A little after 7 p.m. on Thursday, I picked up my daughter from a friend's house. The radio had just started broadcasting the funeral of fallen IDF soldier Zachary Baumel, who was killed 37 years ago in the Battle of Sultan Yaaqub and whose body was found and returned to Israel this week.
Without a doubt, it was an incredibly moving moment. Baumel was finally being given a Jewish burial, with the leaders of the nation on hand to honor him. Everyone was there. The president and the prime minister, the Knesset speaker and the chief of staff, current and former ministers, former chiefs of staff and of course, relatives, friends, and many members of the public.
In the days leading up to an election, there are few moments as unifying as this event. It was such an Israeli combination of sadness and mourning mixed with the gratitude for an end to the uncertainty. For a few brief minutes, it was possible to forget about the divisions and come together.
On the way home, we heard Zachary's brother recite the kaddish prayer and I explained to my daughter about the ceremony we were hearing on the radio. She might not have understood why it was such a big deal, but she certainly heard the thrill in my voice.
When we were parking, President Reuven Rivlin was finishing his speech and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started to eulogize Baumel. Both their speeches, like IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi's, mostly talked about unity, and I felt myself let go of my cynicism and be moved.
But there was one person who decided he wouldn't allow a moment of unity. As the funeral was taking place on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the Blue and White party's headquarters put out a press release about party leader Benny Gantz visiting a protest tent in Tel Aviv set up by residents of Gaza border communities.
"When I'm prime minister, you'll be my guests, not Captain George," the press release said, referring to a Twitter user who was accused of being a Likud operative in this week's fake "bot" expose.
This is the time to underscore a point about how Blue and White is running its campaign, especially since Yair Lapid took over. On one hand, the party members constantly fire harsh, extreme attacks at the prime minister and the Right, while on the other they use every microphone to complain that the prime minister and the Likud are creating schisms among the people.
Take, for example, former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who said that that submarines affair was close to treason. Yes, yes. No. 3 on the Blue and White list says the prime minister is a traitor. Gantz also jumped on the submarines bandwagon, even though he knows – he said so a year ago – that there was no corruption at the leadership level in the submarines case.
And here's something else. A young woman threw a pepper at the prime minister when he visited the Hatikva market in Tel Aviv. Imagine the riot that would have erupted if that had happened to Gantz – how people who point at "Netanyahu the inciter" and talk about the murder of Yitzhak Rabin and SS uniforms.
But Gantz hasn't missed an opportunity for a low blow. He even decided to taint the moving moment of the return of Baumel's remains, and make accusations that the timing of was part of the Netanyahu campaign. According to Gantz, the news that Baumel's body had been found could have waited, even if that meant that Baumel's 86-year-old mother wouldn't have been alive to hear it.
