Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's and the right-wing bloc's insistence on returning the mandate to form the next Knesset have brought an end to a government of the Right. Moreover, they have put an end to the opportunity for a nationalist government to open up and sterilize the bloody wounds Israeli society has not dared to touch and the coronavirus pandemic stirred up. Social security, disability benefits, early childhood custody, the treatment of the elderly - are just some of the burning issues.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
True, the Left hates Netanyahu. That is sickening in and of itself. To remain in power, Netanyahu agreed to "kosher" the best partners from the Joint Arab List, and it seems this is good enough reason to deal with the burning issues in Israeli society. Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett have erected a bridge to embark on this journey.
The time has come to remove the cloaks of Right and Left and jump at this much-needed opportunity. The unity government formulated over the last year was a fiction; it filtered out those at its gates, and the motivations for its establishment were impure. Now, there is a genuine opportunity to quench the civil thirst.
Had Netanyahu recommended President Reuven Rivlin task the object of his hatred, Lapid, with forming the next government, he would have demonstrated that not everything is personal. But the more popular and of the people the Right becomes, the more it fails in its interpersonal dealings.
If the No.1 priority was protecting Israel from the Iran nuclear deal and Israeli soldiers from the International Criminal Court, Likud members would have focused their efforts on external enemies and not the ones at home. Instead of learning the lessons of dozens of burned bridges and ideologically embracing those of similar mind, the prime minister and his followers insist on leaning on those with vastly different views and marching straight toward the gallows to the sounds of the saying from Pirkei Avot ("Ethics of the Fathers"): "Envy, lust, and [the desire for] honor put a man out of the world."
One can, of course, switch out the terms in this equation: Judicial revolution is now out of reach, there will be no annexation, and we can forget about additional peace accords with Arab states, to name but a few. The leaders of the smaller parties on the Right had their fill of Netanyahu due to his dismissive attitude toward them. In the end, they may wind up more like him, except of course where it really matters – at the ballot box.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
