Blue and White was furious with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid on Tuesday evening after Yesh Atid allegedly sent out text messages signed Benny Gantz. The messages said that Blue and White was gaining traction and no longer in danger of not passing the minimum electoral threshold of 3.25%, and therefore voters should cast ballots to strengthen Yesh Atid.

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The message read: "Gantz: We are gaining strength and have over six seats, and we are definitely out of danger. When the parties in the bloc are out of danger, now is the times to decide and vote for Yesh Atid. A strong Yesh Atid is the only key to replacing the Netanyahu government."

Lapid also tweeted that "according to the situation rooms of the parties in his bloc, all the parties were growing. "Now we need a large Yesh Atid if we want to replace the government. The discussion of who will pass [the minimum threshold] and who won't is over, the discussion now is about how we replace the government with a big Yesh Atid."

Blue and White said in response: "After he abandoned the bloc and didn't worry about alliances, Lapid has started to send out fake news. It doesn't matter if Lapid has 20 or 22 seats – it does matter if Blue and White doesn't make it past the minimum threshold, and there will be nobody to stop Bibi's one-man rule in a transition government."

Blue and White also said: "The public has to know that if Blue and White or Meretz do not make it over the minimum threshold, there is a real danger that Netanyahu will have 61 seats and a government that will give him immunity. A ballot for Yesh Atid is a ballot for Bibi."

The party's election headquarters sent out instructions to its MKs, candidates, and all activists to keep fighting for every single vote to ensure that the party made it past the minimum threshold and into the Knesset. Blue and White was also making intensive preparations to oversee the vote count. Gantz himself was out on Dizengoff St. in Tel Aviv Tuesday evening, urging the public to vote.

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The thousands of Israelis stranded abroad due to Israel's decision to close down air traffic in an attempt to stop the spread of coronavirus and its variants will not be allowed to vote absentee, as current election law does not provide for that possibility.

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When asked about the possibility of Israelis abroad being allowed to vote at embassies and consulates, Director General of the Central Elections Committee Orly Adas said, "The Election Law explicitly states who is allowed to vote at Israeli diplomatic missions and consulates abroad. The list includes envoys of the Foreign Ministry, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, and KKL-JNF who are abroad because of work, and their families.

"Therefore, Israelis who happen to be outside the country and were not able to return will not be allowed to vote from abroad," Adas said.

The existing law could only be changed if the Knesset were to immediately pass legislation to alter it to allow Israelis who are barred from returning home by the closed-skies policy to vote at diplomatic missions throughout the world.

If such a change were proposed, the legislative process would have to be completed this week, as absentee voting for the March 23 election is scheduled to take place on Thursday, March 11.

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If it hadn't been for a certain speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day five years ago, former GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. (res.) Yair Golan would have become IDF chief of staff. That is neither a guess nor an analysis. Golan has been told that explicitly by the person who decided to nominate Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, instead – former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

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Five years on, Golan admits for the first time that if he had known what the response to his remarks would be, he would have expressed himself differently. For anyone who might have forgotten, speaking at the Massuah International Institute for Holocaust Studies as then-deputy commander of the IDF, he said, "If there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe – particularly in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here (in Israel) among us in the year 2016."

"I didn't believe the speech would cause so much fuss," he tells Israel Hayom. "Call it naiveté, but I didn't realize I was heading into an incident like this. Who had ever heard of Massuah? I was speaking from my heart, because I had seen the insanity that unfolded here after the Elor Azaria incident [in which Azaria shot and killed a Palestinian man who was already restrained following an attempted attack on IDF troops in Hebron], the wave of nationalism that isn't us. If I had known that what I said would echo so loudly, I would have expressed myself differently."

Q: Now that time has passed, are those processes really happening with us?

