In the last conversation I had with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I told him, “You are the person most capable of managing the rearguard war of the existing Zionist consciousness.” Perhaps because I did not intend to insult him and really meant every word, my statement seemed to sear his heart.
Netanyahu is a great Zionist. He has managed the dead end that Zionism has reached with superb talent. What may topple this extremely talented man is not his cigars, but the feeling of aimlessness – the lack of direction, message, and purpose – that engulfs the Israeli public. Even those passengers sitting in first-class in the national jumbo jet feel a terrible sense of strangulation as they discover that the jet is flying in circles and has no destination. Even if the tank has enough fuel for another thousand years, more and more passengers will demand a new pilot when they discover the current pilot has no idea where he is going.
The Zionism Israel currently operates under is the “Zionism of Existence,” which replaced the Holy Temple in Jerusalem with Yad Vashem and the High Priest with the Chief of Staff. It is time to replace this Zionism with the “Zionism of Destiny.” For without destiny, there is no existence.
Netanyahu was the very best pilot the old Zionist mentality could provide (and the least corrupt of all prime ministers in the last 20 years). He is truly a virtuoso pilot. But it is specifically during his incumbency that the passengers began to understand that the jet was flying nowhere. It is not because of Netanyahu. It is because the old, great (and extremely important) Zionism has never given us a roadmap beyond its first 100 years.
As Netanyahu fights to remain prime minister, I would like to thank him for contributing his great talent to the daily management of our state – for flying the national jumbo jet under very complicated conditions. It could be that a new pilot with no compass to guide him will enchant the Israeli public and, Heaven forbid, take control of the national steering wheel for a short while. But the deep process of transition from Zionism of Existence to Zionism of Destiny must occur. For without it, there will be no existence. And that is why we established the Zehut party.
(In the margins of the above, a small warning note that I cannot keep to myself: Where is the Disengagement 2017 being cooked up now that will make journalist Amnon Abramowitz declare Netanyahu untouchable?)