "Relax, I'm with you" (or perhaps both). Gantz effectively has committed to bowing down to the echelon of jurists and to be subordinate to the council of lords and attorney generals and judges. In Britain they have "your royal highness," in Israel we will have "the government of your royal judge." Aharon Barak appears as the puppet master in the puppet theater – from the "Cramim" forum where it was decided to publish the draft indictment, all the way up to the "suggestion" to Dan Eldad to turn down the appointment as interim State Prosecutor.
Think hard about the intervention of the court on issues like deportation of infiltrators or disqualifying candidates for parliament, and understand not only the political inclination but also the hunger to institutionalize the judicial supremacy over the voters' will in determining policy and legislation. Benny Gantz, whom Erel Segal correctly called "the presenter of the clerks," is volunteering to hand all this over to the system on a silver platter, at the expense of the rule of the people. From a democracy, Israel will formally become a jurocracy, the rule of the jurists.
War against the rule of the administration. Blue and White is the first party in the history of Israel that willingly gave up on ideology. In a party whose slogan is "not left nor right" there is no ideological glue – it's all personal, and it's all political: it's the "anyone-but-Bibi" front, which became the platform for the Nokdim-Ramat Aviv axis.
What will happen when an anti-ideology party like this comes to power? Israel will be dragged into ideological limbo. The Israeli government will be formed by a body with no identity, in which the opposites inside it will simply not be able to agree on anything. When a government has no say, it essentially willingly yields to the administration. The clerks begin to administer, crucial decisions are made by "senior officials."
As chairmen of parties without any internal democracy, Lapid and Gantz don't believe in democracy as implementing the will of the people. They take pride in their list of "professionals." Instead of voting for leadership, it's voting for management; instead of an Israeli government, we'll get "Israeli management." The administrators will lead. From a democracy, Israel will become a "clerkocracy" (the rule of the clerks).
War against the rule of the masters. And there is another process that should have our attention: Gradually, "anyone-but-Bibi" has turned into "without the ultra-Orthodox," and from there it became "without the national-religious," and now it's also "the darbuka culture" that they don't like (i.e. Israelis of Middle Eastern descent). You can't blur it anymore, we're talking about an all-out war of the white tribe against the people of Israel. From a shared democracy based on dialogue between the people's representatives, and the creation of common interests between the many groups and sectors, Israel will return to the politics of "we'll decide for you," "we know best," and "trust us." Ultra-Orthodox, national-religious, orthodox national-religious, geographic and cultural periphery – all these will be allowed a foothold in the political center of power only as symbolic representatives, and only if they leave their kippahs and darbukas at the door and agree to the principle of "statesmanship." Or as one of Moshe Ya'alon's aides said about it: "Salute and shut up, you insolents." This is the ethos of Blue and White: moving from democracy to "masterocracy" (the rule of masters).
Blue and White has eliminated the argument between left and right in Israel. This is the third time we're not choosing in the polling stations between two different ideologies. But in this third election, it's much clearer that the choice on Monday is between two types of regimes. On the one hand, a regime based on a layer of jurists, clerks and masters, determined more than ever to restore their rule over the power centers of the state via their puppet party – versus a vibrant Israeli democracy that expresses in the deepest, most authentic and direct manner the will of the people. This election is actually a war for democracy.