"We are in the midst of very dangerous processes. We aren't unusual. Look at what is happening to democracies in the world. There is a book by two guys from Harvard, Jews, called How Democracies Die. They looked at over 40 countries in which there is a populist leadership – and Netanyahu is a populist leader – and you see how democracy is being shredded everywhere. So it's not that we're becoming Nazis, but rather that there are processes here of offensive nationalism and the destruction of democracy."

Q: Why do you think what you said created so much uproar?

"Because the politicians said to themselves, 'He sees us.' He sees what we try to hide. So they went after me so strongly. The approach of the Right today is to go full-steam against any opposition, including campaigns of slander and lies. They spread it around that I'm dismissive of soldiers' lives, that I told IDF soldiers they were Nazis. They signed 100 bereaved families on a petition not to appoint me chief of staff. It was a campaign to silence me."

Q: Because of it, you didn't become chief of staff.

"It doesn't consume me. I don't wake up frustrated. True, there was an element of unconscious choice, but the responsibility is mine and I feel fine with it."

'Don't fight the deal'

Yair Golan was the most militant of the generals in the General Staff. If anyone had asked back then what political party he would join upon retiring from the IDF, most people would have thought he was firmly on the Right. That image was built up not only from years of combat service in the toughest roles, but also because of his character.

When he was commander of the Judea Samaria Division, he approved the use of the "neighbor" policy in arresting Palestinian fugitives, in which the IDF has a neighbor or relative ask the fugitive to turn himself in, against the explicit ruling of the High Court of Justice. He paid for it by having a promotion delayed, but he was at peace with the decision – I did what I had to do to protect soldiers' lives, he said at the time. As GOC Northern Command, his role when the Syrian war erupted in 2011, he ran an independent policy that created major friction between him and then-chief of staff Benny Gantz. In this case, too, Golan was convinced he did the right thing for Israel's security.

His IDF colleagues find it difficult to explain the apparent discrepancy between the hard-core officer Golan was while in uniform and his almost opposite public image now. But for Golan, everything is clear: "When there's a need to fight – I fight. And I think I fight well. I know the profession pretty well. When you're dealing with things at the political level, it's political tactics, not a battle between thugs in a dark neighborhood," he says.

Q: Give an example.

"Take Iran. The idea that the only thing to be done is to threaten and attack is simply foolish. That's not how you manage a strategy. Anyone who has some understanding of the issue knows that it would be irresponsible for Israel to handle Iran without the US. What Netanyahu did with his speech to Congress in 2015 was irresponsible, and caused enormous damage. That's not how it works. You need to have the US with you.

"The nuclear deal, which Netanyahu condemns morning, noon, and night – joined, horrifyingly, by the chief of staff [Kochavi] – is a good deal. That doesn't mean it doesn't have flaws. We knew about them from the start. I was deputy chief of staff when the deal was signed, and I was responsible for Iran in the General Staff. When the deal arrived we held a discussion with all the officials and said to ourselves that if Iran complied with it, it would be an amazing achievement. The fact is that without the deal, they'd be closer to nuclear weapons than with it, so we need to take action to improve the deal and then create a new one, rather than fighting it and losing."

Golan does not hold back criticism. As a colonel, he was at his wits' end at how the 2006 Second Lebanon War was fought. As someone who grew up in the area, fought there, and was even wounded when serving in the security zone in southern Lebanon, he thought that the IDF was making every mistake possible. At the time, he was in charge of the Judea Samaria Division, but that didn't keep him from sending a harshly-worded letter to then-Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz.

He did the same during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, of which he wasn't in charge. He had been made GOC Northern Command, but his opinion echoed in meetings of the General Staff.

"We were behaving hysterically from the moment the three teens were abducted. It was a terrible event, but the hysteria involved in the decision making was unneeded. I'm not squeamish about using force. And when there's a need to use force, I do. But how things were handled there was scandalous."

