I'm not angry with Pollard who believes in Ayelet Shaked again, even though she formed a government with terror-supporters.
I am not angry with Pollard for falling into her net again, even though, in order to solve a relatively small political crisis, she promised Ra'am and Meretz thousands of permits for Palestinian Arab "family reunifications" in Israel, a de-facto "right of return".
I am not angry with Pollard who is ready to believe again in Shaked, who formed a government that created the terrible and threatening precedent of paying salaries to terrorists from the Israeli taxpayer's money.
This was not done by turning a blind eye, through neglect, nor by mistake. This was done in plain sight, loud and clear. the government that Ayelet Shaked established turned me, you and all the citizens of Israel into supporters of terrorism.
But I'm not angry with Pollard.
I'm not mad at him because I also once believed in Shaked.
Because I, too, supported her, and I was ready to invest many hours, days, weeks and months for her political and public success.
I also used to think that every failure or loss on her part was just a show of weakness or failing to withstand pressure.
And she always promised that next time it would be different, and that there was no other choice.
And her protests, loud protests over all the wrongdoing, convinced me that there was sincerity behind them.
And you know what?
Everything may be true. It may be that Ayelet Shaked’s actions are not evil, her convictions are not malicious, and she is not even guided by stupidity.
But the bottom-line is that it doesn't really matter.
but
She can be an arch villain, a con artist who knows how to work her magic on the people surrounding her, or she can have a pure heart and only want the best for her nation, but who is simply a failure.
The outcome is still the same.
Pollard writes "We need Shaked free and clean of all bad influences".
He probably thinks that only the bad influences brought about the shocking results.
Let's say he's right.
The whole essence of political leadership is successfully dealing with "bad influences" and whoever fails in this, cannot be a leader, even if "her heart is in the right place".
This is true for any political leadership. This is doubly true for the political leadership of the Israeli Right.
The bottom line is that those who want right-wing policies do not have the luxury of taking weak people for leadership.
Promoting right-wing policies in the State of Israel, against the media, against the prosecutor's office, against the high ranking officers in the IDF and national security establishment, against the academia, and of course against the ruling party of Bagat"z, requires enormous strengths.
If she showed weakness at the most critical moments in the history of the State of Israel and fell precisely on issues that were at the core of her actions and her ideology, she is simply not suitable for the position.
The left has a privilege that we don't have. It can choose hollow presenters, who have nothing behind them.
The real government mechanisms will make sure that everything goes in the desired direction - the direction of the left.
No bogus organization is going to petition the Supreme Court to stop the nomination of a well-known liar as the head of a committee for the “purity of morals.”
No newspaper headline will present them as dark and backward, even if they appoint a homophobic Islamist as the chair of the Knesset Interior Committee.
No restraining order will be issued against them, even if they move the official Prime Minister's residence to Ra'anana.
No indictment will be served to them, even if they appoint their "significant other" to a cushy public office and even if they give their sister-in-law a position, "because she is simply the most suitable".
But we can't afford it.
We on the right need leaders, not weaklings.
When a right-wing leader was blackmailed by the system, we lost Gush-Katif.
We paid indescribable prices for weak right-wing leaders.
But I can't be mad at Pollard for coming back and believing in Shaked.
I can't be mad at him, because I used to be Pollard.
It's over for me. I hope it will be over for him too, and preferably as soon as possible.
Simcha Rothman is a Member of Knesset for the Religious Zionist Party.