The Israeli voter is a curious thing. He knows very well whom he is voting for, but not necessarily what is he voting for. Even more worrisome, he is not overly concerned that this is the case. While not all Israeli voters suffer from this impairment, a great many do. It seems our system has a loophole that encourages false pretenses and the stealing of votes.
It is a little difficult to ascertain what came first – the chicken or the egg? Is it the behavior of the voters, who focus first on the public figure and only then the issue, that invites politicians to fool us? Or is it the conduct of our politicians that has instilled in so many of us a sense of apathy toward the "what" and put the focus on the "who."
The aforementioned diagnosis is supported by quite a few examples of promises broken from both the distant and recent past, some of which we have already managed to forget.
While running for office, Labor party leader Yitzhak Rabin promised voters that he would not talk to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. But as prime minister, he signed the Oslo Accords, a move we continue to pay for to this day. Rabin also proclaimed that anyone who would "contemplate leaving the Golan Heights would be forsaking the security of the State of Israel" before presenting a position that was the polar opposite of these remarks to both the United States and Syria.
At a memorial for Israeli soldiers who fell fighting to liberate Jerusalem, Ehud Barak said that "only someone completely disconnected from the historic legacy and alienated from the vision of the nation … life, could contemplate Israel relinquishing part of Jerusalem." But in the role of prime minister just one month later, Barak went to Camp David and without batting an eye, agreed to divide Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount.
The late Ariel Sharon said the fate of Netzarim in Gush Katif would be the same as that of Tel Aviv. As prime minister, he promised to adhere to the results of a Likud referendum on his proposal to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip, but after losing the referendum, destroyed Gush Katif, expelled its residents and brought the state of Hamastan, with its tunnels and missiles, on Israel.
In the not so distant past, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu committed to not relinquish Hebron. He has nevertheless given it up almost in its entirety to the Palestinians.
At one point in his political career, Netanyahu called a settlement freeze "a convenient code word for those who in fact intend to eradicate them." But for months and even years, he froze construction in the settlements, including in Jerusalem. Although he has explained on every public stage why a Palestinian state would constitute a threat to Israel's security, in a speech he delivered at Bar-Ilan University in 2009, Netanyahu agreed in principle to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In February, Netanyahu sent then-Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi to tell the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that he stood by what he said in the Bar-Ilan speech. This clarification, by the way, could be relevant when we are presented with U.S. President Donald Trump's "deal of the century." But as is the tradition in these parts, Netanyahu will not reveal at this time his positions on what can assume Trump will demands of Israel within the framework of the "deal of the century." We will only be exposed to Netanyahu's positions on these issues after the elections. The question is: "Why?"
A question of perspective
Ehud Olmert, who as mayor of Jerusalem did almost everything in his power to prevent the city's division, once explained to me the reality of Israeli politics, as if from the standpoint of a political commentator. He put it more or less this way: "To make it to the top, to win the elections and become the ruling party, you need to present a nationalist, right-wing front. Such is our public. But once you are there, you encounter a different reality and understand that things need to work differently."
"Is that how it is?" I asked, to which Olmert replied with a definitive "yes."
A few weeks later, Olmert left the Jerusalem Municipality to serve as a minister and eventually the prime minister of Israel's government. As prime minister, Olmert offered to divide Jerusalem, thereby repudiating all of the oaths he had made.
At least in Olmert's case, he said these things before he came to power, which raises the question: Was everything just a show? And are we, the people, just the extras? And how many of today's leading politicians adhere to Olmert's take on Israeli politics and would follow in his footsteps?
I have yet to find an example of a prime minister from the Left who implemented a right-wing policy once in power; only the opposite has happened thus far. We do, however, have experience with left-wing and centrist leaders, who spoke vocally and often about these issues but suddenly grew silent in the lead-up to elections. That is how Isaac Herzog and Shelli Yachimovich, both former chairs of the Labor party, behaved. They both expressed a willingness to divide Jerusalem in the spirit of the Clinton parameters for a permanent status agreement, with the understanding the eastern part of the city would later become the capital of a Palestinian state. But when elections came around, it was as if they had taken an oath of silence on the issue.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert [Archive] Yossi Zeliger
The deceivers and the deceived
The Israeli public sees and hears these voices, as well as the silence, election campaign after election campaign. It is as if a fog is intentionally created around the "what," or the essence of the issues at hand, and prominence is instead intentionally given to the "who," meaning the personas running for election. This masquerade is unbecoming to both the public and its elected officials. This phenomenon is now at its height with Benny Gantz, the silent former IDF chief of staff. He knows anything he says will only serve to prevent him from getting more seats in the Knesset, while silence keeps him in the public's favor. In the meantime, has chosen to utilize his right to remain silent.
Despite all of this, the countless polls employed by elected officials every election campaign seem to bear witness to content having a place in our political discussion come election time. That is comforting, if only just a little, because too many politicians at too many points in time match their conduct and their words to the results of the polls and not their worldview. The sense is that what the public wants, I want. But after the elections, I will do what I want. The significance of this is that in the lead-up to the elections, politicians do not tell us what they really think, but rather what they think we want them to think.
The minimal expectation of a political leader is that they tell the truth. But with the division of roles between the deceivers and the deceived as it is, and both parties having agreed to these being the rules of the game, even this expectation could come off as naïve. Because when these are the rules, the politicians willing to share their truth with us are few and far between. We cannot know whether they are for or against a Palestinian state, if they will raise or lower taxes or prices after the elections, whether they will freeze or increase construction in the settlements and Jerusalem or whether they will topple or preserve Hamas' rule in the Gaza Strip.
Nearly every position they take on an issue is measured and calculated according to the surveys that assess our desires and views at the moment. What happens after the elections is a new ballgame, and the voters and the elected officials all know that its connections to the game played ahead of the election are loose at best.
All that remains for us voters to do is to judge the elected officials by their actions, not their words. While that is quite a bit to rely on, it's not enough because the elections focus not just on what was, but what will be. To answer these big questions, there may be a need to hold a referendum in the future. In the meantime, our elections won't even come close to anything like that.