Golan does not direct his criticism at Netanyahu, of whom he expects nothing, and whose handling of strategic matters Golan does not admire. His criticism is aimed mainly at the military: How Gantz ran Operation Protective Edge, how Kochavi is dealing with the Iranian issue, and in general, what he calls "the paradigm of intelligence and fire." He says that Israel has learned nothing from the last four big events: The Second Lebanon War and the three major Gaza operations that followed it.

"Einstein defined foolishness as doing the same thing and expecting different results. That's what we do. Lebanon was a huge failure. We missed an opportunity to beat Hezbollah to a pulp. To send three divisions in and give it a real blow, explain to them that they don't mess with us. That's the kind of warfare I want to see. War comes with terrible costs, and we need to do everything possible to avoid them. But if we've made the decision to go to war – we wage war with all our might."

The same goes for the Gaza operations, he says. "Again, we're in the same pattern in which we bomb and get frustrated, bomb and get frustrated. What happens in these operations? The first day is always very successful, because you initiate it and come in with good intelligence, and achieve your goals. But it takes the enemy 24 hours to understand what's holding him back, and from then things start to die down, and tensions rise in the General Staff because the operation isn't succeeding. In Operation Protective Edge the IDF dug in and basically told Hamas how far they would be going, so Hamas went on a stronger offensive than us, the strongest army in the Middle East. How can that be?"

'The army doesn't have confidence'

Q: Who can guarantee that the next war or operation will look different?

"No one is guaranteeing that. When I see the direction in which the IDF is headed, I realize that it won't change. It's legitimate to say that we don't intend to maneuver, just attack and bomb. I don't agree with that approach, but I respect it as someone else's strategy. But that's not what they say – they talk about maneuvers, maneuvers, maneuvers, and it's all drivel.

"The investment in the ground forces is just lip service. The ground army isn't prepared, no one should have any doubt about that. It has units that are prepared, but on the whole, as an army, it isn't … How do I know that? Because if someone says repeatedly that they intend to maneuver, and never does, it's a sign that something's wrong. The ground forces have lost their confidence."

When Golan says, "the IDF today has no instinct for war," it should worry us.

"Show me a single division commander in the Second Lebanon War or in Protective Edge grabbed a GOC or the chief of staff and said, 'What is this?' Show me one of them who shut off the radio and went out to kill Hezbollah or Hamas. When there's an opportunity, you need to take it. Unfortunately, the army now says, 'Keep these people way, give me conformists.'"

'How many Israelis have been to Judea and Samaria?'

As someone who is willing to go as far as necessary in battle but will do everything to prevent another war, Golan is somewhat surprised that people are surprised he's on the Left of Israeli politics. As far as he's concerned, he's in exactly the same place as generations of generals before him, who saw Zionism like he does: "loyal to the original definition of Zionism as 'a national home for the Jewish people, a free and democratic state.'"

From that perspective, he thinks that Israel must not avoid the Palestinian issue and that Israel needs to take its fate into its own hands. If there is no partner for peace – and at the moment, there is not – it should take unilateral action. The idea that the problem will disappear he sees as absurd, and mostly, dangerous.

"The settlers are really pleased with themselves, but they don't have a reason to be. The settlement enterprise is a terrible failure. 215,000 of the people considered settlers live in Jerusalem. None of them is there for ideological reasons. Even the 200,000 who live in the big settlements don't care about territory, yes or no. The people who live in Modi'in Illit or Betar Illit lives there because they need a place to live. And anyone who lives in the settlements close to the Green Line doesn't understand the issue. They were given a gorgeous villa in Beit Arie at half price, so where does ideology come in? Under a permanent arrangement, they'll be within Israeli borders, anyway. In short, we're left with the Jewish parts of Hebron, and the hilltop settlements in Samaria. That's the heart of the problem, and for that they're demanding that the entire state of Israel come crashing down."

Golan is concerned that Israel isn't taking initiative when it comes to the Palestinians. "It's much more important than the Iranian issue. This is where our fate will be decided, not in Tehran. And we are running away from it. The right-wing leadership is really blind. And lacking in vision. All the people on the Right I talk to are talking about the dangers only. About 'What will happen it…' None of them has a plan. No solution. No long-term vision."

