Authors Note: It doesn’t really matter whether this article sees the light of day prior to or following the upcoming elections. The title says it all. I am abstaining from voting on ideological grounds. Election Day will be a day to leave town and go hiking in the desert, as one must do on occasion when the crazies come to town. I cannot give my vote to anyone on the current political scene. I refuse to play the deadly game of “the least bad option”. So naturally, I will not be selling a favorite party or “flavor of the month” personality to the reader. Nor will I encourage others to do likewise. This isn’t a lecture or a rebuke to those who disagree. These are my personal musings on Israel’s unsound system of government.
A National Freak Show
The carnival of the insane is coming to town, replete with the garish spectacle of slogans, flyers, and the mindless noise of empty promises. The carnival barkers lure the masses into tents with dreams of cheaper cottage cheese, affordable housing, a crackdown on Arab terror, and promises of strong Jewish leadership. Election Day is upon us. A day of fantasy and foolishness. And regardless of the outcome, darkness will remain darkness.
Elections in Israel are maddening to those with common sense and dignity. Perhaps because the political system might very well have been created by asylum inmates. After all, “Israeli Arab” Knesset members routinely glorify Arab terror without any recourse, while Jewish nationalists are banned from the political process. Furthermore, the system itself rewards the worst aspects of political aspiration: the desire to attain and remain in power; and renders as inconsequential, the ideological positions, beliefs, and concerns, of vast segments of well-informed citizens. For myself and many like-minded people, there is a sense of having no voice and no choice; despite the plethora of options, which for some of us represents no choice at all.
Coalition Politics
The inherent dysfunction is simple to comprehend. Any turbulent country with an endless parade of domestic and foreign enemies, requires a stable government. Instead, we have unstable Frankenstein “coalitions” (the lifeblood of those who seek power in Israel) created by cunning men who value power as an endgame. Were a psychopath allowed to run amuck, he couldn’t sew together a more frightening creation than the unions spawned in the aftermath of elections. Such coalitions allow dangerous minority elements to force dangerous policies on the masses. The infamous Oslo Accords personified the most nightmarish example of such instability. It represents the first successful Arab effort to unite with leftists to hasten Israel’s destruction.
Not only are such unions fragile, ideologically naked, and dangerous to our security, they undermine the essence of intellectual honesty and reasoned discourse which should be the ideal manner of convincing the masses of any position. Ideology is long gone. Today, one can be a Likudnik (ala Bibi) and say all sorts of things that one wouldn’t consider classical Likud positions (i.e. the notion of a “Palestinian state”). You can even join the Likud as a bloc of concerned motorcyclists desirous of lower insurance rates. The result is that one can vote for what they perceive to be a “right-wing” government, and end up with a government which includes Herzog and Livni. Or Yair Lapid. With a roll of the dice, Bennett and others can also be thrown in the mix to keep things interesting. And what do we have? A sprinkling of 21st century “Likud-lite” values, mixed with a peppering of left-wing socialist populism, and a shake of the respectable religious-Zionist equivalent. Add in a little something to appease the charedi parties lest (they run to the left and shill themselves for particularistic interests), and you’re good to go. Just one example of the insane amalgams that result from such a convoluted process.