During this difficult moment in history, with Iran rapidly progressing toward nuclear status, with world economies still fragile, and with Western values under attack, Israel needs strong leadership. In the upcoming elections, I would love to vote for Israel’s popular and powerful prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, giving him a clear mandate to lead domestically and diplomatically. But, like so many Israelis, I will search elsewhere for political redemption and reassurance, knowing just how limited the choice really is.
Netanyahu would have earned my vote if he had exercised the power he has to move Israel forward rather than hoarding it to stroke his political allies. He would have earned my vote if he seemed more committed to making peace with the Palestinians rather than keeping the peace in his coalition. He would have earned my vote if he had maintained that broadening, empowering alliance with Kadima he had ever so briefly, and made some progress in ensuring that Ultra-Orthodox Israelis affirm their responsibilities as citizens instead of just demanding more rights and protecting their entitlements. And he would have earned my vote if he had fired his incompetent, non-Zionist interior minister or his ineffectual, marginalized foreign minister.
In short, if Bibi had been the bold leader he often called for in his writings rather than the placeholder I often read about in the press, he would have earned my vote. In his second term, which at this writing looks likely, he needs to be more like his hero Winston Churchill, making history boldly, and less like a Chicago wardheeler, making deals repeatedly.
At the same time, I give Netanyahu credit for keeping the economy stable and productive during one of the most tumultuous financial eras in recent history. On the whole—and as far as outsiders can tell—he has managed the complicated Iran file effectively, pushing this pressing problem onto the world agenda, leading to sanctions which may actually be working, keeping the pressure—and the peace—so far. And as the Obama-Palestinian settlement freeze debacle proved, Netanyahu is not the biggest obstacle to negotiations with the Palestinians—Abbas, Hamas and their people are. In fact, Netanyahu has eased conditions in the West Bank, lifted numerous checkpoints, improved security cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis, and endorsed a two-state solution, helping to foster the stability that is a necessary prerequisite for progress in this volatile region.
It is possible that historians may look back on Netanyahu’s years as the start of the Great Reset, when the trauma of the Palestinian betrayal of Oslo and turn to terror needed some quiet, but the range of opinion in Israel began narrowing and coalescing around an acceptance of the hard but necessary compromises a willing, honorable, non-threatening peace partner and process would require. Moreover, I support many of the Zionist values revival initiatives Netanyahu and his education minister Gideon Sa’ar have championed, especially the recommitment to historic sites that tell Israel’s story.
Alas, I am also underwhelmed by the alternatives. I blame Shaul Mofaz for the Kadima coalition debacle more than Netanyahu; I do not understand how he was able to enter and then leave a coalition so quickly. Did Mofaz fail to do his homework before joining or stumble in with no game plan? The Labor Party is a joke, a walking corpse with a proud history but a seemingly limited future. And I could no more vote for Avigdor Lieberman and his party then I could vote for Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich in America. As someone who cast his first political vote for John Anderson in the 1980 showdown between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, I will look at the mini-parties, but I acknowledge that as an act of political cowardice, dodging responsibility for the serious contenders while still fulfilling my civic duty.
In short, like so many voters in so many democracies today, I—and, I fear, most Israeli voters—will not be rushing to the polls, heart pounding, anxious to help my team win. Instead, I and so many others will take a deep breath, hold our noses, and choose what appears at that moment to be the least bad alternative.
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