Reflections on the Latest Israeli Elections

 

Israel went to the polls again on September 17, and voted a near identical result to the April elections leading to a better than average chance that no government will be able to be formed. So many of the reviews we have come across have interpreted this completely wrong. Most are claiming that the Israeli democracy is illogical and defective. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those who got it correct realized that the problem is that the population is relatively evenly divided. We already covered here the real reason why forming a coalition is so difficult, explaining that because of one group of parties which are outliers backing neither major party forces, any government needs to realize well over the fifty percent plus one usually required in any normative election in a parliamentary government. This is not a detractor of the Israeli parliamentary democracy and the vibrancy of our democracy. The elections were simply a realistic representation of a country divided almost evenly in their view of what the future of Israel should steer towards.

 

 

We agree that part of the problem is fatigue over Bibi Netanyahu leading to some simply supporting anybody who appears to have a better than even chance of replacing him. But the claims that the divide is between right-wing and left-wing is not a completely honest means of defining what is occurring. The first thing which needs to be addressed is what exactly is meant by right-wing and left-wing in Israeli politics. Yes, part of it is over economic outlooks and the separation between preferences for Capitalism against Socialism, but this is actually far from the central dividing issue. The real divides come from two separate but interdependent divides in the Israeli populace. The main divide is between religious and secular with the other main divide being nationalists and Zionists who are opposed by internationalists and those still holding onto the idea of a Palestinian Arab state and the two-state-solution. Then we have the political allies often referred to as the Joint Arab List which also includes Communists, Arab nationalists, secularism, Pan-Arabism, Eco-socialists, Islamists and other traditional left-wing causes. The mandates garnered by this list traditionally have not supported any candidate for Prime Minister or named one of the leaders from the group of parties making up this faction. This, more than anything else, is the exact reason that there has been no definitive result. This is also one of the most obvious reasons that the Israeli democracy is functioning in a representative fashion and is providing the exact result that represents her people, a deeply divided people.

 

There is the possibility that the Blue White Party and Likud could form a unity government completely free of requiring the support of any other party. This is the main reason why Avigdor Lieberman’s claim that he would join a unity government and be commanding one of the principle centers of power. He has claimed that without him there could not be a unity government. Apparently Avigdor Lieberman is incapable of doing simple mathematics such as adding together thirty-three and thirty-one and realizing that is more than sixty-one. Since those are the results for Blue-White and Likud, it should be obvious that those two together could form a government. So, what is the hang up preventing such, is it political, personal or simply ego?

 

Part of the reason is political as should Bibi actually agree to such an arrangement, the Likud Party would bleed voters in significant numbers to vote for parties which are either more religious, nationalist or Zionist than the Likud such as the parties which made up Yamina; Jewish Home, National Union–Tkuma and New Right. Such a change could prove to be seismic should Bibi ally with Gantz. This would represent a similar situation as when Ariel Sharon bolted Likud forming Kadima in order to allow him to agree to President Bush’s and Condoleezza Rice’s plan for the Gaza withdrawal. This caused a split in the Likud Party which Bibi has been able to reverse over the last two elections. Furthermore, Blue White leader, ‎Benny Gantz‎, has already declared that he would only agree to a unity government only if he was made Prime Minister as his party received the most mandates. This would be ignoring that the so-called right-wing parties received more mandates than the left-wing parties. Further, there is no way Bibi will join any coalition which he does not lead. Once more, egos are getting in the way of any feasible solution.

 

President Rivlin, who has the undesirable task of deciding who will be given the first opportunity to form a coalition, has intimated that he would fall just short of knocking heads together to force a government being formed and avoiding yet a third election in under one year. He is facing the problem that the right-wing parties are unable to form a government without Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu Party. The problem is if Bibi were to agree to Lieberman’s demands, he would lose the Haredi Parties and still be unable to form a coalition. Were Gantz given the nod, the only way he could form a coalition would be if the Joint Arab List were to agree to sit in with him. The problem is that Avigdor Lieberman has expressly stated he would not sit in a coalition with the Arab parties which would again prevent a coalition. Were Lieberman to change his mind and agree to sit in a government with the Arab parties, his Yisrael Beiteinu Party would splinter as it has a large number of nationalists who would not take well to joining a government with the Arab parties included. This would lead to either the end of Yisrael Beiteinu or their replacing Avigdor Lieberman as their leader. Either choice would be political suicide for Lieberman who is too crafty a politician to make such a blunder. So, without hammering Bibi and Benny into submission, it appears that there is not much that President Rivlin can do to force a government.

 

So, the vibrant Israeli democracy will very probably be heading for new elections once again. This will again be a reason to claim that the Israeli democracy has failed and could be considered dead. The reality is that the Israeli democracy is working exactly as it should and is representing the fractured Israeli populace quite accurately. Just because a ruling coalition appears to be escaping reality and becoming near an impossibility is no reason to claim that the democracy has failed, perhaps it is just very accurate in representing and displaying the point at which we find Israel today. If anything is broken, it is not our democracy or any of the other claims which you may have read elsewhere. What is actually broken are the complaints that democracy has failed Israel. Perhaps it is simply jealousy over the fact that the Israelis are being served well by their democracy as it represents the splits between the numerous factions which make up the various parties. One last note, nobody we have had conversations with has complained that their lives are being impacted by not having an actual government and are instead being ruled by a Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, and a number of Likud Ministers who are in the cabinet plus Rafi Peretz from Jewish Home as Education Minister and Bezalel Smotrich from National Union–Tkuma as Transportation Minister, who are making any choices and will protect Israel should she be attacked. It may even be this combination making the decisions over any response to an attack upon Israel which will prevent such an eventuality from coming to fruition. Maybe not having a ruling coalition and a normal government by the world’s standards will prove to be the best thing which could happen to Israel in these turbulent times.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Freedom of Speech and Religion

 

Bezalel Smotrich started a firestorm after he spoke with a receptive audience, “We all want the State of Israel to follow the law of the Torah,” Let’s be honest, if this had been the entirety of his statement, it still should not have elicited any rebuke nor should it have started what can only be decried as sheer panic while instigating what we can only describe as a vile and venomous hatred. His audience was largely, if not totally, in favor and accepting of what Bezalel Smotrich had stated before he added a little caveat, which, we are willing to bet, was seldom reported with anything near the hyperventilating hysteria as the introductory statement. The remainder of the critical section reads, “we just can’t because there are people who think differently and we need to get along with them.” Now that sounds like adding the honest assessment where the opposition to such a move is currently too strong and opposed to such a state. All Smotrich had consciously stated was his desire and the reason that such a desire need be checked before one enters the halls of power, the Knesset, simply because Israel, as she is currently populated with almost half the Jews not being particularly religious or not at all religious and along with the mainstream media make a loud cry of lament and agony merely at the mention of the Torah becoming the law of the land, are not to this point in their slowly evolving evolution moving inexorably towards a more religious nation. But Bezalel Smotrich did not claim that he was planning on introducing something which not only called for Torah observance but recognized that there exists far too much resistance to such an idea for such legislation to pass becoming law. But Smotrich could have stated something so benign such as, ‘the Torah has lessons from which we could all take benefit.’ There would have been those who would have yelled and screamed to an even higher level with the media making sure to use all their stored and ready hyperbole to drive the hysteria.

