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Paula R. Stern is the Founder and Documentation Manager of , a technical writing company. More of her articles can be found on her .
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By Paula R. Stern
March 27, 2006
Much of Israel is still undecided in the last moments before the election.
Some choose not to vote, rather than undergo the emotional and intellectual exercise of determining the least bad candidate. What most of Israel knows is that there is no ideal choice, no single person or party espousing a real solution to the problems we face.
In the midst of all this, my son is about to vote for the first time. He is less torn by indecision than I am. "I'll vote for the only party telling the truth," he told me.
"Who is that?" I asked, truly wondering if perhaps youth can really see and understand things that we seasoned voters might have missed.
"The Arabs," he answered with a smile. At least they can be counted on to implement their platform if they were actually elected, he explained. That their platform is the destruction of Israel was less his point, than that he, like so many of our youth, have already learned the truth, or the lack of it, in Israeli politics.
"So who will you really vote for?" I asked him again.
"Do I have a choice?" National Union/National Religious Party was his response.
For my son and many others, the choice is black and white, or perhaps orange and white is a better answer. As the clock slowly ticks away and I realize for the first time in many years I will not vote for Likud, I recognize that the concept that we can all go to the polls on Tuesday and elect a viable solution for Wednesday is gone. Whether we have all become cynics or realists may be the real question of the day. But what we all know is that Wednesday will dawn, as all the days before it, with the same economic problems, the same social problems, the same security problems.
We are all searching, trying to rationalize, trying to find hope and truth in a system that likely has none to offer. The more arguments I hear, the less I am convinced. Party-by-party, I find no real solutions and yet I know I must vote. It is the one certainty I have. My son is correct. I will search for truth.
Despite my son's joke about the Arab parties representing truth, even a twisted one, I know that their sitting in our Knesset while espousing our destruction is an affront to democracy. It is a twisting of justice that brings them to the Knesset podium to praise terrorist attacks against our people and condemn the very government system that gives them a voice, unlike any other in the Arab world.
Like the Arab parties that Ehud Olmert is likely to require to form a coalition, Kadima is not interested in truth or Israel's security. It is a party born of a man who showed the ultimate contempt for his supporters. It is a dirty party, a corrupt one. I find no nobility there, not of purpose, not of intent. Truth is an unknown concept to them, a joke they play on Israel.
Ehud Olmert is an opportunist, Shimon Peres a loser. Even if you understood their platform, you cannot trust them to implement it. Olmert and the others have learned the most dangerous of all lessons from their master: say what you must to get the vote and then do what you wish. I would sooner vote for the Arab parties. At least they will destroy us up front rather than stab us in the back.
As for Labor, Amir Peretz is, above all else, an embarrassment. The thought of him representing Israel abroad should be enough to convince even the most diehard Labor supporters that this time they must put their votes elsewhere.
As in the past, Labor presents a policy of weakness and surrender. No, they do not deserve our support.
With much sadness, I will dismiss Likud as well. The nobility of Menachem Begin, the great voices of Uzi Landau and Natan Sharansky are not enough to offset the reality that Likud is desperate to maintain a presence in the Knesset, and will likely bend its principles again for the sake of power.
Who can I trust? Who will take my vote and not betray it? Already United Torah Judaism has indicated that it is ready to sell its values for the same power that calls to Likud. They may sit with Ehud Olmert and Kadima, but they will not sit there with my vote.
Time rushes past, the options dwindle. I am left with so few and still I search onwards. Michael Kleiner of Herut suggests that if Jews can be forcibly transferred, why not offer the option to Arabs to leave? Would they go, if given the option and payment? The problem with this theory, of course, is that the ones who would go are probably not the ones currently waging a war of terrorism against us. Baruch Marzel's party, like Herut, may not even make it into the Knesset.
Then there is the National Union/National Religious Party (NU/NRP). There are those I respect there, and those who did not fight the battle against disengagement as it should have been fought. Do they represent truth? Will they hold to the values they espouse and for which they might be given our trust and our votes? Is there any other choice for those who want to prevent future expulsions and surrender?
Uncertainty remains. Instead of finding answers in the election that is soon to be upon us, I find hope in an unlikely source. An email on a popular aliyah list included a recent post by someone who asked if they should come to Israel now or wait until personal issues in the US are settled?
Trying to reassure the list member that she should first deal with matters there and then come here, an email poster wrote, "Israel isn't going anywhere." That doesn't sound good, until you hear it within the context of how it was written. It is a message worth considering.
We are here, and here to stay. