Israel is frequently referred to, with much pride, as a Jewish democratic state. But if there comes a time when the two values come into conflict, it is the Jewish value that must prevail.
Israel is Jewish: promised to us by the Almighty as an everlasting possession some 4,000 years ago. It is more than 3,000 years since Joshua led the Israelites into the Land. Our history as a people unfolded here – specifically in Judea & Samaria, in ancient places such as Jerusalem, Hebron, and Shilo.
During the time of our subsequent lengthy exile, we held fast to the dream of return. And return we did, after almost 2,000 years, to build a flourishing state: its incredible development can only be described as miraculous. In all of history there has never been another people who was exiled for an extended period of time and then returned to its original land, with identity intact. The bond between the Jewish people and the Land is inviolable.
Etsy
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It is critical to consider all of this now, as we examine and face the consequences of our recent election. The time has come to recognize the potential conflict between the Jewish and democratic values that Israel espouses – and to stand unequivocally with the Jewish value.
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Neither bloc – neither that of Netanyahu’s Likud nor of Netanyahu’s challengers, led by Eisenkot and his Yashar! party – has secured 61 mandates, the majority required for forming a coalition.
There were commentators who observed that Bibi won by not losing, and there is truth to this. Predictions of an abysmal loss for Likud – advanced by all the polls except those of the right-wing Channel 14 – never materialized.
Ohad Zwigenberg/ AP
Likud secured 27 mandates compared to 21 for Yashar!
Likud’s bloc – including Religious Zionists (Smotrich), with 6 mandates; Otzma Yehudit (Ben Gvir), 7; and the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas, 6, and United Torah Judaism, 7 – secured 53 mandates.
This is more than the 48 mandates secured by Eisenkot’s bloc – Together (Bennet and Lapid), with 12; Yisrael Beitenu (Lieberman) with 7; and the Democrats (Yair Golan), 8.
In no way have the predictions of the anti-Bibi crowd been realized. The electorate has not rejected him. But the rub is that Netanyahu has not secured sufficient mandates to form a coalition.
All of this said, Eisenkot has been behaving as if his bloc had defeated Netanyahu. Not demonstrating an interest in compromise, he insists that he can pave the way forward to electoral victory. How, remains most unclear.
Yahoo
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There is talk of a unity government between Likud and Yashar!. President Herzog is pushing this. It is being suggested that Netanyahu, with the larger number of mandates, would serve as prime minister for the first two years, followed by Eisenkot, who is less than enthusiastic about this.
And so the question is whether either bloc might succeed in cobbling together a coalition. For Netanyahu it would require bringing in another party from the opposition. When the vote is closer and only a couple of mandates are required, it is sometimes possible, with perks offered, for one bloc to convince two or three members of the opposing bloc to switch over. But that won’t work here, as the Likud bloc needs eight more mandates. Yisrael Beitenu is the most likely candidate to join with Likud but even this would not be sufficient, as this party has only seven mandates. In addition to which, Lieberman has sworn not to sit with Hareidi parties – although we are going to see reversal of campaign commitments in the course of what is now happening.
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There are factions within the left of Eisenkot’s bloc that are considering another option, one that is deeply disturbing: Include the Arab parties, Ra’am, with eight mandates, and the Joint List with 11 mandates, bringing the total to a successful 67 mandates. Except, that is, for the fact that Lieberman (pictured) insists he will not join with Arabs, and the loss of his party’s seven mandates would bring Eisenkot’s bloc down to 60 mandates.
Jack Guez / AFP
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I suspect, my friends, that your heads may be spinning as you consider the various permutations that I have described – which by no means takes into consideration everything that is being discussed. There are, for example, obscure suggestions about Bennett joining Bibi.
But let us look at yet another problem of very serious dimensions:
The official count of the election will be formally turned over to President Herzog on November 4. The Knesset will be sworn in on November 10. Immediately after being sworn in, it will convene.
Once convened, the new Knesset operates independently of whether a new government has been established. It will have considerable latitude in taking various actions, and consequences may follow that are destructive to Zionist goals.
The Arab parties are most eager to participate here and assist the opposition. Their votes would be necessary in order to achieve a Knesset majority. With their votes – and this assuming that Lieberman, who would not join a coalition with Arabs, would never-the-less vote with the opposition in several regards – a great deal might be acted upon.
The talk is first about replacing Amir Ohana of Likud as Speaker of the Knesset with Yair Lapid of Together. Painful to consider. Ohana is a staunch Zionist. And Lapid? I mince no words here. He is an idiot. When he briefly served as (acting) prime minister in 2022, while in a coalition with Bennett, he struck a deal with Hezbollah that surrendered valuable Israeli gas fields to them. This, Lapid assured us, would “stave off war with Hezbollah.” This is shameful, weak, left-wing thinking.
But Lapid is hardly the end of the story.
The Knesset can elect the Arrangements Committee, which recommends the composition of standing Knesset committees. And it can advance legislation. There is a clear attempt being verbalized to undo much of what the Bibi government accomplished. Even blocking the possibility of Netanyahu serving again is under discussion.
https://en.idi.org.il/articles/66992
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Arabs who remained in Israel at the end of the War of Independence ultimately were granted Israeli citizenship. This was an expression of our democratic values. We did not restrict citizenship solely to Jews. And those Arabs, as citizens, were granted equal protection under the law. They have the right to vote and can see their representatives take their places in the Knesset.
