A recent poll by Channel 12 News has found that 30% of the Israelis who define themselves as right-wing voters would like to see the next government exclude the Likud. These are 36 mandates of rightists that do not want to see Benjamin Netanyahu as the prime minister.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
The massive loss of confidence in Netanyahu on the Right is not coincidental. Simply put, right-wing voters are, well, right-wing. Netanyahu is not.
For what is the "Right"? The Right supports the Land of Israel; it has clear-cut and resolute positions when it comes to national security; it is in favor of a small government, low public spending and a free market; it is in favor of governance by elected officials and not by functionaries; it supports national sovereignty; it promotes law and order, and it sees itself as part of a Jewish national tradition.
Party history aside, the Likud has lost sight of its right-wing roots. It's not for nothing that Likud voters are looking for other political homes.
Looking back on the past few election campaigns, Netanyahu has sought every opportunity he had to form a government that included the Left.
The record shows that Netanyahu voted in favor of the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip several times; he has been stifling the Judea and Samaria settlement enterprise; and his promises – to topple Hamas' regime, to build in E1 areas, which stretches across 7 kilometers (4 miles) between Jerusalem and the suburb of Maaleh Adumim, to extend Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley – are hollow.
The same is true of the economy. Netanyahu talks and sermons about a free market policy that includes cutting red tape and taxes, reforms to budgetary pensions, removing import barriers and production quotas, and reducing the power wielded by workers' unions.
In reality, however, he has been promoting populist protectionist economic policies, and instead of using the coronavirus crisis to address in-depth issues, he opted to stall budgets for outrageous political reasons and widening the deficit.
Moreover, it was Netanyahu who prevented any attempt to curb judicial activism. He prevented the vote on override bill, which would disempower the High Court of Justice from intervening in legislation and administrative resolutions by the government, ministers or the Knesset; and he prevented moves that would have split the role of the attorney general and the way in which judges are named to the Supreme Court.
He has also been throwing around empty promises on crime and the issue of illegal aliens and he is doing very little to counter subversive foreign intervention in Israel's internal affairs.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it's most likely a duck, and in this case, the duck is not a rightist. That is why so many right-wing voters are looking to Yamina and New Hope for an alternative – they simply want a right-wing government.
Dr. Ronen Shoval is the dean of the Tikvah Fund and head of the Argaman Institute, which aims to crystallize and debate the foundational ideas of Israeli conservatism.
