Simply Supporting or Opposing Netanyahu Isn’t a Viable Work Plan

Ma’ariv, Israel, June 30

Every avid sports fan like me is familiar with the phenomenon of team sympathy: There is always a team that you are very much a fan of and a team that you really hate. Sympathy for your team is always spiced with a hatred of one of the rivals. This has been exacerbated in today’s age, as we all know, through social networks that have given rise to the expression of emotions in extreme ways. As a result, it seems to me that the behavior we witnessed on the playing fields has shifted from the bleachers to our election campaigns. For example, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between Donald Trump loyalists in the United States and the supporters of the Democrats, whose mutual hatred is skyrocketing and culminated last year in the storming of the Capitol in an attempt to change the election result. This is also the case in Israel, where pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu activists seem to do everything they can to make the lives of their rival team bitter while demonstrating blind support for their own team and its leader. As is the case with football, your team’s captain is the best in the world while the star of the opposing team lacks a basic understanding of football and deserves contemptuous whistles at every touch of the ball. It seems as if pundits in the media have also contracted the disease of sports and their sympathy for one group or another is the main tool they use for their commentary. Although political commentators have always had a position of their own, they’ve historically tried to keep their personal opinion modest. Today, however, they’ve become blatant spokespeople for the Left or Right. The battle over viewers’ attention pushed aside important issues on our national agenda. Our political battles were once over the Greater Land of Israel versus territorial concessions, or between a free economy and a planned one. That was before we brushed aside real political issues and started treating our politics like a superficial ball game. The public debate must be on the core issues that will determine the future of Israel: the security situation, dealing with the Iranian threat, issues of education and health, and so on and so forth. The question of yes or no to Binyamin Netanyahu can’t be our work plan for the coming years. Indeed, it’s a recipe for more hatred in Israeli society. The time has come for Israeli voters to internalize that by casting their ballot at the polling station, they are determining our collective future and the future of our children. A victory in the election determines what our country will look like for decades to come. It isn’t a simple situation of “my team won” or “the rival team lost.” Like it or not, we are all on the same team. –Yoram Dori (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)