For almost 30 years now, a pair of words has bought him a strike in Israeli discourse, and from the fact that it is rolled around on the tongue - it has almost become a fact, even though any connection between it and reality is accidental: "the political draw".
We are used to emphasizing it, until for a moment I feared that I did not know the meaning of the term and ran to check if a 70:30 draw was possible.
It turns out not.
A tie is indeed exactly equal sides, so there is no ability to produce a decision.
And in Israel, on most of the core issues around which the political debate is centered, the right has long had a majority.
So why a draw?
To create the most effective material for political changes: hope.
When you talk about a political tie and fix it in your mind, the head knows that there is a clear majority on one side, but the heart continues and sings with burning hope: a tie!
draw!
With a little effort we will be able to break it!
And it rarely even succeeds, to my horror, even if temporarily.
This week the tie doctrine broke records.
Behind almost every commentator and column was the magnificent map of the blocs, which explained how the complicated constitutional structure of the elections gave victory to the right-wing bloc.
But the numbers!
Oh, the numbers!
A tiny gap of barely 30 thousand votes between the blocks!
Brother, brother, if only Michaeli was educated enough to join Meretz.
Brother, brother, if only Ayelet Shaked would retire and lower the blocking percentage.
Brother, brother, oh and nightingale.
Even if Michaeli had joined Meretz, the center-left bloc, he would not have won.
Michaeli in a statement after the elections (archive), photo: Yossi Zeliger
And this is really a step up in the enormous injustice that the leaders of the center-left have been doing to their voters for many years, by cultivating false hopes based on the false tie: there is nothing that comes close to a tie in the number of votes of the blocs.
And even if it is said that it should be treated as a real test, it is not possible in any way to produce a coalition bloc with such a composition, due to the ideological gaps within it, so why exactly is it effective?
In any real political test, which is based on beliefs and political concepts, this numerical division is false and deceptive.
Political-national-security?
Whoever counts the Arab representatives in the left bloc (rightly so), should count the right-wing and far-right elements in the change bloc - on the right, because that is their place.
Conservatism versus liberalism?
It is certain that the Arab parties are not on the liberal side.
Progressiveness versus traditionalism?
come on.
The answer is known.
There is nothing even close to a tie in the results of these elections.
The relatively restrained behavior of the losing side in the days that have passed since the elections shows maturity and responsibility, but in order to completely heal the national wound, this side needs to realize, bravely and with no sense, that the 40-year-old right-wing government is not an accident or a malfunction, but is the result of a majority of voters.
And his silence is 50:50, and that the left's path back to power is... well, there is no such path.
We can talk about the creation of a strong center, and about a tribal shuffle that in a long process will succeed in redefining the map of the blocs, and especially about adapting to life as an important minority, balancing and leading in its own way.
But in the traditional block division for the issue - the numerical struggle was decided a long time ago.
Not behind the curtain, but much earlier.
in the bedroom.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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