Elections are a necessary step
According to polls, Netanyahu has no rivals for the job. It is not merely that nearly three times as many people think that Netanyahu is the best person to serve as prime minister when compared to his closest contender, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog. It’s also that the polls show right-wing parties picking up seats, while Lapid’s party is likely to lose more than half it seats in the Knesset.
In recent days I met a man with an impressive military combat background. At the start of his many years in the army, he served in Sayeret Matkal, the IDF's elite reconnaissance unit, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The man explained that for fighters in the unit, loyalty to the team is a supreme value. Violating that is an attack on the soldiers' most basic ethos.
The man I was speaking to said that fighters in the unit were prepared to face a lot, but would never accept anyone breaking the loyalty code, because it was a matter of life and death.
When the prime minister realized that former Finance Minister Yair Lapid and his cohort were cooking something up behind his back and trying to curry favor with the American administration by attacking the unity of Jerusalem and government decisions, he said, "That's it." Disloyalty by a cabinet member is unforgiveable.
An early election is a must, because the harm caused to the citizens of Israel by a government in which every minister makes his own calculations is 10 times greater than the cost of holding early elections. I have no doubt that U.S. President Barack Obama, like Yair Lapid and Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni, is sorry about the decision to hold an early Knesset election. Netanyahu will continue to fight with whoever succeeds Obama to keep the land of Israel intact.
Not even a week has passed since the prime minister and finance minister's fateful meeting, and spokespeople from Lapid's Yesh Atid party are already letting the people of Israel know what will happen in the election.
The evil ghost of Tommy Lapid will once again appear, and his son and heir will proclaim excitedly that the ultra-Orthodox are the greatest disaster to befall the people of Zion. The same anti-Semitic headlines will appear again, exuding hate.
Of course, the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) sector can be criticized, but to blame it for Lapid's ineffectiveness as finance minister when they were in the opposition throughout his term, is pure malice.
Salvos of pure hatred will also be flung at the settlers -- "those religious people" who have lived in Judea and Samaria for years and serve as the first line of defense for the residents of Tel Aviv. The most idealistic public in Israeli society, which carries the weight of the country's settlement and security, will be turned into an obstacle to peace.
Neither the recalcitrant Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas nor Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh are the stumbling block, but rather the Israeli settlers who are fulfilling Zionism at its best. The Yesh Atid people will make the election about the state of Tel Aviv vs. everyone else. But even in Tel Aviv there are citizens who understand that the walls of our existence cannot be built from bricks of hatred.
Another central motif from Yesh Atid, Hatnuah, and Meretz will be drowning the citizens of Israel in a flood of clinical depression. The Left has been an expert at this for years. The worse things are, the better it is for the Left. Morning, noon and night we hear about the chasms, the inequality in Israeli society, about poverty and housing prices. As if most of the voters for the center-left parties didn't come from the affluent sectors. The tycoons, the lobbyists, the contractors, and the new rich vote for the Left, while the weaker sectors vote for the Likud and the Right.
The campaign by Yesh Atid and Hatnuah will focus relentlessly on the prime minister. Bibiphobia will reach new heights. They will unleash all their ongoing frustration on Netanyahu, frustration that has its roots in the simple fact that all the Left's candidates for prime minister have the faith of only single digit's worth of support from the public.
In our geopolitical reality, we need an experienced leadership that can face a world that is mostly hostile toward the state of Israel. The public has already learned that delusional concessions and agreements don't bring peace any closer -- they encourage war.
Soon we'll hold elections and the people will have their say. The results will no doubt be crystal clear.
Most of the Israeli people lean Right, love their homeland, and are holding on to it forever, refusing to buy the baseless dreams of the Left.
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