However, never before have the Arab parties achieved the numbers they secured in this election. Suddenly they have become players of some significance, and I would suggest that this should set us back on our heels.
There are different thoughts as to why they were able to achieve the all-time high of 19 mandates. Some speculate that they came out to vote in larger numbers because they wanted to be more involved.
But there is another aspect to this situation: There is evidence of bribery, to encourage Arab voting. This has surfaced in several regards, beginning with evidence of money brought in from Qatar and Turkey for this purpose. The Shin Bet has been charged with investigating this.
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjpioyh6zl
In a separate police investigation into suspected election bribery in the Negev, seven suspects were arrested, and were then released to house arrest. In this case, it was Ra’am activists who are suspected of being involved. The men were found with envelopes containing cash and ballot slips for Ra'am.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/435400
The Likud has now demanded that the certification of election results be delayed in light of the concerns of bribery, but Justice Noam Sohlberg, who heads the Central Election Committee, says that the Committee does not have the authority to institute a delay: results must be announced eight days after the election.
“Religious Zionist Party lawmaker Simcha Rothman told JNS today, Monday, that he believed there had been ‘large-scale bribery’ in Israel’s Oct. 27 election, challenging Central Elections Committee Chairman and Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg’s statement on Sunday that the vote was conducted properly.
“’I can say with a very high degree of certainty that there was large-scale bribery. I have enough evidence to say so,’ Rothman said. (Emphasis added)
“’How can anyone say at this stage, while this kind of investigation is ongoing, that it did not influence the election outcome?’ he asked.”
Haaretz
According to a Likud statement, only 4,612 votes kept a Knesset seat from passing from the Ra’am party to Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, a shift it said “would have completely changed the election results and the political map.”
https://www.jns.org/news/israel-news/israel-elections-chief-knesset-vote-conducted-properly
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Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Arab Joint List (Hadash-Ta'al), has now declared that Israel faces a “historic moment” and a unique opportunity for Arab citizens to change the country’s political direction – the goal is to take down Bibi.
And so it is time to take a hard look at the Arab parties, which are staunchly anti-Zionist at a minimum. A few select examples of those who sit in these parties will suffice here to make the point:
I begin with MK Ahmed Tibi, founder and head of Ta’al and number two on the Joint List. He worked as an advisor to arch terrorist Yasser Arafat from 1993 to 1999. Born in Israel, he was an Israeli citizen, and subsequently qualified to be in the Knesset. But should we imagine he has any loyalty to the Jewish state?
Now he says, “We will take steps we haven’t taken before to insure that Netanyahu does not become interim prime minister.” Cited by i24.
i24
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Ayman Odeh, former head of Hadash, made an impression upon me some time ago: each Knesset member was expected to have his or her official picture taken. When Odeh arrived, he saw an Israeli flag positioned next to where he was to stand and left without having his picture taken: he – a member of the Knesset – would not pose for a picture next to the flag. How much more do we need to know?
And then there is Mansour Abbas, chair of the Ra’am party, which supports the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the dismantling of the settlements, and the “right of return” of millions of Palestinian Arabs – which would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Ra’am emerged in 1996 from the Southern Branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement, whose ideology and organizational model were shaped by the Muslim Brotherhood. Its Islamist outlook promotes a political vision of Islam, with major political decisions historically subject to the religious Shura Council.
https://www.jns.org/feature/israels-political-parties-explained-raam-and-the-joint-list
Abbas made his position – and the position of his fellow Arab members of the Knesset -- crystal clear not long ago. It is necessary, he said, for Arab politicians to assume (or rather, appear to assume) a certain stance in order to be included in Israeli politics. But this does not represent their genuine political sentiments. Anti-Zionists, all, they practice deceit.
AFP
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And so here we are: in the name of democracy do we allow anti-Zionists to weaken the Zionist base of the Jewish state? I would most fervently hope and expect that Zionist parties – even those on the left – would refuse to participate in actions by the Arab parties that would dilute or weaken Zionist positions. But I am not naïve. The lure of electoral success that might be achieved by the left if cooperating with the Arabs must be resisted at every turn.
We are, first and foremost, a Jewish state.
We have strengthened in several respects in the last few years. We are developing new settlements in Judea & Samaria and are conveying a necessary resilience in the face of mind-blowing international anti-Semitism. We are determined to remain in south Lebanon and continue to take on Hezbollah; we know we must take out Hamas. We resist all suggestions of a Palestinian state. Let nothing deter us from this path. We require a strong right-wing coalition.
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I would not presume to predict how the negotiations ahead will turn out. It is all very tenuous and reports shift on the hour.
There are those who believe that there must be a unity government because of the greatly troubled times we are living through. I see it differently: a unity government would require a number of concessions by the right-wing bloc, concessions that, it is argued, cannot be helped – because unity is for the greater good. But what I see is that precisely because we are in troubled times, there must not be concessions that weaken us and subsequently our ability to stand against all that challenges us.
My first choice would be a new election. Despite all of the financial costs and various difficulties, it offers us the best possibility of governmental stability and a right-wing victory. I will further explore the many reasons why I see this victory as a viable possibility in a coming post. If it happens, it will be a slow process of many months duration.
It goes without saying now that our nation is in turmoil. Not only because of our elections, but because of the US midterms to take place tomorrow and the possibility of war with Iran that hangs over us.
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Please, pray – pray hard!! – for the safety of Israel and for election results that will bring blessings to us and to the U.S.
©Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