 

The insinuation that should Israel decide as an overwhelming majority that the time has arrived to prepare and work to establish the Messianic Age and hopefully make Israel prepared and deserving of the Messiach, that Israel would become a theocracy similar in its visions as Iran and is actually more preposterous than if one would claim that Israel, due to her relatively sizable population who favor socialism are taking Israel towards becoming an Atheist Communist nation similar to the USSR. What is amazing about most of the media in Israel is that were somebody to announce their desire to make Israel a socialist nation where the rich are burdened with exorbitant taxation in order to eliminate poverty, they would treat this news as an inspirational vision for the Israeli future and a step towards their desired goal. The media had a similar outbreak of hyperventilation when retired General Rafi Peretz made a favorable statement favoring religious Zionism when speaking to a Yeshiva. The leftist media is so vehemently against any and everything which has even the slightest taint of religiosity as if it is bringing on the End of Days. Their view of religion is that it no longer has any place in this modern world. What is beyond irony is that their Secular Humanist-Socialist world view is so solidly entrenched in their minds that religion is treated as an ancient set of rituals which have absolutely no place in their views of the modern world. What makes their anti-religious attitude is that even many physicists are approaching the view of whether or not there was (is) a creator is leading them to believe that there had to be an intelligence behind the evolution of the universe. Some physicists have found one means of proving that a creator is unnecessary by claiming that the reality is a Multiverse where every possible combination of properties possible all exist in at least one of the infinite universes which exist. This allows them to claim that we exist in this universe simply because the right formulae exist describing the forces and dimensions necessary to support our kind of life-form. They would need to accept that there exist infinite universes where life itself, as we know it, even including Tardigrades, is completely impossible. That implies a great waste of dimensions as in their models the vast majority of universes collapse in upon themselves or simply fly apart expanding faster than matter can be permitted to form still becoming a wisp of nothingness. Their model claims that our universe is special in that it has permitted not only life, but intelligent life, assuming that Homo Sapien is actually intelligent. All this theory is, is a means of eliminating the need for a creator and some intelligence behind the formation of our place in our universe. By the way, the media love these physicists as they give erudite backing to their idea that there is no Supreme Being or intelligence behind the formation of our universe. They, and the physicists who back them, will take any theory which removes Hashem from the equation. One could always postulate that Hashem created all of the universes of the Multiverse simply as a means to forming one which was special, our universe.

 

Is the Multiverse Real

 

This brings us to the crux of the situation in which we reside. Academia and the mainstream media along with most of the entertainment media and much of the society have decided that religion is something which was possibly necessary thousands of years ago, but in this modern and so sophisticated society, the most primary intelligence and the control of what is to come in our future comes from the efforts of man himself. They believe that humans are the supreme intelligence and are the means of all which is to come. They are adamantly entrenched in Secular Humanism and insist that socialist governance is the greatest means by which everybody receives that which they might need. When anybody suggests that capitalism or religion have a place in our future, the media and academia unite in denouncing the person who made the offending comments. The media will castigate anyone who deviates one iota from their ideas of a perfect world where mankind is the driving force and there is no higher entity and religion is simply a set of rituals from an era from which humanity has progressed beyond. These beliefs actually have a place out of history. The Hellenistic Greeks also believed that mankind was at the absolute pinnacle of evolution and there could be nothing more advanced or perfect than the human being. They worshiped the human form and believed that upon birth a person was deemed to be the coming of perfection. In ancient Greek society, were a child born with any defect physically, such a child was permitted the graces of death as they were not the perfect human form, the ultimate form in all of creation. This idea that humans are the ultimate form of creation and there is nothing beyond the human being is far from a new idea as the Greeks expounded such a belief and the Romans were close behind. Yes, sure they had their gods, as we are merely human and despite the almost unlimited abilities any human might have where they were considered almost equal to the gods, they still knew that a human was not omnipotent. The Jews at that time also believed that the human being was at the pinnacle of creation. The difference is that in Judaism there is a creator, Hashem, and we are but his chosen creation and everything around us is credited to Hashem. The Greeks and Romans had their gods for everything from fire to lightning to the sustenance they consumed but their gods were more human than noble. Judaism is different in that people, unless chosen as were the prophets, are nowhere near the level of Hashem, the creator of all that is. The Greeks, in particular, believed that many of the best amongst them were on such a level as to argue with their gods where in Judaism, with the possible exception of Moses during the Exodus, nobody was of sufficient power or ability to argue with Hashem. In Judaism, we look to Hashem to provide when we are unable and pray that we are worthy of his favor. Hashem reacted to the Jewish people in a manner directly connected to the ability and actual enactment of following Hashem’s commandments as expounded in Torah.

