The solution to the ills afflicting the camp which espouses the notion of upholding a Jewish and democratic state is hiding in plain sight. There aren't enough strong words in the dictionary to explain the dangers awaiting Israeli society if the Likud and right-wing parties lose the upcoming election. Therefore, to prevent an election-day defeat, the obvious step everyone is talking about but which requires real leadership to implement is bringing Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett into the Likud as quickly as possible, and offer them a realistic slot on the party's Knesset ticket. Avigdor Lieberman's destructive ploy sowed confusion and demoralization among the Right. Boosting morale and significantly increasing the odds of winning the election requires an act of unification, even if the Right's qualms with Bennett and Shaked are justifiable.
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Why is this necessary? One simple reason: Israel is one step away from a post-Zionist, and even anti-Zionist government, with all of the intrinsically severe ramifications to the country's security and the destabilization of Israeli society. News of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz's meeting with Joint Arab List chairman Ayman Odeh two months ago, before his speech at the Opposition rally in Tel Aviv in late May, did not receive the requisite media coverage. The significance of the meeting was also swept under the rug of willful ignorance and mundane headlines.
'A country of all its citizens'
No one is negating the legitimacy of the Arab parties, although some of them, such as Balad, are in the Knesset simply due to an anti-Democratic ruling by the High Court of Justice in 2003. But what was published in Shlomi Eldar's article in the online news site, Al-Monitor reveals that Gantz and Odeh made strides toward establishing a country of all its citizens; and it's not always clear what this means. It is essentially an unholy alliance to undermine the State of Israel as we know it. Gantz is a weak person, and just as Yossi Beilin manipulated Ehud Barak into forming the commission of inquiry into the events of October 2000 and the far-reaching concessions at the Taba summit in 2001, MK Ofer Shelah and his cohort comprising Blue and White's leftist wing are manipulating the former IDF chief straight into the arms of Odeh.
Odeh told Eldar that going back was no longer a possibility after his appearance at the political rally, where he declared that a "Jewish-Arab partnership" was the only way to achieve change.
"We [Arab Israeli citizens] alone cannot [enact change], but without us it is impossible," he told the Tel Aviv crowd.
No one, of course, is rejecting the legitimacy of Israel's Arab citizens. But the plan is to establish a leftist alliance with the Islamist movement on the political level. This abasement is precisely what the nation-state law was devised to prevent. But Benny Gantz, Ehud Barak, Lieberman and Yair Lapid don't care. Their supposed goal is to topple Netanyahu and save Israel via this anti-Zionist amalgamation. The Bibiphobia that was kindled in recent years essentially aimed for this specific historic moment, where Zionist political leaders from the Left would be willing to go this far and even jeopardize the foundations of Israeli society just to get rid of Netanyahu. To safeguard against this danger, all hands need to be on deck.
