Orly Levy-Abekasis, who took the first step to torpedo Benny Gantz's gambit with the Joint Arab List, is a good example of the Left's problem. What's more important, love of Israel and caring about the national interests, or "anyone but Netanyahu" as the slogan goes?
Levy-Abekasis, despite being a member of a left-wing party, still has ties and connections to planet earth, which is to say with the public, the street, the common folk; thus differentiating her from the political circle she joined. Indeed, the very Twitter elite and the ruling class that only recognizes party affiliation; only recognize belonging to the camp. From their perspective, she is a traitor or defector, because only loyalties to the camp and class are important. If the Joint Arab List helps topple Netanyahu, then what does it matter how many hugs and kisses were shared with terrorists – they will jump into bed with the Joint List.
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In addition to the aspect of belonging, which has been a foreign concept to the Left for quite some time now, there's also the matter of conscience and ideological integrity. The easiest version to digest as far as the public and pundits' are concerned is that Levy-Abekasis found the right time and reason to exact revenge: against Benny Gantz, who didn't roll out the red carpet for her to join Blue and White, against Avigdor Lieberman, the chairman of her former party, Yisrael Beytenu; against the white tribe, on behalf of her predominantly Sephardic hometown of Beit Shean.
All of this on its own would perhaps be provocative stuff. But it wouldn't be enough if there wasn't already some degree of ethical opposition to the Left's far-reaching move to pull the country away from Zionism. Levy-Abekasis knew she'd be hit with a wave of attempts to assassinate her character and terrorize her on social media. But as they said in the neighborhood back in the McCarthy days: "There, that's the rat." The neighborhood, with all due respect to Benny Gantz and the smug journalists in some of the papers, is Beit Shean. It matters less to her that the Twitter neighborhood calls her a "traitor" and other nasty things; what's more important is what they say about her in Beit Shean. She may have left the town a long time ago but she still has family there, and she hasn't left them behind.
Above all the pressure applied by her brother and father, according to Likud officials, there's also the matter of her own political survival. The possibility that the imbroglio created by Gantz, Yair Lapid and Lieberman will persist means a fourth election; and then there's a real chance that her party fails to pass the electoral threshold.
Levy-Abekasis' justification for taking another step toward joining the right-wing coalition, perhaps along with two others, is that the political-media scare-campaign has paralyzed the party heads, and therefore it falls on lone but courageous MKs to break the ice and move the coalition train forward. MKs Zvi Hauser and Yoaz Hendel are candidates, as is Levy-Abekasis, and maybe now Lieberman, too.