 

The Torah has been the foundation stone for the Jewish People for over three thousand years. But that is far from the end of the story of the Torah and that which it teaches. All of Judeo-Christianity is based entirely upon the commandments written in the Torah and upon many of the teachings of the prophets. Modern Western society had been based on the Judeo-Christian ethos for much of the last few thousand years. It remains the cornerstone of all that is the developed modern world. The problem which much of the developed world is currently facing is the lack of planning for the future. Those who have developed the concepts and defining ethos of the latest human belief system, Secular Humanism, is that the one, themselves, are the center and most important set of desires which need to be fulfilled. This egocentric set of values has had some serious consequences. The concept of the individual being the most important individual and that they should serve their own needs, desires and wants before they worry about other items. This view has the consequence in that there are no concerns, regards or obligations for the forming of the next generation. As a matter of fact, they see children as something unwanted and an undesirable imposition which would deny them of using all of their efforts and resources for their own pleasures and betterment. This has led to the situation where the people residing in these developed societies and whom are very often well-off not having any children. This is evidenced by the evidence of the swelling numbers of women having abortions. Between 1970 and 2015, the Center for Disease Control reports nearly 45.7 million legal induced abortions decreasing the numbers of births per woman to fall well below the required amount for replacement levels. This has led to the depopulating of Europe to such an extent that they are willing to import any and every potential immigrant as they require far more workers than they have produced through reproduction in order to support the otherwise aging population. This will be the epithet for Secular Humanity as a healthy option for a society proceeding into the future.

 

Offspring and a dedication to the following generations being a central pillar of Judeo-Christian society made for a far healthier society where the future was guaranteed. Some people have equated abortion with the idolatrous sacrifice of their children, often newborns, to Baal. That may be slightly overt but the reference is well understood. Certainly, late term abortions could easily be equated as such. One of the misconceptions when it comes to Judaism is that all abortions are forbidden. This is not true as Judaism does permit abortive procedures when the life of the mother is endangered. This makes sense when one remembers that half of the children birthed did not survive to age five, thus an adult woman was far more viable than any unborn fetus and thus the life of main concern. This is definitive threat to the life of the mother, not her mental health believing that a child would be an imposition to their life of seeking pleasure for themselves as is often the health condition used in the developed world. That is the main difference between modern atheist Secular Humanism and the traditional religions of Judeo-Christian religions where in Judeo-Christian beliefs are the desires, needs and requirements that children and future generations have the utmost importance while in Secular Humanism children are seen as an imposition interfering with the social lives of those who would otherwise be responsible for the establishing of the next generations. Secular Humanism is based on the now while Judeo-Christian belief is more focused on the future generations as well as a high standard of expectation on the individual to work to assist in the establishing of future generations.

 

