Tuesday's elections are crying out for a decisive victory. To emerge from the economic downturn caused by a year of pandemic, what is needed is an orderly, clear policy centering on a viable state budget. In the past week, specifically in the last days preceding the elections, the prime minister has been going all out on the economic front. He now campaigns as Mr. Economy, with all the other cards, such as the Iranian nuclear race and terrorism, being placed on the back burner.
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This time, however, the external situation, particularly in the United States, is highly significant. We should not be impressed by the praise and propaganda heaped in American and Israeli media on President Biden. In the last few days, Prof. Larry Summers – treasury secretary in the Clinton Administration and one of the greatest economists of our generation, who also served as president of Harvard – has been giving interviews.
Summers issued a stark warning regarding the economic disaster about to be unleashed by Biden's policies, specifically the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. "This is the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last 40 years," Summers told the Bloomberg news agency. The foreseeable outcomes are: first, a good chance of inflation; second, stagflation – meaning an inflationary rise in prices coupled with zero economic growth, with no one willing to invest money and bet on the future; and third, an economic depression that will lay pressure on the constraints put in place by the Federal Reserve.
To these, we may add the negative economic environment in Europe, which has yet to emerge from the pandemic swamp. Thus, Israel is called on to choose between economic chiefs and political-security leaders, in an environment already unstable due to irresponsible American policy decisions.
The problem facing the Likud and its leader is how to gather together the right-leaning voters wandering around the political map like sheep with no shepherd.
The advantage enjoyed by the Likud is that it is the last party to still offer a political home. A poll published on Sunday found that a large block of voters, accounting for about 10 Knesset seats, have yet to decide who to vote for – much more than in previous elections. The main reason is that voters on the Left have no stable political home to which votes tend to drift back come election day. The Labor Party and Meretz have weakened and suffered a loss of identity.
New Hope, Yisrael Beytenu, Blue and White, and Yesh Atid lack the established status characterizing a political home. They are seen as a seasonal brand, while the rightist parties led by Bennett and Smotrich are only vaguely identified as "religious Zionist." In fact, these two charismatic and brilliant leaders have a special talent for turning the religious right's home parties into mood brands. Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked invented the political strategy of "talking right of the Likud and helping the left achieve its goals."
Tuesday's choice is, at the bottom, between a stable rightist government headed by Netanyahu, and the continuation of the political chaos that will perpetuate the quandary of Israeli governability.
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