It's unclear what the final makeup of the 24th Knesset will look like. If the Right gets control, it will soon get widespread support for a broad coalition because not a single MK would like to hold yet another early election. I have a hard time seeing Blue and White leader Benny Gantz being content with heading some Knesset committee, for example, rather than keeping some ministerial portfolio in the cabinet. Gideon Sa'ar may in this case also decide it is time to throw in the towel and leave politics.
Despite this uncertainty, we can already draw some insights from the election. Likud is the biggest Knesset faction, and by a large margin over the second-biggest faction, Yest Atid. This attests to its successful showing against the coalition of interests, hatred and incendiary rhetoric of unprecedented proportions. Many people have realized that the animosity was just over the top and decided to cast their votes against it, making it clear to the elitist Left – in the judiciary, academia and the media – that they won't let such vitriol win.
Their vote was also a rejection of the attempt to brainwash them and engineer their perception. Israelis cast their lack of confidence in the media and the fake pundits. Let's hope that the media, for the sake of Israeli democracy, internalizes this and draws the right conclusions by halting its incitement and letting Israelis embrace the vote's outcome.
Many Israelis made it clear to the world that we are now back in our homeland after 2,000 years of exile and no one in the world can make the state of the Jews act against its interests. Many Israelis voiced a clear desire to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu head a right-wing, responsible, and cohesive government that would pursue the vision of a Jewish national home rather than have Israel become detached from its Jewish heritage and traditions.
The religious Zionist parties managed to pull off a surprise showing. In fact, during Election Day, I got to hear several secular Israelis say they will vote for the Religious Zionists because they felt Judaism was at the heart of the return to Zion.
I sure hope that they join the coalition and make our country follow the path envisioned by the prophets in the Bible.
The success of the Arab party Ra'am is a good development. For the first time since the state's founding, voters of a party in the Arab sector showed that they are well aware of the price they had been paying for the association of their leadership with the Palestinian Authority and terrorist groups it funds. Missiles from Gaza and Lebanon, after all, may hurt the Bedouine towns just as much as they can cause harm in Jewish communities.
The main left-wing media outlets have already begun their campaign to delegitimize Ra'am by casting it as a party of terrorist sympathizers. They have never done that when the Center-Left explored the possibility of joining forces with the Joint Arab List, whose radical agenda is well known to all.
This is pure hypocrisy. If Ra'am, unlike the Joint Arab List, agrees to abandon any effort to undo the Jewish character of the state and focuses instead on civil rights, there is a real possibility of partnering with it and having real co-existence.
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