• The first and most important reason of all, is a lack of unity. We pray in our Sabbath prayers, Psalms 92:10 “Let the evildoers be divided” (alt. translation scattered) and this is what happened. According to the bizarre election reforms introduced by Avigdor Liberman, a party running for the Knesset (Parliament) needs to get 3.25% of the total votes in order to gain representation. Otherwise their votes are thrown out and divided among the winners. The Ultra-left Meretz party got only 3.16% of the vote and the pro-terror Arab Balad party got only 2.9%. The loss of these 2 parties for the left, struck a fatal blow to the left. The Balad party had decided on the last day, before the registration time limit for the elections to break away from an alliance with one of the other Arab parties in the election race, taking a gamble they could pass the threshold on their own. Similarly although the Meretz party pleaded with the Labor party to unite as a joint list, Labor refused, thus tossing out nearly 4 representatives for the radical left. The Labor party got 3.69% of the vote, thus barely making it over the threshold. In summary, Hashem listened to our prayers “Let the evildoers be divided”.
• The Left-wing governments of Bennett and Lapid were considered too soft on terror and crime. Both for ideological reasons and for pragmatic political reasons, namely, they were dependent on the votes of the Muslim Brotherhood party of Monsour Abbas, the left-wing was unable to apply the full force of the law. Swing voters realized the situation and voted for the right.
• To achieve ideological goals that swing voters felt to be unimportant, the government raised prices and reduced subsidies that hit the lower economic classes hard in the pocket book. The Netanyahu coalition took advantage of the dissatisfaction.
• Donald Trump had successfully pressured Bibi Netanyahu into accepting a revised version of the Oslo Terror Accords, which means the slow or fast destruction of the Jewish state (depending on who is running the governments in Israel and the U.S.A.). Many on the right had decided to boycott the elections that brought the Bennett-Lapid gang into power. In the latest elections, Itamar Ben-Gvir gave hope to these right-wing voters that Oslo could be stopped, the Jews would not be expelled from their land and Jewish Israel would expand. These voters decided to participate in the latest round of elections and voted for a party to the right of Netanyahu.
• The rule of the left gave the feeling to the right, that the Jewish State was about to end by granting citizenship and economic benefits to populations that are hostile to the Jewish state.
Appendix: I should stress, this election was probably a victory of the lesser of evils. I am not thrilled that Netanyahu will probably be back in power.
In the past Netanyahu begrudgingly accepted the Oslo Terror Accords and conceded parts of Hebron to the enemy. Netanyahu also begrudgingly accepted the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and accepted in principle a Palestinian state. Therefore there is a danger that Netanyahu’s victory can become the greater of the evils. However, the hope is that the hatred of the left towards Netanyahu, and Netanyahu’s legal problems with the biased judicial system as well as his pressure from right-wing coalition partners will force Netanyahu to be more right-wing than he has been in the past.
Post by Shlomo M. Scheinman
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