In this little fact is the solution which is inevitable. Leftist Secular Humanism, and likely all forms of Secular Humanism regardless of their underpinnings, has one serious problem, they are dependent upon individuals who are disgruntled with religious life to repopulate their ranks as their reproductive rates across the Secular Humanist societies of less than one and a half children per woman, well below the necessary two to two and a quarter children per woman. On the other hand, the religious populations have reproductive rates well above necessary rates and thus they have growing populations. In time, the Secular Humanist population will dwindle while the religious population continues to increase. This sets the framing for the future in that religious populations and societies are at an advantage over those choosing the latest fads, namely Secular Humanism. In the interim, there will be a secular media and academia, but with time these too will be corrected and slowly become more religious and open to the religious dogma. For Europe this means that they will slowly fall under the influence of Islamic doctrine as the religious Muslims will reproduce while the indigenous European population which has largely adopted the Secular Humanist attitude and are not reproducing will be overrun by Islam as the Muslims reproduce at a far higher rate. The United States will fall to the Hispanic populations coming across the southern borders who are religious and have healthy reproductive rates while the former population which had fallen prey to Secular Humanism and lost their religious underpinnings and left the idea that having children is a healthy and necessary requirement of any society behind when they decided to follow the new age Secular Humanist philosophy and stopped having children. The religious, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim or virtually any similar religion will become the fore of future societies while the new ideas which place the individual as the foremost individual whom one is to serve slowly become extinct. As Torah taught, the main responsibility for one to live a complete and proper life takes more than their obedience to Torah but also their responsibility to the society and its health is reproduction and the care of those youths born as they are your future and the continuation of the principles of the faith. Once again, this is a problem which will be self-repairing with religious thought continuing into the future as it has since years gone by while Secular Humanist self-centered viewpoint will lead to the end of their numbers over time. In the end, Bezalel Smotrich will be able to witness that Torah observant Israel providing he lives long enough for the future to unfold before him, as will the rest of us who are part of the religious Zionist movements.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israeli Elections Religious Right Merging

 

The two main religious Zionist parties and long-time running mates, Jewish Home and National Union, agreeing that Rabbi Rafi Peretz will head the joint list with Bezalel Smotrich as number two and they settled which party names which slots. This agreement was difficult to arrange and there was a reason which not many are speaking of which made it all the more difficult. The problem was and is Bibi Netanyahu and his claims that he is out there trying to unite the religious Zionist parties and other right wing parties in order for him to easily have a conservative coalition. Every time that Bibi calls for these parties to unite, the more swelled heads become, a common ailment amongst many politicians, and demands become more exaggerated and arguments become more shrill and heated. It almost appears that Bibi is actually attempting to sabotage the right wing parties with his repeated calls for unity. If Bibi is so absolutely enamored with uniting the right wing, religious and Zionist parties in order to allow for a more right wing coalition, then why isn’t Likud out there offering these parties positions on their list and thus guaranteeing that their votes count and they are represented in the coalition. Why doesn’t Bibi form his coalition before the election and present a done deal to the Israeli public, a deal which, if done correctly, would bring in the required sixty-one mandates for seats in the Knesset. Bibi would not even need give the party leaders any of the Likud top five or even ten slots as anything within, say, thirty would be a shoe-in and potentially solid through fifty. But a right-wing-religious-Zionist coalition is not what Bibi is aiming to have.

 

This election is different for Bibi as he is aware that this will very likely be his last ride in the driver’s seat of the Israeli government. Everyone knows what this means. This will be what defines his legacy. The right-wing, nationalist, religious leaning coalitions have not provided that legacy even after nearly a decade as Prime Minister. Bibi Netanyahu desires to be more than simply the longest serving Prime Minister, he wants international fame and the fortunes which go along with such reverence. Bibi wants that he will be the toast of the town wherever he travels and that he and Sarah Netanyahu will be free to travel the Capitals of Europe receiving lavish parties in his honor. Bibi has seen one other Israeli politician receive such honors, and that was Simon Peres, one of the original Oslo Accord schemers. Bibi had a front row seat to witness the embrace received by his mentor and honored figure, Ariel Sharon, who was lauded by Europeans and mainstream American politicians for his bold risk taking after he agreed to gift Gaza to the Palestinian Authority without requesting anything in return so they could prove their ability to form a workable economic and functioning society. The eventual, and many claim inevitable, result was a terrorist state sworn to destroy all of Israel and now backed by Iran.

