In the days before the submission of the lists to the Knesset, we witnessed a strange natural phenomenon - politicians who had been abandoned by the public and the political system, claimed that they were the ones who decided to leave.
The departure statements mention a 15-year-old boy who insists after a breakup that his girlfriend didn't leave him, but he broke up with her.
As for the vast majority of them, there is no debate that if they had chosen to run in the elections, they would have suffered a defeat that would have left them out of the Knesset - such as Minister Yoaz Handel and Knesset member Nir Orbach, who both announced a few days ago their retirement from political life.
What they both have in common is that they were both willing, to one extent or another, to compromise their values or a part of them, for the desired seat.
Nir Orbach held his seat on the right until the last moment, and the thoughts of regret came only when it seemed that this seat would be thrown into the abyss of feminism after the elections, and then he suddenly began to speak against the government in which he sat in the hope of being armored by Likud - a move that did not succeed.
Yoaz Handel, a right-wing member of the Iberio Ramah, was ready to abandon parts of his doctrine and sit in the government with the Raam, whose members visited the families of terrorists in their homes, and thus found himself disappointing some of his supporters, who showed him the way out.
Unlike them, there were also those who survived this shaky year and our armor in parties that spared them the disappointing provision.
The clearest example of this is Amichai Shikli, who is a member of the Likud.
Contrary to some of the claims, the armor did not come only as a reward for his firm standing but by virtue of it.
Netanyahu assumes, and in my estimation is right, that the voters like people like Shikli who remain loyal to their values, and the armor will not only help the MK, but also the party he is in.
The same goes for Shorain Matan Kahana in the state camp.
He is also a right-wing man, but unlike Handel, he did not flee to the union with Ayelet Shaked, who spoke out every day under the government in which they both sat, in order to keep his seat, but remained loyal to the values he believed in, chiefly the changes he led to the Ministry of Religion and the necessity of the unity government.
Therefore, Eisenkot and Gantz believed that his armor would help them among the voters.
Certain players in the political system will have no escape from realizing that there is a reason they are not armed, and that is that the public does not trust them.
Ayelet Shaked, who according to the rumors has already begun to act among Likud members, will be forced to confront her disarmament, not only because the members of the party chairman's family do not like her, but because the public does not trust her and will not reward the Likud, if it does not punish it, for combination
You better realize this quickly and save yourself the pain and money and retire.
On the left, it is fitting that Interior Minister Amr Bar-Lev, who reached a doubtful position in the Labor Party's primary elections, and who, according to reports, on the eve of the lists, demanded that he be placed in a higher place, should also be hinted at.
The head of his party refused to jump him not because of a lack of personal affection, but because she assumed that his sometimes extreme behavior would not be rewarded by the party's voters.
The lesson for us, the voters, is clear: we must continue to show which behaviors we will reward and which will not, and thus force the members of the Knesset to fulfill their mission, which is to do what we would like.
were we wrong
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