Golan says that the leadership is "taking advantage of the fact that Israelis don't' care about the settlements. For most citizens of Israel, they're the dark side of the moon. How many Israelis have ever been to Judea and Samaria? How many can take a map and point out Shilo or Eli? But the leadership should behave differently. It should lead. This problem won't go away. It will only get bigger, and Zionism cannot live in peace and be free and democratic if it controls another people."

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However, Golan also thinks that the Zionist Left is getting it wrong, and that there should be one large left-wing list in the upcoming election.

"This division between Meretz and Labor, and then [Ron] Huldai and [Ofer] Shelach is unparalleled stupidity. This has to change. That's why I got into politics, to create that unity, In the meantime, I'm sorry to say, I haven't succeeded."

Q: The Left is just getting weaker. Meretz is hovering around the minimum electoral threshold.

"We can't drop out. I believe we'll pass [the minimum threshold], and I'm working really hard to make that happen. But the Left is in trouble. Together with Labor, the base of the Israeli Left is 11-12 seats, on a good day. That's a base to start with. My job in politics is to shake up the Left, unite it, and get it started on a new path. I'll remind you that in 1992, when Rabin was elected, Labor had 44 seats and Meretz had 12. It's just insane what has happened to the Left since then."

Q: Oslo. Terrorist attacks. The Second Intifada.

"Oslo killed it. There's no doubt about that. But since then, the Left has been delegitimized, and it behaves likes its scared and doesn't put any effort into building political power. Ehud Barak, who was the most important figure on the Left from the time he was elected prime minister in 1999 until he left politics in the middle of the last decade, didn't focus on building power. That has to change."

Golan thinks that the path to this kind of change leads to an alliance with the Arab public. "They say we love Arabs. What is that nonsense? This isn't a romantic matter. They're 20% of the public, citizens of the state, and we have an interest in connecting with them. If we bring them in, we can ensure that there will never be a united Palestinian front against us."

However, most of these issues won't be in play in the upcoming election. Like the previous ones, the vote on March 23 will be primarily a referendum about Netanyahu. Golan is urging his fellow Meretz members, who think that the party must not join a government with Naftali Bennett or Avidgor Lieberman to stop being so self-righteous.

"Netanyahu is corrupt, and today he's the biggest danger to the state of Israel. If they want to get rid of him, we need to cooperate. I wouldn't rule out anyone, except for considerations of corruption, or someone like [Itamar] Ben-Gvir, who is an Israeli fascist. But other than them, I'm willing to sit with anyone – the Haredim, the Arabs, Bennett, Gideon Sa'ar. To agree about what we will be addressing and what we won't, and get started," he says.

Q: Some people would say this is a betrayal of the Meretz principles.

"A betrayal is doing something different than what you promised. Amir Peretz took his base of support and betrayed them. He violated his voters' trust, and I think that history will hold him accountable. You can't shave off your moustache and say that you won't join Netanyahu's government, and then join it. And he shouldn't tell me he had to – he didn't. He could have wished Blue and White luck and stayed in the opposition."

Q: And Benny Gantz?

"Benny Gantz has a weak character. He's a good man, wise, worthy, a good professional, but he's weak-willed. This stuck out in his military service, when I was his deputy. And because he has a weak character he gives in."

It's not easy for Golan to say this about Gantz – they have known each other for decades, fought side by side, lost mutual friends.

"What holds me up is the loyalty to what I see as the truth. I don't live with a lie, and I don't tell stories. I'm not Yoav Gallant, who built an image and feeds it, or Bennett, who is a fiction. He doesn't understand COVID, and he doesn't understand security. He was defense minister for six months, and behaves as if he invented the job. I think that after the army I'm the same person I was in the army, who is loyal to his truth, and I don't intend to change."