 

We have already discussed the political positions and other views from General Benjamin “Benny” Gantz, a former longstanding member of the Central Command and including serving as Chief of Staff. There has been talk of a Ganz-Lapid or Lapid-Gantz merged ticket to run together and thus be a force to be reckoned with. The problem was as we stated, who would be at the top of the ticket just in case they were tagged to form a ruling coalition. From all appearances, the General will top that ticket. The two leaders deserve one-another as both of them have, at different times and before various crowds, made statements supporting opposing views and then repudiated them at their next campaign stop. The two are polished performers with Yair Lapid getting his experience at reading a teleprompter from doing the evening news, which also gave him name recognition. General Gantz got his experience on speaking tours in the United States before conservative and reform synagogues where his views were widely applauded. These American Jews are largely leftists and believe that there exists a magic formula which when applied will turn the Arab Palestinians into useful and productive members of a normative society and for that reason support the “Two-State Solution” as the vehicle to peace between Israel and the Arab world. This position has thus become viable and central to General Gantz’s beliefs. Yair Lapid is another who believes that some magic division of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea does in fact exist which would end the animosity shown by the Palestinians. Any coalition which includes these views is not one Israelis should be comfortable allowing having lead their nation. The Two State Solution is a formula for ending the Israeli Arab Palestinian problems as it will bring on the final war between the Palestinians and Israel and there will be only one survivor. The price paid by both sides will be horrific and the cost to the world may be far higher than anyone wishes to accept.

 

The question for the right-wing-religious-Zionist parties is whether or not there will be further mergers. The far-right National-Religious Otzma Party will be avoided largely because of some of their most radical members and videos showing them in acts indefensible in nature such as dancing at a wedding celebrating the death of an Arab child. Then there is the Yahad Party chaired by Eli Yishai. His Sephardi Haredi beliefs appear to have forced him to refuse to be on any ticket which permits women. This is a position he will need to talk back if he expects any offers of a joint list. Jewish Home will most definitely have women as part of their ticket. There will possibly be a united ticket again between Yahad Party and Otzma Party simply for the purpose of guaranteeing their breaking threshold into the Knesset. Any remaining right wing parties will need to find agreements for forming joint lists, the more parties the better, or they face oblivion. But still Bibi is out there on a regular basis making such agreements all the more difficult with his insistence that the right wing parties need to unite in order to receive optimal representation and not waste votes. Furthermore, every time Bibi makes his insistence for the right wing parties to unite, their individual, and thus joint, numbers appear to sink in the polls while Likud gains voters. Bibi Netanyahu is making it appear as if these parties would have been incapable of breaking the threshold of 3.25% of the total votes. One could make a case for Bibi actually pressing the right to merge in order to make such agreements next to impossible while also raising doubts about the viability of the entirety of the right wing outside of Likud.

 

Bibi Netanyahu, Rabbi Rafi Peretz,
Yair Lapid, General Benny Gantz, Bezalel Smotrich,
Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, Avi Gabbay, Aryeh Deri

 

The above theory would be further excited were Likud to merge lists with Naftali Bennett’s New Right Party, a party looking ever more endangered as their numbers also drop as Bibi calls for unity. Should Lapid and Gantz merge, then Bennett would lose two separate opportunities for his party to merge as well as the ability to play one off the other seeking the best possible deal. Should the end of February approach too quickly, it is reasonable to expect for Bibi to allow Bennett and Shaked to merge their New Right with Likud while making both eat some sautéed crow. Should such an announcement come before the deadline, then the theory that the entirety of the Bennett and Shaked move to Jewish Home years ago was in order to wreck the strongest national-religious right wing party as it was becoming a challenge to Bibi and the Likud. A merger between Likud and the New Right would be as close as one could come to proving conspiracy in order to destroy the religious Zionist community and debilitate these parties immediately before elections. This takes us to a place which every Israeli should dread. What if Bibi Netanyahu plans to make his name by pinning his hopes on making a lasting peace, or at least the appearance of such into a reality? This just might be exactly where Bibi Netanyahu has intended to go but simply had to figure a means of crippling the right wing parties allowing him to choose leftist to virtually all of the main cabinet positions. Gantz has stated that the Gaza model could be used for reaching peace with Mahmoud Abbas and the beauty of the idea is that it does not require Abbas to agree. Gantz claims that Gaza was carried out perfectly and need be applied elsewhere, and there is no doubt of exactly what is meant. Ganz claim is Israel should merely pull back to the terror fence and the IDF should remain in all the areas they currently operate.

