After three deadlocked elections, it looks like Blue & White thinks it will take control of Israel. Their policies are destructive to Jews living in Israel. They jeopardize everything that Israel has built over the last century and potentially could destroy the state.
I and many of my Jewish friends are frustrated that the Likud and Religious Zionist parties didn't get enough votes to form a governing coalition.
We, who comfortably live outside Israel ask, How could this happen? Why did this happen? After all that Netanyahu has done for Israel in trade, energy development, security, and international standing shouldn't it be a no-brainer that he easily get reelected?
My wife ranted that it was people like her progressive relatives in Israel who voted for Blue & White who caused this electoral failure I listened quietly as she lectured me and her friends, but I was quietly thinking-- It's my fault. It's my fault that Netanyahu didn't win.
I haven't made Aliyah. My family hasn't made Aliyah, The 500,000-1,000,000 religious American Jews who contentedly reside in America haven't made Aliyah. It appears that we care about Israel, but not enough to inconvenience ourselves to move there. If all of us lived in Israel and voted, there would be no question that Israel would have a healthy government.
What I find hard to understand is that Jews are attacked in Flatbush and Williamsburg New York, even Los Angeles and they still won't move. These same religious men were victims of the "knock out game" a few years ago also. I recently watched a youtube video of a religious woman beaten in a Target store by an antisemitic thug. It's getting worse, but only our best are moving to Israel.
Logically, a wave of Jews should be moving to Israel-- not just because America appears to be fracturing into ethnic identity groups who see the Jew as an interloper, but because as the Jewish population in America assimilates, we risk intermarriage and permanent loss of our children and grandchildren from our people.
Let's face it, it's not the Arab armies surrounding Israel, but our own materialistic and selfish impulses that threaten Israel's future. It is why Netanyahu didn't get a clear mandate. As long as we refuse to help our brothers in Israel with our physical presence, we are all at fault.
Note: My wife and I recently notified our children that we plan to make Aliyah in December 2020.
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Alan Silverstein