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Unity on the Left – This was the thrust of Defense Minister Benny Gantz's prime-time appeal on Monday evening to all the parties in the bloc.

The Left cannot allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to smash us into pieces, Gantz exhorted his camp in a televised press conference.

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"This is an emergency," he said. "There is great danger that the opportunity will pass by if we remain scattered in so many factions," he said.

"I am calling on everyone who cares about Israel, to everyone who won't join Bibi, to forgo his ego and unite … Everyone who really won't join a government under Bibi. Let's meet, we'll find the way forward. We'll discover what we have in common. Let's sit down, tomorrow. I am inviting you – 8 p.m., we'll find solutions. I expect all of us to be there," Gantz said, appealing directly to Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, Telem leader Moshe Ya'alon, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz, Labor MK Itsik Shmuli, and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, former Treasury official Yaron Zelekha, and former Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah, who  recently announced they were forming their own parties to run in the March 2021 election.

"Let's unite for the good of the country. Without the failures of the past, without fear, without ego. I'm ready to sacrifice a lot, as I've already proved, if it means Bibi goes. If we get rid of our egos, we get rid of Bibi. Let's unite to get rid of Bibi," he said.

For the first time, Gantz also explicitly stated he had been wrong to join a government under Netanyahu, breaking his promise to Blue and White voters.

"I was wrong. I shook hands with the man I promised to replace. I shook hands with a serial breaker of promises. I shook it because, as a soldier, Israel was at war, and it was my duty. As a real and deadly pandemic threatened us all, Netanyahu continued to divide us and incite because it served his personal interests, and helped him avoid the specter of his trial," Gantz said.

When Israel Hayom asked Gantz if he would support internal primaries to elect a leader of the center-left bloc if some of all of the parties managed to unit, Gantz replied, "We'll find a way."

When asked who might be expected to take the No. 2 slot on the Blue and White list, he responded, "The answer will come in a few days."

Yes Atid issued a response to Gantz's speech: "We will do everything we can to create partnerships that will lead to a sane, liberal government that will chance the country."

The Likud said: "While politicians are busy with politics, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brought millions of vaccines to the people of Israel and is leading Israel toward being the first country in the world to come out of the COVID crisis, reopen its economy, and get back to living its life."

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Lieberman responded: "We already had a chance to get rid of Bibi, but you [Gantz] avoided becoming a 'reserve' prime minister. The only thing you can do now for the country is announce that you aren't running in the next Knesset election."

Ya'alon, a member of the former Blue and White "cockpit," said after Gantz's speech that "Israel is in one of its darkest hours in terms of a collapse of leadership, norms, and values. This election is not about Right vs. left, but a choice between honest or corrupt; democracy or dictatorship; truth or lies. We will do everything we must to restore hope. The protests will emerge victorious!"

As Gantz was speaking to his fellow center-left leaders, Shelah was making his own announcement, in which he urged Huldai, Avi Nissankoren, and Labor leaders to consider running on a joint ticket.

"You all know me. We've worked on deals and political activity. There are no preconditions. Let's sit down, let's negotiate, we'll reach an agreement and put together a political entity that an entire camp is longing for. Then there can be other partnerships, but let's start," Shelah said.

The former Yesh Atid MK added that only if one party united the center-left would it be possible to prevent Netanyahu from forming the next government: "Only a [political] entity like that can provide an answer for hundreds of thousands of Israelis who don't have a political home. If it is formed quickly, it could reach a double-digit number of seats and shape the next government," he said.

Earlier Monday, Huldai himself also told reporters he favored political partnerships on the center-left "without ego." Huldai was asked if he was in favor of Lapid, who is holding steady in the polls, leading a center-left bloc.

"Lapid has already run five times, unsuccessfully. Other than that, I saw that people leave him – Bogie [Ya'alon] left, Shelah left," Huldai said.

