Precisely when the public is looking for a leadership that will unite the rifts that have deepened in society, the candidates choose an agenda of boycotts • Right and left, the party leaders declare with whom they will not agree to form a coalition,
Posters from the previous round of elections
Photo:
Liron Moldovan / Archive
Aside from the ethical and moral interest in the politics of boycotts and ostracism, past experience has shown that like all pre-election commitments, such promises need to be taken on limited bail.
If everyone were to keep their commitments and not sit with those who promise not to sit, we would be in an endless and endless election loop.
Basically this is what's been happening for the last two years ... this time someone will have to give up.
The only question is who, and for what.
The bon-ton in the left-wing bloc, which has also permeated the ranks of the right recently, is, of course, the commitment not to sit under Netanyahu.
There is no ideological or value issue here, for most of them it is mostly personal.
Yair Lapid was fired by Netanyahu and attacked by him, Gideon Saar was humiliated, Avigdor Lieberman was abandoned in a rage and Bnei Gantz was burned at his last entry, which made him commit again to the same promise he had already broken.
Not only did Bnei Gantz break his promise, but Amir Peretz and Itzik Shmuli, a party member, entered the government under Netanyahu, paid the price and were expelled from the political system, and their names are not on any list of candidates for the next Knesset.
It seems that of all the promises not to sit with a person and a party, the commitment not to sit with Netanyahu is the most binding and with a particularly high price tag for its violators.
The collection is carried out by the mainstream media, which are in fact full of the desire to oust the prime minister, and condemn anyone who dares to extend his political days on the stigma.
In the same election campaign in which Lapid, Ganz and Lieberman declared that they would not sit with Netanyahu, they pledged above all else that they would not form a coalition with the help of the joint list.
Their willingness to do so, which was ultimately halted only by a lack of majority, was met with overwhelming forgiveness from those who, for example, attacked Orly Levy-Aboksis for what they saw as a breach of her own commitment.
Boycott inside the camp
This time, too, it seems that in order to form a government without Netanyahu, those who made promises not to sit with each other will be able to break them calmly and without difficulty.
So is Lieberman, who promises not to sit with the ultra-Orthodox;
So did Gideon Saar, who announced that he would boycott the religious Zionism of which Itamar Ben Gvir was a member;
And so is Torah Judaism, if the best political options for it dictate a yeshiva with Lapid or Yvette.
Everything will be forgiven and forgiven.
Only a meeting with Netanyahu will be considered a betrayal.
It is not new that there are parties that do not want to sit with each other.
But in previous years, everyone was able to do so sparingly, only on ideological and value grounds, and always made sure to leave an opening for cooperation in case the other side made an answer.
Meretz attacked the ultra-Orthodox, but sat with Shas in the Barak government. Barak himself stated that he did not sit under Netanyahu, but crawled into his government in 2009. So did Tzipi Livni. And Yair Lapid himself.
Just as the parties continue to pledge and declare a boycott, so too do the rival parties campaign against other parties claiming that they will surely break their commitments.
It is enough to see the last Meretz campaign to understand that attacking Netanyahu is already a façade.
The target of the attacks is actually the Labor Party, the older sister, which is presented as the one that will, once again, fulfill its obligations and join the government led by Netanyahu.