Former shaliach finds Israel’s leading candidates for prime minister lack vision and leadership skills
By SHLOMO WEINISH
Recently, I was corresponding via e-mail with Rabbi Norman Cohen of Bet Shalom Congregation in Minnetonka. We discussed many issues and one of them was the upcoming elections in Israel.
He asked about my preferences, and I replied, “I hope that the result of the elections here will bring some change (regardless of the winner). It is the first time I don’t have a strong feeling about any candidate and I just want it to be over for us as a state and society to do better.”
It appears that after 20 years of being involved in elections in Israel (sometimes just voting and sometimes being active in campaigns), I find myself with no real party or candidate.
After all, how can Ehud Barak, deputy prime minister and minister of defense, convince us that he is a Labor Party leader when he lives in a luxurious apartment in the Akirov Towers? How can Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and leader of the Likud Party, make me feel that he really has changed when every day shows me that he just got older? How can acting Israeli Prime Minister Tzipi Livni make me believe in her when her comrades don’t?
More than that, it appears that even the registered voters for each party don’t really care, which is evidenced by the very low voting rates in the primary elections that were held recently.
The only sure thing is that we all know what the reality will be the morning after — regardless who will win the elections.
Rabbi Cohen was shocked by my response.
“I am surprised to read that you have no preference in candidates,” he wrote. “Isn’t there a world of difference between Livni and Netanyahu and Barak?”
After spending some more time thinking about it, I still felt unsettled and decided to check if I’m the only one who thinks there is no difference among the candidates. After talking to many people, I realized that I’m not alone.
Studying each of the parties I find the only thing that they base their campaigns on is the personalities of the candidates. I don’t find any reference to how they are going to deal with the new economic reality, or the poor pedagogical achievements of the Israeli students in the last few years in international testing.
Looking across the ocean it appears that the U.S. elections brought a fresh attitude toward the government and its impact on the social agenda. Regardless if you were a supporter of Barack Obama or not, you couldn’t ignore it.
In the Israeli case, you don’t find a world of differences between the agendas of each of the parties. (I’m referring to the three big ones — Kadima, Labor and Likud — although recent polls suggest the Labor Party may be dropping to the fourth spot behind Shas.) There is a feeling that they all are using the same phrases and slogans and that there isn’t really vision behind it.
I’m sure that many people would say that it was the personality that won the elections in the United States and not the agenda. I’m willing to go with that argument. You can’t deny the loads of charisma and leadership that Obama brought with him — this is something you can’t teach. Either you have it or you don’t. And if this is the case, then Israel is even in a worse spot.
There isn’t really any sense of a new approach here, regardless of the agenda, such as former prime ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin or Ariel Sharon brought with them. You can argue with the ideology, but there was a sense of new directions (the peace with Egypt with Begin, the Oslo accords with Rabin and the Gaza disengagement with Sharon) and an insistence on creating a better future for Israel.
There isn’t a feeling of any new direction or new horizon now. Barak and Netanyahu have showed us their leadership capabilities, but Livni hasn’t shown that she is made of the fabric of Kadima since her election as the party’s leader.
If we will focus only on the personality aspect, then Netanyahu’s advantage is obvious — he does look better in TV interviews than the other two. But eventually people do want to hear a vision behind the nice words; however, lately Netanyahu is trying to avoid the Israeli media to prevent any “malfunction” in his campaign.
(As the AJW went to press this week, polls showed the Likud ahead of Kadima, with Labor in third place.)
These days Israel is facing some of its biggest challenges ever — in every aspect of life. There is a need for a leader who will make hard decisions and, more importantly, implement these decisions. Unfortunately, my feeling is that we don’t have this kind of leader presented to us in the upcoming elections — neither in agenda or personality.
I hope that the winner of the upcoming elections will prove me wrong and that we also can say, “Yes we can!”
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Shlomo Weinish was the Minneapolis-area shaliach (Israel emissary) before returning with his family to Israel last year.
(American Jewish World, 2.6.09)
