As I write this article, I am returning on a flight from Israel after a four day business trip. Normally, what stands out in my regular trips to Israel is the amount of construction cranes which pollute – or enhance – the skyline of virtually every major city in Israel. This time, what stood out was the ubiquity of ads for candidates in the upcoming election.
If US elections increase revenue for media outlets in the US, then Israeli elections can single handedly pull the country out of recession and convert the Israeli economy into one of the fastest growing on earth. Seriously.
And the television and radio networks aren’t the only ones profiting from this – seemingly annual – mudslinging competition called an “election”: Massive signs hang vertically on the sides of residential and commercial buildings. Pictures of Bibi, Buji, Zippy (as CNN likes to call Tzipi Livni), Bennett, Lieberman, Kahalon, Lapid, Deri, and others I did not recognize, adore every available – and sometimes creatively chosen – advertising spaces possible. Think toilet stalls.
Of course, then you have the attack adds. Blistering. Personal.
One ad that caught my attention (primarily because an organization called The Peace and Security Association paid to have it placed… everywhere in Tel Aviv) shows a picture of Naftali Bennett and Bibi Netanyahu with the line “Bibi/Bennett will have Israel bound to Palestinians forever.”
Hmmm. Bound to the Palestinians forever? Or bound to our ancient homeland forever? It all depends on your perspective.
And then I spoke to the taxi drivers – a true representative sample of the Israeli populace. Most concluded that Bibi will be able to secure a coalition, irrespective of who wins the most number of seats in the Knesset. Although, to be fair and honest, I had one driver who described Bibi in such unflattering terms that even Eddie Murphy wouldn’t have used those words in Beverly Hills Cop. I wanted to immerse myself in a mikvah after hearing his “opinion.”
As I drove yesterday from Tel Aviv to Nof Ayalon, where I was staying, I contemplated the importance of this election. Of course, every election is “the most important in our lifetime,” but this one seems to have popped at a critical juncture in Jewish history. Anti-semitism is alive and flourishing in Europe, ISIS is competing with Iran for leadership of the Great Islamic caliphate, and there seems to have been a contagious amnesia to what befell the Jewish people and mankind in World War II. Iran is pursuing the nuclear bomb – something the World Pacifiers – err, “leaders” – are allowing to happen.
The next person Israelis choose to lead them will be critical in responding to the new era in which we find ourselves. I believe great Jewish leaders are those that rise to the occasion and are redolent with timeless principles to which they are bound, and a world view that truly perceives our people as being exceptional. Think Menachem Begin. I’d like to think that if Americans “are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights,” that we, the Jewish people, are “endowed by our creator with unalienable responsibilities to mankind.” We are a people so committed to innovation, invention, cures, solutions, and defenses, that our existence can never be threatened. Ever. When left unshackled and free in our homeland, we emit a sense of Everything is Possible. We cannot be stopped. BDS will fail, because at the end of the day we will overwhelm the world with Productivity and Giving. We are a people that won’t sit on our laurels. And we’ve proven that with the miracle that is Israel.