The Likud's Shimon Peres

By Moshe Feiglin 8 Shvat, 5769 Feb. 12, '09 Translated from the article in Makor Rishon The simplest way to define what happened in Israel's elections is: The Right won and the Likud lost. The Right's clear win is not surprising. Ehud Olmert provided Israel's citizens with all the incentive they needed to vote Right. But the greatest surprise is without doubt the Likud's searing defeat. It takes extraordinary talent to take the ruling party of the national camp from its height of nearly 40 Knesset mandates in the beginning of December - leading the collapsing Kadimah by 15 mandates - (all figures based on the Uzit average of weekly polls prior to the elections) and to lose to Kadimah just two months later. True, it seems that Netanyahu's chances to nail together a coalition seem better. But even if he does succeed - and I am far from sure of that - it will be a short-term national paralysis government, at best. Even when Netanyahu had scored a clear victory over the Left in the past, he did not know how to translate this majority into concrete policy change that would steer Israel on a steady, nationalist course. Now that the Likud has lost and Netanyahu's power is dependant on Lieberman, his ability to lead Israel to make the changes vital to its survival are basically nil. The other possibility is, of course, a national unity government. I have written many times that a national unity government essentially creates a monopoly of ideas, neutralizing the voters' choice. When corporations do that for money, it is called a cartel and their directors go to jail. When politicians do it for power, it is called "unity" and they go to the prime ministerial residence. But even if we momentarily ignore the problematic nature of the unity government, it is clear that in the best case, this government would be paralyzed. It would not be capable of negating the rationale of Oslo retreat and destruction when Oslo's inventors and proponents would be the bulwark of the government. The solid nationalist Jewish majority in Israel has lost its ability to rule. That is due in large part to the fact that it did not have the wisdom to establish a clear, Jewish alternative to the anti-Jewish agenda of the Left. But in these elections, this fundamental problem has taken on a new political expression. The Jewish majority grew even more, but its ruling party lost. It is not complicated to analyze the reasons for the Likud defeat. The graph of the polls shows exactly where the Likud began to lose ground. We will leave this issue aside for the purposes of this article. But the simple fact is that this is the third straight loss for the Likud under Netanyahu's leadership: In the elections of '99 the Likud under Netanyahu plunged from 32 to 19 mandates. In the elections of '05, the Likud under Netanyahu nose-dived from 38 mandates to just 12. And now, from wall-to-wall predictions of a clear victory for the Likud, Netanyahu has led the party to defeat by Kadimah. The first defeat could possibly be explained as the result of extreme media bias against Netanyahu. The second defeat could possibly be explained by the fact that Sharon had just created the Kadimah party. But this third, resounding defeat has no explanation other than Netanyahu's problematic personality. In fact, the only time that Netanyahu ever won an election was against Shimon Peres. Now it seems that the ruling party and leadership tool of the national camp has gotten stuck with a "Shimon Peres" of its very own. This is not just the Likud's problem or an intra-party question. It is a question of the Jewish majority's ability to shake off the Oslo mentality, lead the nation on a Jewish path and save Israel from the agony of the auto-immune plague that we know as Oslo.