The Election Choices

PELONI:  “Elections aren’t about choosing between reality and perfection. They’re about choosing between the governments actually available to lead Israel.”

The final election polls, for what they are worth, show an array of outcomes.  Israel Hayom’s Kantar Thrusday poll has Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar winning 23 seats while Netanyahu’s Likud has 21 and Naftali Bennett’s Beyachad has 14, and the Netanyahu national camp has only 50 while the opposition has 56.  Channel 14’s Wednesday poll showed Likud with 30, the Right bloc with 62 and the opposition holding only 44.  Meanwhile, the Forum’s poll of polls [statistically challenged by the fact that none of the polls averaged are known to be similarly managed] has the blocs at 53 each with 14 for the Arab parties. My advice is to ignore the polls.  Look at this election and every election as if nothing less than the fate of the world lies on your choice.  Above all things, vote.  Make a choice based on your values, your hopes for the future, and with the encouraging reality that the same decision which was once made for you by your parents now resides with you to make for your children.  And for G_d’s sake, choose wisely!

Avi Abelow | Meta 

Click Image to Enlarge. Image created via AI.

As Julia Roberts iconic line in Pretty Woman – “BIG MISTAKE! BIG MISTAKE!”

I get it.

Many right-wing Israelis are angry.

They’re angry that the ultra-Orthodox draft issue still hasn’t been solved. They’re frustrated that the most right-wing government Israel has ever had still hasn’t completely destroyed Hamas. They look at October 7, the years of war and everything our soldiers and families have sacrificed and ask:

Is this really enough?

My answer is no.

It isn’t enough for me either.

But elections aren’t about choosing between reality and perfection. They’re about choosing between the governments actually available to lead Israel.

And that is why I believe right-wing voters who stay home, or abandon Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir out of frustration or anger, will be making an enormous mistake.

Because before throwing this government out, look at what it actually accomplished, and what a center-left government will reverse.

Netanyahu: Look at the obstacles he overcame

Netanyahu didn’t conduct this war in a vacuum.

He faced enormous Biden administration pressure over the conduct and continuation of the war.

He faced constant international pressure.

He faced pressure from Gadi Eisenkot and others inside the emergency government to end the war before Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran were stopped.

He faced enormous disagreements with senior military and intelligence officials, the very establishment whose pre-October 7 conception had catastrophically failed.

And he faced a massive domestic campaign demanding deals to return the hostages even though those deals would have ended the war with literal surrender, empowering our jihadi enemies to conduct additional Oct. 7 tragedies, endangering our future.

Yet Netanyahu kept Israel fighting.

Israel devastated Hamas’s military infrastructure, transformed the regional balance of power and ultimately brought home the living hostages while recovering the bodies of all the others.

Today Israel controls more than 60% of the Gaza Strip.

Is that my definition of total victory?

No.

I want Hamas gone. I want Gaza permanently empty of all jihadis, incapable of threatening Jewish lives ever again.

But I refuse to pretend that Netanyahu accomplished nothing simply because he didn’t accomplish everything.

He faced pressures that would have caused all the center-left Israeli leaders to stop the war much earlier.

And when the hostage agreement and President Trump’s regional strategy constrained Israel’s next steps, Netanyahu had to maneuver within that reality, including an American administration balancing its relationship with Qatar.

You can criticize those decisions.

I do.

But leadership should be judged against the actual pressures under which decisions were made, not against an imaginary world where Israel operates without Washington, international pressure, hostages or an entrenched security establishment.

Smotrich: A revolution most Israelis barely noticed

Then there is Bezalel Smotrich.

While everyone argued on television, Smotrich quietly transformed facts on the ground in Judea and Samaria.

104 new communities. Approximately 160 farms.

Think about those numbers.

For decades Israeli governments struggled to establish even a handful of communities in Judea and Samaria while facing enormous bureaucratic, legal and international resistance.

Smotrich spent three years working quietly, through that system and changing the reality on the ground.

This isn’t merely a “settlement issue.”

The Jewish communities and farms of Judea and Samaria create strategic depth, protect vital territory and strengthen Israel’s hold on the heartland overlooking our major population centers.

And simultaneously, as finance minister, Smotrich had to manage something almost unimaginable:

An Israeli economy fighting a costly multi-front war for three years.

The war required extraordinary defense spending, reserve mobilization and enormous civilian expenditures.

Yet Israel’s economy demonstrated remarkable resilience.

That deserves to be part of Smotrich’s record too.

Ben-Gvir: Changing deterrence inside Israel

Then there is Itamar Ben-Gvir.

For years terrorists could enter Israeli prisons and discover conditions that sometimes seemed absurdly comfortable for people convicted of terrorism.

Ben-Gvir changed that approach.

Prison is supposed to deter terrorists not reward them.

