As of Sunday night, Israel was heading toward a so-called "change government," in what is the culmination of one of the largest political con jobs in Israeli history, thanks to you, Yamina.
As an ordinary citizen with right-wing and traditional views, I have considered Yamina a party with real leadership potential on Israel's Right, a party that has stuck to its ideological guns on security, settlement, sovereignty, and the judiciary. But I was apparently so wrong in ignoring the alarmism of right-wing activists during the most recent election. I could not even entertain the thought that you, Yamina, would defect from the Right in such an opportunistic and cynical manner while reneging on its clear pledge from the campaign. This is an unprecedented disregard of 300,000 voters and wholesale disavowal of the ideology that brought you to Israeli politics in the first place.
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Your anti-democratic move essentially does away with the main role the largest party should have in a coalition. Why would your party, which comprises 5% of the Knesset, get to appoint a prime minister? Your move gives a hand to a questionable political adventure by some small parties that is driven solely by ulterior and personal motives.
Why are those considerations presented as doing what's good for the country? Since when is a personal vendetta against a party leader part of a legitimate tenet of an ideological political platform and a basis for a coalition deal? Moreover, establishing a patchwork coalition like the "change government" will be used as a dangerous precedent and legitimacy for future moves along those lines. Your move, in case you have not realized by now, will kill any prospect of a stable right-wing government that would genuinely reflect the will of the voters and allow the pursuit of a political agenda that is cohesive and consistent with our camp. Moreover, your move might critically impeach the credibility of the Right's ability to lead, just when it appears to have recovered from the damage done by the removal of settlements in Gaza in 2005 under the Right.
Your bizarre claim that you keep repeating on how we should do everything to avoid another early election raises many questions. Just days ago, during the fighting in Gaza you said that such a coalition was longer on the table. So what changed? Or maybe this claim is just your way of saying that you are afraid of being wiped out in another march to the polls because voters won't forgive you over your latest moves?
Despite the bad blood between the various parties on the Right, it is still not too late to do the right thing and form a large right-wing coalition. I demand that you make a u-turn from this erroneous move and try to leverage your weight on parties that share the same agenda so that we exhaust all options in forming a government through constructive and generous negotiations. This is the order of the day in light of the rare political constellation that has emerged from the latest election. It would be a terrible thing if this week, as we mark 25 years since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first rose to power, you will form a "change government" with the anti-Netanyahu bloc whose only goal is to satisfy an anti-democratic vendetta at the country's expense.
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