For the first time, David will vote in national elections. Our home is a political one (shocker there, right?) and we often discuss politics. We are, relative to most Israelis, on the political right. It isn’t that we are against compromise; it isn’t that we are intransigent or love war.
I have three more reasons, five, and six and seven or eight, actually, to be more anti-war than most of the world. My sons’ lives have been and, God watch over them and protect them please, likely could or will be on the front line in the future. But we have never understood the idiotic concept of compromising alone, of giving when no one else does, of acting unilaterally when we well know that our action will be misinterpreted.
All the stupid things our governments have given up with no results, no peace partner, nothing. My city suffers, not from Palestinian actions but from our own government – we don’t have enough housing for our young; what there is, is priced very high – it’s a seller’s market here with houses and apartments sold very quickly – other than the few that are priced out of greed, waiting for someone stupid enough to meet the exorbitant prices being asked.
All this and more, David has heard growing up. In his 19 years here in this country and in this world, he’s learned the horror of terrorism, of war. Even before his bar mitzvah, that moment in Jewish tradition when a boy crosses the threshold to have the responsibilities of a man, he was worrying and praying for a brother in the midst of battle.
And now, less than a year before he is drafted into the army of Israel, he will step forward to vote. As much as all citizens feel the results of their government’s actions, a young man in the army or going into the army knows that it is his life and those of his friends that is on the line. When the politicians say we must defend ourselves, that we have the right to protect our people – it is the soldier that steps forward.
Davidi is listening to the news, thinking about who he will vote for. He hasn’t asked and I haven’t said – he knows already what I am thinking. We have to ensure the Benjamin Netanyahu is the next prime minister because the option of Herzog and Livni is the surest recipe for disaster.
There is talk that Meretz might disappear after this election – one can only hope.
Yair Lapid is about to get a well-deserved slap in the face; a clear message that his talk was only talk, his message a farce. He failed and though he will likely get in, half those that came along with him most likely won’t. Step one to showing him that politics is a hard and serious business that does not support fools easily.
Bayit HaYehudi with Bennett as a leader is a promise of freshness and strength and it’s easy to see how he may well be tomorrow’s prime minister, but we all know it won’t be in this election.
“They all attack each other,” says David. “Only Bayit HaYehudi and Alei Yarok [the green party pushing for the legalization of marijuana] says what THEY will do.” Welcome to politics, my son.
He doesn’t yet know completely who he will vote for – it’s a safe guess that like me, his choices are between Bennett and Bibi. I have little faith in Likud but I understand that Bibi needs enough votes to get a sure ticket to hold his seat, not enough to think he can abandon the right and play as he did in the last elections.