He also dramatically expanded civilian firearms licensing after October 7, recognizing a lesson Israelis learned in the most painful way imaginable:

Armed citizens save lives.

And something historic has happened on the Temple Mount.

Jews can increasingly pray openly and peacefully at Judaism’s holiest site.

Don’t dismiss that as symbolic.

Our enemies understand perfectly well that this conflict is also a spiritual war about identity, sovereignty and faith.

For generations Jews were told that asserting our rights at our holiest place would provoke our enemies.

Today Jews are praying there.

That sends an extraordinarily powerful message:

The Jewish people are home.

Now think about what you’re considering replacing

None of these three leaders is perfect.

Neither is this government.

But don’t confuse populist television rhetoric with governing.

And most importantly, ask yourself:

What exactly are you replacing these parties with?

Parties whose leaders wanted the Gaza war stopped earlier?

Parties more willing to accommodate international demands for a Palestinian state?

Parties that will reverse settlement policy in Judea and Samaria?

Parties that would restore the old policies on terrorist prisoners, civilian firearms and the Temple Mount?

You might punish Netanyahu, Smotrich or Ben-Gvir.

But the Israeli people will end up paying the price with our lives, just as we paid the price for Oslo and the Gaza expulsion/“disengagement”..

Don’t let frustration or anger destroy achievement

Right-wing voters should absolutely demand more from their leaders.

Demand victory over our jihadi enemies.

Demand a workable solution to the draft.

Demand judicial reform.

Demand sovereignty and security.

But don’t become so angry about what hasn’t yet been accomplished that you erase what has been accomplished.

And don’t hand power to center-left politicians who have announced that they will dismantle those achievements.

Make that make sense.

Gadi Eisenkot has publicly advocated an approach that would remove all IDF forces from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria as part of international diplomatic-security arrangements.

His Gaza proposal includes training approximately 20,000 jihadi Gazans in Egypt to form a local governing/security force and relying on international and regional arrangements for the day after Hamas.

He has also spoken about allowing 150,000 jihadi Gazans to work in Israel under a different postwar security reality, returning to the failed economic-incentive concept that existed before October 7.

That is precisely the dangerous worldview many Israelis thought October 7 had buried.

Withdrawal.

International guarantees.

Training a jihadi enemy to provide security.

Economic incentives.

Work permits.

Once again believing that prosperity and international arrangements can manage a jihadi enemy that has repeatedly told us that it wants to massacre us.

October 7 wasn’t merely a security failure. It was the collapse of a conception.

So think carefully about the choice.

You’re angry at Netanyahu because Hamas hasn’t yet been completely destroyed.

You’re angry at Smotrich because the ultra-Orthodox draft issue hasn’t yet been solved.

You’re angry that the Right hasn’t moved quickly enough.

And therefore you’re considering empowering center-left politicians whose proposed policies will return Israel back to October 6?

That isn’t punishing the politicians.

That will punish Israel, endanger our lives.

Judge results, not frustration

Smotrich has made an important point.

For three years he worked quietly through enormous legal and bureaucratic obstacles before Israelis suddenly discovered that 104 new communities had been advanced in Judea and Samaria.

He says he has approached the ultra-Orthodox draft problem similarly: working toward something that can actually succeed rather than simply issuing populist statements that accomplish nothing.

Judge the result.

But don’t confuse television rhetoric with governing.

And most importantly, ask yourself:

What exactly are you replacing these parties with?

Parties whose leaders wanted the Gaza war stopped earlier?

Parties more willing to accommodate international demands for a Palestinian state?

Parties likely to reverse settlement policy in Judea and Samaria?

Parties that would restore the old policies on terrorist prisoners, civilian firearms and the Temple Mount?

You might punish Netanyahu, Smotrich or Ben-Gvir.

But Israel will end up paying the price.

Don’t let frustration destroy achievement

Right-wing voters should absolutely demand more from their leaders.

Demand victory.

Demand a workable solution to the draft.

Demand judicial reform.

Demand sovereignty and security.

But don’t become so angry about what hasn’t yet been accomplished that you erase what has been accomplished.

And don’t hand power to politicians who may dismantle those achievements.

Israel still has enormous work ahead.

Hamas must cease to threaten us.

Judea and Samaria must be secured.

The judicial system still requires reform.

The burden of defending Israel must be addressed.

And Israel must continue transforming itself from a country constantly asking permission into a sovereign Jewish state capable of defending its interests.

For voters who share those priorities, I see three clear choices in this election:

Netanyahu. Smotrich. Ben-Gvir.

Choose whichever one best represents your priorities.

But understand what is at stake before deciding to stay home or throw away your vote out of frustration.

They haven’t accomplished everything.

But they have proven that they can accomplish things Israeli governments were told for years were impossible.

There is much more work to do.

Let them finish it.

For my full Pulse of Israel Election Guide, download it from the link in the comments.

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