As much as we love elections in this country, there is something we love more: the penalties of democracy, the nerve-wracking wait for the "double envelopes" – the voices of soldiers, diplomats, Jewish Agency emissaries and prisoners, and until recently even sailors. Double-envelope voters generally lean more to the right, and in a political fabric where every mandate matters, they have the potential to make last-minute change. In 2013, for example, the left-wing bloc lost one mandate to Shuli Muallem, who will forever owe its first term to the same envelopes.
After weeks of routine war (heartbreaking, murky, fearful – but routine), we can declare not with great pride that our elected officials are engaged not only in the military and security "day after" but also in the political "day after." Smotrich promises a future coalition with the ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu compares one day in October 2023 to 30 years of Oslo, and their opponents in the major protest groups have already managed to issue an ad using the names of the fallen, receive criticism and apologize.
Although the failures leading up to October 7 were multi-systemic, it is clear to many that it is the political arena that is the most urgent to correct it, and that the struggle for the right to hold the reins of the state will be tenacious.
The best of our sons fell in battle not so that we would mow down Hamas and then turn to mow each other down the day after. They gave everything they had for the country, and all we have to do is turn their sacrifice from operational constraint into brick in nation-building. Many of us seek to "be worthy of their sacrifice," and to that end re-storm the struggle for political reform.
The face of public discourse in Israel needs to change. I, for one, have a new habit: I block. Anyone who writes on social media and tries to take advantage of our peak sensitivity to make me hate someone becomes someone I have no desire or intention to hear
But if we were to poll the heroes who fell in the massacre and battle, we would find voters from every corner of the political spectrum. Devout rightists and sworn leftists, ardent traditionalists and equally ardent secularists, loyal Druze and devout Muslims – all fell in the land they loved for people they loved.
Are we capable of waging a proper political campaign for these heroes? Are we able to internalize that what they fell for is greater than any controversy?
Even if we are right (and we are all convinced that we are right), we do not have the privilege of returning to old habits.
The face of public discourse in Israel needs to change. I, for one, have a new habit: I block. Anyone who writes on social media and tries to use our peak sensitivity to make me hate someone becomes someone I have no desire or intention to hear. The hatred and hatred, suspicion and accusations all belong to October 6, and even then their smell was extremely bad. The commitment to togetherness, the mutual respect, the effort to understand each other and strive for broad agreement – this is the new world. Those who are not educated to integrate into it deserve to be left behind.
After weeks of routine war, we are ready to prepare for the day after. It will have to consist of the ability to contain conflicting voices, which nevertheless rise to one harmony of true partnership, at all costs.
This is the new politics: we will continue our national life in the same great spirit on which they gave their lives.
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