The opening of the Knesset's winter session, Monday, provided clear proof of the disengagement campaign being led by the Israeli Left. These efforts are the result of a system failure, a lack of vision and primarily, the absence of a leadership able to differentiate between opposition to the government and opposition to the state.
An overwhelming majority of Israelis are happy. None of them any longer believe in the type of cooperation that Opposition Leader MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) begged of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. Israelis no longer naïvely believe that a withdrawal to the 1949 cease-fire lines will satisfy the Palestinians; they understand that the struggle is over the entire country. And wise Israelis have no use for the socialist slogans of the past. An entire world of beliefs and opinions has been swallowed up by a black hole, from which depression, despair and small-mindedness are constantly bubbling over.
The Left's showing in recent polls, alongside its inability to present an alternative leadership, have led it to return to the old familiar slogans. The recitation of false mantras puts a smile on the faces of veteran members of the Labour party, which, in a somewhat humorous move, is now referred to as the Zionist Union. These mantras include hatred and division, the nation-state law, the end of democracy and late Prime Minister Menachem Begin's remark that "there are judges in Jerusalem."
Former minister David Levy once spoke of a time when he worked as a day laborer on a kibbutz near Beit Shean in the country's north.
He said, "We would beg the gentlemen from the kibbutz to put the water in the shade so that it would remain cool. Did they do it? Absolutely not. It was human wickedness. They would place the buckets of drinking water in the sun, and the water would get so hot, we couldn't drink it. I thought to myself, 'Why do they hate us so much?'"
Members of the Irgun paramilitary organization, of which Livni's late father Eitan served as a commander, were turned over to the British during "Hasaison," a Hebrew and French mix short for "La Saison de Chasse" ("The Hunting Season"), the period in the mid-1940s when Jews persecuted other Jews for the benefit of their British rulers.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion refused to call Begin by his name, preferring instead abusive epithets. Right-wing voters are called by the leftist cultural elite "grave worshippers" and "mezuzah kissers," and that is just a brief account of their hatred. So who on the Israeli Left can preach about hatred when they are in the fact the ones responsible for it and continue to foster it.
How can someone like Livni – who in a clear reference to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers in 2014, remarked that she and then-Labor party leader Isaac Herzog would "take out the trash" – lecture others about baseless hate?
In the Knesset on Monday, Livni spoke loftily of the danger posed by hatred. In the same breath, though, she attacked the haredim.
Israeli society is not divided. There are disagreements between different groups, as has been the case ever since the Jewish people first graced history's stage. But to claim we are on the brink of a civil war is nothing short of a fallacy. Most Israelis love their country and what unites them is stronger than what divides them.
Israel is a model democracy. Its citizens are afforded almost unlimited freedoms. The only threat to democracy here is the attempt to impose the tyranny of the minority on the majority. Unfortunately, the courts are often seen as enlisting in this effort. Indeed, there are judges in Jerusalem, and they do not reside on Mount Olympus. They too can sometimes make mistakes. This will soon be rectified. State authorities obey the court's rulings, including those whose reasonableness is in question.
The nation-state law does not harm equality. I wish Israel's character as the nation-state of the Jewish people was as recognized and protected in the courts as the value of equality rightfully is.
The Jews are willing to give their lives for this tough country if only out of the belief that it is their nation-state. If the ideal were a state of all its citizens, they would surely prefer New Zealand.
A vast majority of Israelis are able to recognize Netanyahu's talents and leadership, as well as the ideology in the name of which he acts. My suggestion to the Left: Find a real vision and stop fishing in murky waters.