 

This plan for the Shomron would be a complete and total disaster. Israel would receive no credit for their leaving the area without first engaging in the forming of an agreement by which Israel receives certain guarantees. This concept should have been stillborn and never permitted to see the light of day. Israel releasing the vast majority of the Shomron to the Palestinian Authority without so much as a handshake in return is Gaza Disengagement on steroids and will result in the same end result. Leaving the IDF behind to interfere with any terrorist plots would result in exactly what devolved in southern Lebanon where IDF forces were routinely ambushed. The other side is exactly how long does anybody believe Mahmoud Abbas will stop Hamas or other Iranian proxy from taking control of the Arab region and demanding the IDF be removed. This idea takes the bad situation where the lands are presumably disputed and turns them into occupied lands protected for the occupying side of Israel. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the polling in Israel tends to be skewed to represent the pollsters’ political positions rather than a true measure of where things stand. Currently, if the averaging of polls can be considered at all accurate, Gantz and his Israel Resilience Party would be the largest block outside of Likud, even more so if they were to merge with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. There are those who would believe that such a joint list would challenge Bibi and Likud for being tapped to form the ruling coalition. This would bring a definitive left-wing face to the government which would very likely charge straight ahead with the formation of a Palestinian Arab state in the Shomron and east-Jerusalem as its capital city. Such a program would denude the Israeli claims to these lands, surrender all the areas from Oslo including Area C and make defending the Jordanian basin impossible turning all these lands into truly occupied territory for as long as the world managed not to demand the retreat from the region so as to truly grant the Arab Palestinians their own nation. Israel might actually get through a full month before the United Nations without being condemned. But what if the more readily likely arrangement were to be formed with Likud merging with Yair Lapid, Gantz and Kulanu along with Yisrael Beiteinu and that could be the next ruling coalition. Such a coalition would favor left-leaning political views and could result in a split in the Likud ranks leaving Bibi with the horrific choice of trying to patch together a coalition just as was done with questionable skirting of political laws. Still such a premature prediction may be jumping the gun. In such an instance, Bibi would gather what he was able to pull in from Likud and managed to extricate from all other parties without requiring Bibi making any concessions. Bibi could at such a point form a left-wing government coalition which intends to end the Arab Israeli Conflict through capitulation to many Arab demands and investing the Palestinian Authority with complete control of the regions west of the security barrier. Israel surrendering all such lands would result in madness as there would be approximately half of a million Jewish refugees which the Arabs would insist be removed or they would eliminate them their way. Such could be the result of the upcoming Israeli elections.

 

We fully understand the desire for a lasting legacy, we simply pray it will not cost Israel or the Jewish People to high a price. Israel has had its pricey legacies built on the backs of our young troops. They have included the Oslo Accords which won three Nobel Peace Prizes and thousands of dead. There was the Gaza Disengagement which will be the lasting legacy remembered for Ariel Sharon, which marred his entire memory. Now we are coming to what will be the legacy of one Bibi Netanyahu, and that is what we are hoping will be less expensive than the previous attempts at a positive legacy. Legacies do not require that the nation whose leader is cementing their legacy to bear any deep cost in treasure, lands or lives. A true legacy is beneficial to the nation and its people without costing them severely. Let us hope that Bibi can find for himself an affordable legacy, one which Israel will be proud about and which will benefit everyone Arab, Israeli and all the remainder of the world will be able to live with and do so in peace. That would be a kinder and gentler style of legacy in which everyone gains and in the end the world finds it less stressful living with Israel. This would be an acceptable and appreciated legacy for Bibi Netanyahu, but still there is the fear that he will desire being the one upon whose efforts peace was actually acquired and nobody needed to be sacrificed. This could lead quickly to bring peace to far reaching shores as well as those close at hand.

 

Beyond the Cusp