Much has been written in recent weeks concerning Israel looking for its own Joe Biden to lead the country afresh.
With the possible exception of the two Ehuds – Barak and Olmert – I don’t see that Israel has any elder politicians capable of fulfilling the role.
More distressing is the fact that there are no real viable alternatives to Benjamin Netanyahu.
While Avigdor Lieberman would dearly love to be PM, and may well surprise everyone by doing an outstanding job, for the coming election the only real alternatives are Naftali Bennet and Gideon Sa’ar. And both, like Netanyahu, will require the building of coalitions.
Within the current Likud, it’s sad to see that there are no challenges to Netanyahu. Unlike UK politics where party members from time-to-time ditch a leader/PM when they feel he/she is long viable, it would appear that in the Likud no one is prepared to mount a challenge to Netanyahu. At one time I thought that Nir Barkat would step-up to the plate. He has not, which may signify that he does not have the balls to mount a challenge. Worse still it demonstrates that he and others in the Likud are deceivers, and have forgotten if they ever knew, the reason that entered politics in the first place. As a reminder, they entered politics, so they claim, to aid and better the country, not to serve their personal ends and their inflated egos.
This begs the question, what will March 24, 2021, bring us? More of the same or the dawn of a new beginning circa 1977.
While pondering that question, let us also think about our role in this ongoing debacle that is Israeli politics.
Many of us, quite rightly it would seem, moan and gripe about the vast majority of delinquents in the Knesset. We have regretfully short memories, which regularly play to the advantage of the said delinquents. Collectively we are the morons who send many of these worthless, good-for-nothings back, time and again to Jerusalem. Will we never learn?
I carefully and intentionally, with a full understanding of the term, called many of the delinquents. That is what many of them are. They swear an oath to support and further the State of Israel, and then promptly forget the oath and their obligation. Talk about selective memory.
Winston Churchill was fond of saying about the spectrum of politicians; “there are fools at one end and idiots at the other’’. It does not necessarily follow that those in the center are any more chumps than those at the near-extremes.
It is sad to see the mounting proliferation of useless individuals who somehow get themselves elected to the Knesset, and just like so many of the Haredim, milk the institution for their own ends. No one is the blame but us, the great and the good of Israel.
Talking of the Haredim, yet again, I urge readers to review the following:
‘’The Haredim as a Challenge for the Jewish State”
‘’The Culture War over Israel’s Identity’’
https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2020RP14/
The paper has been written by the Berlin-based ‘Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)’, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Central to their finders is the ‘’culture war is being waged in Israel: over the identity of the state, its guiding principles, the relationship between religion and the state, and generally over the question of what it means to be Jewish in the “Jewish State”.
Based on their research models, the SWP project that the Haredi community in Israel which will encompass 16% of the total citizenship of the country in 2030, will cost the State coffers 40 billion NIS (per annum). That is just nine (9) years away.
Alarming?
What is the answer?
Come March 23, support a party that is willing to put a stop on this milking of precious resources, otherwise, maybe not in our lifetime but possibly in our children's and certainly in our grandchildren’s, a democratic Israel will cease to exist.
Israel does not have a Joe Biden of its own. Instead, we need to look at our motives and options for our future.