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While all Israel's political parties, particularly the newly-formed ones, are openly focused on aiming their attacks at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, their real fight is against each other. Right now, these battles are being waged behind the scenes. Later on, as their distress grows, they will take center stage in the 2021 election, unless some important mergers are formed ahead of the deadline to submit party lists in February.

Both camps are seeing in-fighting in the ranks of small and mid-sized parties, but the most vicious fighting right now is on the Left. On the Right, Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa'ar grappling over the higher number of seats seems like a first-world problem compared to what is happening on the Left, where a number of parties are fighting for their very existence. If one of those parties fails to make it past the minimum electoral threshold, it could significantly up Netanyahu's chance of forming a right-wing coalition.

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After a couple of election, and after the four former members of the Blue and White "cockpit" did their spontaneous victory dance, the Left has realized that it's not the size of the party, but the size of the bloc that is the deciding factor. Therefore, in the last election, Blue and White head Benny Gantz pressured Labor leader Amir Peretz to run on a joint ticket with Meretz to ensure that the party would make it past the minimum threshold. This is also why members of the left-wing parties were happy to see the Joint Arab List become the third-largest party in the Knesset, meaning more seats for the camp that would prevent Netanyahu from forming a right-wing government.

But now the Left will need to make a much bigger move to arrange a victory. The camp is currently made up of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party; Gantz's Blue and White; Ron Huldai's Israelis party; Ofer Shelah's Tnufa; Labor, Meretz, Yaron Zelikha's as-yet unnamed party; and to a certain extent, Yisrael Beytenu under Avigdor Lieberman, as well. Obviously, a few of these parties will have to form joint tickets by February, but that might not be enough. In the last three elections, the left-wing camp had a leader whom everyone on the Left backed for prime minister. But this time, there is no such leader.

Right now, the hottest pick is actually Gideon Sa'ar – and he's from the opposing camp. But the lack of a leading candidate for prime minister doesn't only affect the maneuvers that follow the election itself – it has an effect right here, right now. The absence of a central figure means that there will be no hand steering things until the lists are closed, making sure that joint tickets are formed to ensure that no vote is wasted.

Another question that will likely remain unanswered until the last minute is whether or not the parties that fail to form partnerships by the deadline and wind up running alone will put their egos aside and withdraw, or go all the way, sending hundreds of thousands of left-wing votes down the drain.

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This past summer, Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev announced he would be resigning after 27 years as head of Israel's Holocaust memorial.

It was unlikely that Shalev, who turned the institution from a commemorative site that attracted mainly Holocaust survivors into a world-class museum and research center, foresaw the controversy that would be set in motion over who would be appointed his successor.

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The moment Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Brig. Gen. (res.) Effi Eitam would be appointed the new chairman of Yad Vashem, objections flooded in from both the Right and the Left. Eitam's comments in 2006 about "expelling Arabs from Judea and Samaria" were mentioned in letters of objection from researchers at Yad Vashem itself, such as Professor Yehuda Bauer and Professor Hezi Dreyfuss. Meanwhile, the Right largely sees Eitam as a fitting appointment and opposition to his taking over Shalev's role as political.

In an interview to Israel Hayom, Shalev said that despite his many years in the role, no government official consulted with him about who he thought should be appointed head of Yad Vashem. However, Shalev said he has met with Eitam.

"I will work with open arms with any candidate the government approves. So will all the staff at Yad Vashem, as I know them. Even if there are some who have reservations, they will work with him out of immense loyalty to the institution," Shalev said.

Shalev dismissed the prospect of a "revolt" by researchers if Eitam were appointed: "I haven't heard any rumors or scenarios like that. Yad Vashem is made up of devoted professionals who see their work as a mission."

Speaking to Israel Hayom, Shalev also discussed some of what occurred behind the scenes of last year's political storm over a controversial law the Polish government passed making it illegal to cast the Poles as perpetrators of the Holocaust in their country. The controversy ended with a joint statement by the governments of Israel and Poland decreeing the terms "Polish concentration camp" or "Polish death camp" to be "completely erroneous."

