Ofer Shelach and Naftali Bennett, who are competing for the top spot in their respective camps, represent the new politics in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu breaking apart the right-wing bloc and Yair Lapid not holding primaries in Yesh Atid are starting a snowball that could crush politics as we know them today. Will Shelach and Bennett score personal successes? Time will tell, but the train is already getting ready to pull out of the station.
The challenge by people who see themselves as more deserving of the leadership of their camps come from similar places. They both stress that the leaders of their parties have gone as far as they can go. Netanyahu, because of his legal battles, and Lapid because of the limits to his power.
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But if Bennett makes it, won't he – like so many of his predecessors in the right-wing bloc – run into the same legal system, or does he have some special protective suit? Will the lack of power that Shelach says afflicts Lapid not put him in the same position of having to make alliances with anti-Zionist entities?
Ofer Shelach will need to establish a new left-wing framework and build an ideological brand that will attract people whose worldview lies somewhere between that of the historic Labor Party and the extremist wing of Meretz. His most important ission will be to emphasize that the "Anyone but Bibi" camp is dead, and present an ideological camp with principles and even a new vision of peace that differs from the Oslo Accords.
A left-wing bloc under Shelach would also have to present solutions for the issue of law enforcement, and not be afraid to ask for widespread, balanced corrections. In any case, it appears that the left-wing camp will stress that Israel is a democratic, Jewish state, with an emphasis on "democratic" rather than "Jewish."
On the Right, Naftali Bennett will have to wear three hats: he will have to collect people who can pose a challenge to the Likud ministers; he will have to take action to create a new order when it comes to checks and balances between the three branches of government; and he will have to make Israel's image as a Jewish, democratic state permanent. If the right people and worldviews on the Right come together, Naftali Bennett could find himself in a position to lead the national camp.
If, however, Bennett gives into the dictates and whims of his former friends, he will find himself where he was after the third election. He made it over the minimum electoral threshold, but he's been relegated to the sandbox and not allowed to play with the big kids. No one devotes so much time and resources, an entire life, really, and goes into politics just to makes the rounds of the TV studios and write a book.
It seems as if the political game in Israel has re-launched. The next election and their results will be determined to a large extent by Shelach and Bennett's success in moving the snowball downhill and creating alternatives in their caps, possibly even restoring the old formula of a right-wing bloc, a left-wing bloc, and a Haredi bloc. Bennett and Shelach's moves are creating a new political climate in which ideology will once again play a central role. Bennett with a new Right, Shelach with a new Left – if the recent movement indicates anything it's that growing sectors of the public are thirsty for ideological answers rather than slogans.
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