What are we for? The question Israel's political opposition can no longer avoid - opinion

“Peres will divide Jerusalem.” Four words that changed the course of Israel’s history, world events, and my career.

I was a young American political operative in 1996, working alongside Arthur Finkelstein, when those words became the centerpiece of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign against Shimon Peres. The country was still reeling from Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. The Oslo process was underway, and Peres, the veteran statesman, was the clear favorite.

Polls pointed to a comfortable Labor victory. We ignored them. The slogan cut through the noise because it crystallized a fear that was real for millions of Israelis: that the peace process, however well-intentioned, would surrender the heart of the Jewish homeland.

Netanyahu won by less than one percentage point in the first direct election for prime minister. It was a shock to the political class, the international media, and to many Israelis themselves. For me, it was the start of a decades-long engagement with Israeli politics that would take me inside the offices of three other prime ministers after Netanyahu.

That 1996 result taught me something that remains true today: a clear message, grounded in a real fear or aspiration, can overcome the assumptions of the moment. Yet the lesson of this latest election is that Israel has spent too many years organized around a single negative message. The contest was, once again, those against Netanyahu vs those for Netanyahu.

The high turnout and the historically large gains by the Arab parties make it plain that Jewish Israeli parties must now do more than oppose one man. To win, they must offer a positive vision for governing and improving the lives of ordinary Israelis.

And if they want a durable Jewish majority in the Knesset and a governing coalition that can last, they must unite around the things on which most Israelis already agree. That kind of consensus would produce a large, stable majority, push fringe demands to the margins, and end the cycle of deadlock.

In the years after 1996 and through the mid-2000s, Israeli politics was defined by three clear dividing lines. The first was between those who wanted peace at almost any cost and those who put security first. The second ran between the religious and the secular. The third separated Israelis who identified primarily as Jews from those who identified primarily as Israelis.

Most of the time, candidates and parties lined up along all three. If you were more Jewish than Israeli in your self-identification, you were also more likely to be religious than secular and more focused on security than on the peace process. This alignment is what largely separated the Right from the Left. There were always exceptions.

Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman was one of the most prominent. Liberman was firmly on the Jewish and security side of the spectrum, yet his Russian-speaking base and his own style made him appear more secular than religious. He could peel off voters who did not fit neatly into the old categories, and that made him a durable force.

Around 2018 and 2019, a new dividing line overtook the old ones. The country split into two camps: pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu. The older debates about security, religion, and identity did not disappear, but they were subordinated to a single question: Bibi or not Bibi.

Naftali Bennett became prime minister precisely because he was able to assemble a coalition of parties that disliked or hated Netanyahu. The coalition brought together right-wing nationalists, centrists, leftists, and even, for the first time, an Arab Islamist party. It was an extraordinary political achievement and a temporary one.

Once Netanyahu was out, the partners discovered they agreed on little else. The government collapsed after roughly a year because it could not govern. Disdain is a powerful electoral tool. It is a weak foundation for a lasting coalition.

Building a stable coalition

The recent election confirmed the pattern. It was organized around the same binary, and the result left the country in a familiar deadlock. Netanyahu’s bloc fell short of a majority. The opposition bloc also fell short. What was different, and what should command the attention of every Jewish Israeli party, was the surprise strength of the Arab parties.

High turnout in Arab communities produced a combined total of seats that is historically large. Those parties now hold real leverage. Jewish Israeli parties cannot treat this as a temporary anomaly or a protest vote that will simply fade. It requires the soul-searching I mentioned at the outset.

Parties that want to win must offer something other than a dislike of Netanyahu. Opposition to one man, however deeply felt, is not a program. Israeli voters, like voters anywhere, respond to a vision for governing: concrete plans to improve security, lower the cost of living, fix the housing market, modernize the education system, and strengthen the institutions that make daily life work.

When campaigns are built only around who must be stopped, they leave voters with no positive reason to show up again the next time. The parties that succeed will be the ones that can describe, in plain language, what life will look like if they are in charge.

At the same time, if the goal is a stable Jewish majority in the Knesset and a governing coalition that can last, the Jewish parties must unite around the things on which most Israelis already agree. There is a broad consensus on core issues of security, on the need for a Jewish state that remains democratic, and on the practical problems that affect ordinary families.

A coalition built on that consensus would be large enough to govern without the constant threat of collapse. It would also push the fringe elements, whether the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties demanding exemptions that the majority of Israelis reject, or the far-left parties whose positions on security and identity are outside the mainstream, to the margins.

Voters who want effective government rather than an endless crisis would have a clear alternative. The Arab parties’ gains make this urgent. Relying on them to tip the balance, or refusing to engage with them at all while remaining fragmented among themselves, leaves the Jewish majority unable to form a durable government.

The arithmetic is simple. The political will has so far been lacking.

I have watched these cycles from inside campaigns and from outside them. The 1996 result showed that a well-chosen message can change outcomes. The Bennett experiment showed that coalitions of convenience are fragile. This election shows that anti-Netanyahu politics has run its course as a unifying principle.

The parties that once defined themselves by their distance from him now have to define themselves by what they stand for. If they cannot, the next election will look very much like this one, only with the Arab parties holding even more decisive seats. Israelis deserve better than a permanent campaign against one man. They deserve a government that can act.

The path to that government runs through unity on what is already shared, not through another round of personal opposition. A positive vision, built on the broad consensus that already exists among Israeli Jews, is the only way to turn today’s deadlock into a lasting majority that can govern.

The four words that started my work in Israel were about a specific fear. The four words that should guide the next phase of Israeli politics are simpler: What are we for?

The writer is an international political consultant who has worked on national elections in over 30 countries worldwide. He has worked on every national election in Israel for the past 30 years, including with Benjamin Netanyahu, Ariel Sharon, Avigdor Liberman, and Naftali Bennett.