Shalev said that as far as Yad Vashem is concerned, the institution adhered to a document it issued declaring that the agreement between Israel and Poland included certain details that "contradicted existing historical knowledge."

"The Poles are sticking to the agreement between the two governments and saying that they do not recognize anything else, but we are sticking to our own position paper," he declared.

Shalev also said that the COVID-19 pandemic had dealt a serious blow to Yad Vashem, mainly because of a lack of donations from abroad.

"One huge donor told me, 'I just fired 10,000 people – I can't send you money,'" Shalev said, noting that in all his years as head of the institution, Yad Vashem had never had a budget deficit.

"Still, it's unclear what will happen next year since there still isn't a state budget," he notes.

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"They are creating noise with insane, unprecedented backing from the media. In 2011 there were hundreds of thousands [of protesters], here there are barely enough to represent a quarter of a Knesset seat, and they're getting round-the-clock coverage. The link to coronavirus is incidental. There are repeated calls for murder," Netanyahu said.

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The prime minister went on to say that "the total enlistment by media outlets is characteristic of non-democratic regimes, and a danger to democracy."

"They are giving legitimacy to threats of murder and violence that come up not only on Facebook, but also at the demonstrations themselves. Opposition leaders, especially [Yesh Atid leader] Yair Lapid are giving this full legitimacy, rather than warning against incitement," Netanyahu said.

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But upon closer inspection, we see that the battles are being waged within the two political camps. In just the last 24 hours, Democratic Union leader Ehud Barak has managed to attack Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who responded to the former prime minister in kind. Blue and White directed its fire at Labor leader Amir Peretz, while United Right's Bezalel Smotrich found time to quarrel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who responded by calling him in for a dressing down. And all the while, the far-right Otzma Yehudit incessantly attacked parties on the Right.

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The reason for all this seems to be that all the parties have reached the conclusion – at a relatively early stage in the election campaign – that the battle between the political blocs is in fact irrelevant. The assessment is that a great deal of energy will need to be invested in bringing votes over from one side to another, with rather poor results, while the pool of potential voters that can be more easily persuaded to vote for a different party can in fact be found within their camp. Sometimes, it's just easier to wage a civil war than manage a war among ideologues.

This situation appears to serve Netanyahu's interests. The right-wing bloc is set to garner a larger majority than the left-wing bloc, and in the absence of any competition for right-wing votes, will be the bloc that guarantees him his next victory. This time around, Netanyahu is free of any sentiments or political concerns. With United Right's Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, whom he recently fired from his government, being the strongest figures to his right, and their party predicted to safely pass the electoral threshold, there is nothing keeping him from stealing Knesset seats from United Right unhindered.

But this is all seemingly true. Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Lieberman could turn out to be an effective tool for stealing Knesset seats from the Right for the Left, thereby doing Gantz and his fellow Blue and White leader Yair Lapid and Barak's work for them, seeing as they are incapable of doing it themselves.

But the right-wing parties aren't suckers either. They won't allow Netanyahu to steal votes to his heart's content this time around. While the prime minister will claim Bennet and Shaked will join forces with Gantz, they will throw the same exact accusation back at him.

On the Left, the situation, while similar, is more dangerous. The parties look stable now, but then again, so did the New Right on the eve of the last election. Peretz still has plans of taking votes from the Right and the periphery, but it seems that Blue and White, and certainly the Democratic Union, have given up on this option, and prefer to direct their arrows inward.

And there is one more explanation: The attacks within the blocs are convenient not just for the election but for the breaking of campaign promises later. With Gantz is focusing his attacks mainly on Barak, who will remember that at some point in time, he promised not to join a government under Netanyahu? And when Netanyahu designates Shaked, Bennett, and Smotrich enemies of the Right, who will blame him should he decide to leave them out of the coalition and join forces with Peretz instead?

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