With so much at stake, how could no clear verdict have been delivered? Published in The Canadian Jewish News
Bewildered? Dejected? Enraged? Perturbed? Or perhaps, ultimately, cautiously optimistic?
Coming up with adjectives to describe the wave of emotions following last week’s inconclusive Israeli election can send one scrambling for synonyms through a Mad Libs-like maze.
What is there to make of an election that seemed – at least to the like-minded moderates in my orbit – like a clear choice between the rational and irrational? Between a fresh path forward or a continued foray toward conflict, division and isolation?
Even for those of us who thought we understood our country well, the resulting quagmire has served as a startling reminder of the enormous gaps within Israel’s fractured society. What were once ideological disagreements over policy have devolved into a chasm of comprehension. We simply see our country – and the one we want it to be – in completely different ways.
It’s quite troubling to have arrived at such a conclusion. After all, this election was not supposed to be about right vs. left. By most measures, the mainstream “just Bibi” and “just not Bibi” camps aren’t that ideologically divergent about security and Middle East statesmanship. But there’s an ocean between them in terms of accountability and the nature of our democracy. How do you bridge such a gap?
This was the initial despair that set in as the official results trickled in, revealing that the slew of pre-election polls predicting the Jewish “change bloc” would come out ahead were wildly exaggerated. How on earth did Netanyahu’s Likud Party once again garner the most votes?
I have all but abandoned my most hopeful ambitions for this place. To me, this election was merely about replacing the government responsible for the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, and turning over a new page to heal and repair. What did it say about us that after everything we’d been through, Israelis could not agree to that bare threshold?
How, after four unprecedented years that fundamentally altered the country, does the geographical electoral map essentially look the same?
Are we in danger of splitting into modern versions of the rival biblical states of Israel and Judea?
Do we have the stomach to spiral into another series of elections? And what difference would it make? After all, Netanyahu and his allies ran a flawed campaign, the opposition parties were lined up perfectly, an unprecedented number of liberal Israeli expats returned to vote and overall participation hit a 21st century high, particularly among Israel’s Arab minority. None of these trends seem likely to be repeated in any new round of voting.
Is this as good as it’s going to get?
There are no easy answers to any of these questions and much remains unclear amid a sea of political spins, conspiracies and misinformation. Tough decisions will have to be made and promises will need to be broken. Already, there have been nasty street protests reflecting the various interpretations of the results, and ugly incitement to violence against political leaders.
For those of us who had hoped for a stronger rejection of the outgoing government and a clearer resolution about the path forward, there was an instinctive sense of disappointment. The experience has since evolved into a truncated week of moving through the various stages of grief: First denial, then anger, then depression and finally a reluctant acceptance.
One acquaintance, a liberal and typically mild-mannered woman in her 60s, found herself spitting at Bibi posters and yelling at strangers on the street before encouraging her daughter to leave the country, all before regaining her composure and announcing she was ready to once again stick her head in the sand.
Some in my neighbourhood have had friendships strained over learning about the choices of their fellow voters. Others couldn’t understand how it was even close when they knew no one who had voted differently.
What does one do when finding out their tennis partner voted for Itamar Ben Gvir? And that in this partner’s eyes a vote for Yair Golan was just as egregious?
In the wake of it all, I’ve heard the knee-jerk reactions of those who said this was their breaking point and planned to leave. Then there were others who flew in to vote and were now inspired to come back for good to keep up the fight.
It’s been a whiplash of such sentiments swinging back and forth, with both sides alternatively signaling victory and defeat.
With so much at stake, how could no clear verdict have been delivered?
Now that the dust has settled a bit, perhaps we can finally admit to ourselves and to others what such a verdict is plainly telling us.
Above all else, this election was about the continued rule of Benjamin Netanyahu. On that referendum, he suffered a clear defeat by the score of 67-43, to be exact.
Yes, that does include the 19 mandates the Arab-led parties earned following an historically high turnout. But last I checked, those votes still count.
For years, we’ve been flaunting how Arabs have more political rights in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East. Now that they’ve finally exercised that right to the fullest, it cannot be ignored.
Sure, seeing some of these lawmakers wiggle around denouncing Hamas as a terrorist organization or spreading slanders against Israel can make one’s blood boil. But that is not a full and fair representation of the Israeli Arabs we meet every day in our schools, stores and hospitals.
Let’s choose to embrace this dramatic uptick in their voting patterns as a sign of their interest in a joint future together, rather than lean on it as a racist cudgel with which to save Netanyahu’s sinking ship.
We still face weeks, if not months, of instability. But the people have spoken and now the name of the game is patience.
This may not be the knockout win I had hoped for, but it is a win nonetheless and it should still be enough to give Israel the new government it deserves.
Aron Heller is a Canadian/American/Israeli journalist, a former longtime AP correspondent and author of Zaidy’s Band, The Untold Stories of a Jewish Band of Brothers in World War II.You can follow him on X/Twitter, and read a selection of his work at aronheller.com