Israel’s election puzzle: Why are so many voters still backing Netanyahu? - opinion

I thought that after living here for 32 years (this week marked our “aliyahversary”), I finally understood Israelis. But perusing the pre-election polls, I realize how little I know about my neighbors outside our insular Anglo bubble.

How is it that, three years after the Oct. 7, 2023 failure of the entire military and political establishment, the current coalition is, in some polls, tied with the opposition parties and, in Channel 14’s pro-government poll, scoring a resounding win? That is not what I hear from friends and acquaintances in the ’hood.

On October 8, it was widely predicted that the coalition would fall – imminently. Indeed, the depravity of the massacre spurred a kind of dark hope for the future among those of us opposed to the relentless proliferation of hate and divisiveness that has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key strategy to stay in power.

Yet, not only did the coalition serve its full term, but the narrative has been so twisted that Netanyahu’s Likud party has regained much, if not all, of its support.

Adding to this turnaround, inexplicable in southern Jerusalem, the anniversary of Oct. 7 doesn’t seem to have moved the dial a bit. Voters made up their minds long ago. There’s little chance of committed Likud voters changing sides, even as new examples of corruption and disregard are disclosed daily.

How did we get to this place? The answer, sadly, at least from where I’m sitting, seems to be racism. You only have to look at the giant election billboards with the rhyme “Yamin or Palestine” (in Hebrew, “yamin” means “right”), or the horrifically insensitive AI ad with the opposition party Yashar’s leader Gadi Eisenkot running to greet his dead son in a field, only to bypass him to embrace Ra’am (United Arab List) head Mansour Abbas.

That message is outrageous on so many levels.

Equality at Hadassah-University Medical Center

I spent two months hospitalized at Hadassah-University Medical Center, in Ein Kerem this summer. The institution epitomizes equality in this country. Some of the best doctors and nurses who cared for me were Arab Israelis. Fifty percent of all pharmacists in Israel are from the Arab sector. I never felt I was getting anything but the right treatment from the entire staff, even as they were pricking my tired fingers to make sure my glucose wasn’t spiking.

Earlier this year, I went to hear Naftali Bennett, who leads the opposition B’Yachad (Together) party, speak at an English-language event at Jerusalem’s Begin Heritage Center. When asked if the opposition should include an Arab party like Ra’am in a coalition, as he had done previously during the short-lived “change government,” he danced around a direct answer. 

He would consider any party that affirms the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in Israel, he implied, among other criteria. Ra’am has done this – and gone one step further, by adding a Jewish Israeli, Yoav Segalovich, as the party’s number two, with the specific mandate to fight crime in the Arab sector, an issue about which there should be consensus.

Eisenkot, pressured by right-wing goading, has stated publicly that he would not include any Arab parties in a future coalition, but if it’s between bringing in Ra’am again or returning to elections, I wouldn’t believe everything that’s said on the campaign trail.

At this point, I’ll reveal who I’m voting for: Bennett. His won’t be the largest party among the opposition. But Bennett has put together a series of detailed working plans to fix what’s wrong with this country, covering everything from transportation to education to the military.

His list includes skilled technocrats who have run ministries in the past and can hit the ground running. I hope that, if Eisenkot gets enough seats and is able to form a coalition, he’ll put some of Bennett’s team in place as ministers.

And yet the opposition can’t seem to decide on a consistent strategy. Should it hammer away at government corruption and the threat of a renewed judicial coup? What Netanyahu knew, or didn’t know, on Oct. 7? Should establishing a state commission of inquiry be the main talking point? Or can it harness the overwhelming fury of the non-haredi population by doubling down on a proposed law to draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva boys into an army that is tens of thousands of soldiers short.

Compare that to Netanyahu, whose anti-Arab messaging is unwavering.

One last indelicate thought: Why is Netanyahu still around? He’s 76 and presumably in ill health. He has a pacemaker and cancer (supposedly in remission, but he hid his treatments from the public, so why should we believe him?).

I’ve seen pictures of Netanyahu lately. He’s so thin. I know, I should give him the benefit of the doubt (he must be exercising more). But I know better than many that when you’re faced with grave health challenges, you can shed a lot of weight quickly.

If Netanyahu lost the election, would that prompt him to accept a plea bargain in his criminal trial and leave politics to avoid jail? If so, why couldn’t he have done that already?

I’m not planning to leave Israel, regardless of the outcome. But my children might. My doctors might. Our tax-paying techies and overburdened reservists might. According to a Channel 12 survey, 23% of Israelis have developed contingency plans to emigrate if the current coalition continues its drive toward totalitarianism.

I pray that, in arguably the most consequential elections in Israel’s history, there will be a surprise surge that will shake the public out of its status quo slumber, so we can begin to repair this country we all love so much.

Maybe then I’ll finally understand Israelis.

The writer’s book, TOTALED: The Billion-Dollar Crash of the Startup that Took on Big Auto, Big Oil and the World, was published earlier this year as an audiobook. It is available on Amazon and other online booksellers in print, eBook, and Audible formats. brianblum.com