The voter statistics from the April election reveal something astonishing. It turns out that the polling places where Blue and White won the most votes also saw very high voter turnout, which reached 80 or even 90% of voters registered at those polling stations. The average voter turnout at the 100 polling stations where Blue and White did the best was 77%, compared to 68% nationwide.
The situation for the Right is completely different. The polling places where Likud led saw relatively low voter turnout, between 60% and 70%. At the 100 polling stations where Likud did the best, voter turnout averaged 68%.
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This is a consistent phenomenon. The 2015 election also saw an amazing gap – overall voter turnout was 72%, but Likud strongholds saw a turnout of around 68%, compared to 74% in areas where the center-left Zionist Union was dominant.
This carries a major significance: the Left is invested in going out and voting, its people understand the importance of elections, and they flock to the polling stations with the goal of voting in a different government and taking back power.
But what does the complacency on the Right mean? There could be lots of reasons for it, but one is the fact that we have become accustomed to a right-wing government, so much so that right-wing voters have forgotten what is at stake.
We should take a look at ideas that are being promoted by left-wing research institutes, who are waiting for a chance to seize power and upend the country. The Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel, for example, suggests offering illegal migrants work visas, benefits, education, and a stop to efforts to deport them back to their countries of origin or third countries. Last month, we saw a campaign that called to keep foreign laborers who broke the law and should have been deported long ago in the country. We can only imagine what will happen when left-wing organizations go back to shaping legislation.
For years, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has been promoting the Basic Law: Social Rights, which would make the government responsible for all the needs of its citizens and involve it in every branch of the economy in a semi-communist fashion. That law has been stuck for years. If the cork comes out of the bottle, it could completely change Israel, right down to the foundations.
The natural gas framework, which lays down the conditions that allow enormous sums to be invested in developing Israel's offshore natural gas resources, put Israel on the map and turned it into a key player in the local energy market. The Left is strongly opposed to that framework, and if given the political chance, there is no reason it won't try to reopen the issue. And the gas? Let it wait a little longer.
We can go on and on – from the plan to "strengthen the justice system," which was designed to strengthen judicial activism; ideas to "strengthen experts," which would give functionaries more authority and power; and adding an equality clause to the nation-state law that would threaten Israel's character as a nation-state. And there's more.
Right-wing governments have difficulty governing. There isn't enough space in this column to address that, but we must remember that it's no problem for the Left – the media backs it up, academia spurs it on, and civil organizations do the legwork. When they are back in power, they'll come into the Knesset with a knife between their teeth, seeking to upend the country and change its fundamental character.
