This election is a contest between two sharply competing visions for Israel. Many consider it to be the state’s most important election ever
There is no sport requiring greater stamina than Israeli politics, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reputed to be a brilliant chess player, appears poised, somewhat improbably, to win Israel’s April 9 election.
As a student in Jerusalem in the early ’80s, I remember Kahane standing outside the biggest department store in town on Friday afternoons, soapbox style, yelling. I found him frightening and his message repulsive. That Netanyahu will embrace such people in order to bolster his right-wing bloc is abhorrent to many Israelis and reflected in the latest polls.
The bonanza scoop for Blue and White last week was that Gabi Ashkenazi, yet another former IDF chief of staff, was joining the cause. While Gantz is respected, Ashkenazi is revered. Working with them is an impressive list of candidates drawn from the broadly defined centre; right-wing lefties and leftish right-wingers. Their overriding goal? To depose Netanyahu and restore greater dignity to the political process.
However, the real math is in the possible post-election coalition alliances, and that is where the right has an advantage and what Netanyahu’s matchmaking is really all about: keeping power at any cost.
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