There’s also no one to struggle with. Aligned against Netanyahu is nothing, an empty space. No one stands up to him. The prime minister is being questioned as a criminal suspect and no one challenges him seriously, except for the police commissioner and protest organizer Eldad Yaniv. Just imagine similar allegations against Shimon Peres, with Menachem Begin or even Yitzhak Shamir in the opposition – heaven and earth would be shaking. But Israel has in recent years developed a regime with no opposition, like in Putin’s Russia or Erdogan’s Turkey – but with a global innovation Made in Israel: It’s the opposition’s fault that there’s no opposition, not the government’s.
The so-called opposition has nothing to sell. It has nothing to offer other than “Netanyahu is corrupt,” as if Netanyahu would be fit to continue in office if he were modest, morally pure teacher of Jewish law. There is no alternative to be found, even if you search with a microscope. This can be seen on the Facebook page of Labor candidate Avi Gabbay: It’s empty. “Together we will turn Israel into the greatest country in the world.” The populists Netanyahu and Yair Lapid couldn’t have put it any better. [...]
From the other contender, Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, we could of course expect much less. “Mr. Prime Minister, you’ve done good things for the Jewish people. But enough.” What a fighting opposition! Lapid’s Facebook page deals mainly with corruption and conscripting the ultra-Orthodox. We all know that Israel that has no other issues to deal with – or maybe Lapid just doesn’t have anything else to say.
