Binyamin Netanyahu is a superb orator, a politician with charisma and talent, and the head of the largest party in Israel. Yet, for many years the Likud party under his leadership has remained stuck at around thirty Knesset seats, more or less-a significant decline from the forty seats it held in the days of Begin and Shamir. At the same time on the international and regional stage, Prime Minister Netanyahu deserves recognition (and is recognized, ed.) as a statesman and military strategist.
On the domestic stage, however, a collection of mediocre opponents spares no effort in subjecting him to constant humiliation, incitement, and condemnation. They call him “Hitler" and a dictator, corrupt and criminal, slander his wife and children, exploit the memory of his late brother, suspect his motives, envy his successes, while they pollute our public life with repulsive hatred and meanness.
In the face of virtual rebellion and aggressiveness led by the left-wing mob in recent years, the Prime Minister often responded with silence. Protesters in Israel’s streets in 2023 called for shutting down the army, closing Ben-Gurion Airport, closing institutions of higher education, and halting the economy. They blackened Israel’s name in the world. These were days of unimaginable nightmare and breakdown.
Netanyahu rose above this murky climate. He maintained measured and restrained speech. The Prime Minister has no desire to descend into pits of insults and slander against fellow Jews across the political divide.
The public sphere has become an arena of clashes and violence spurred by the Left’s opposition to reforms in the judicial system. The Left has fought to preserve a corrupt system of adjudication and enforcement-one that has taken upon itself to thwart laws and government decisions: to prevent the deportation of illegal infiltrators, to shackle IDF military operations, to blame soldiers for unproven misdemeanors with the peak being the Sde Teiman affair, to harm settlement in Judea and Samaria, and to cancel the State Comptroller’s investigation into the October 7 massacre.
The monotonous mistreatment of the Prime Minister in court, and the very farce of the trial, is also a distortion of basic justice in the State of Israel. There have been increasing violations in a variety of cases of the rights of witnesses, suspects, detainees, and defendants in police stations and Shin Bet facilities. Suspicions of a “deep state" intrusion into private life have been buried, despite the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. At the same time, the anomaly of inadequate representation of Jews of Middle Eastern descent in the Supreme Court continues.
The Prime Minister is an eloquent spokesman on behalf of Israel addressing audiences abroad with pride and clarity. In Israel he has often chosen not to engage in substantive debate facing contrived and distorted charges from the Left. It would be appropriate for Netanyahu, together with his ideological partners, to lay out the full record of facts and examples of where the Left harms the state and its interests. There exists a large arsenal of such material. Using persuasive argumentation and presenting a critical indictment of the Left, Netanyahu can handily emerge with the upper hand.
To secure a definitive Likud victory in the next elections, Netanyahu needs forty seats and beyond. This demands a resolute decision to conduct a firm (not inflammatory) political campaign. The public must be presented with a clear list of differences in worldview and action between the national camp and the left-wing camp. Specifically, Likud should remind the public of the disastrous policies initiated or supported by the Left - the 1993 Oslo Accord, the 2000 Lebanon withdrawal, and the 2005 Gaza Disengagement. Israel suffers from their consequences until this very day, and the worst may yet come.
Now, with Israel fighting on multiple fronts against fanatic jihadist enemies, suffering death, destruction, and disruption in our cities and villages, the Left not surprisingly has begun to take to the streets demanding that Israel surrender and give Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Yemen, a victory. Their squeamish outlook weakens Israel’s strategic position. Consequently, the Muslims are no longer on the hit list, paying no price for their aggression, and free to prepare for the next brutal assault against the Jewish state.
When the day will dawn and there will be nothing left of the Left - adamantly unable to learn from the past - then all will be right, or Right.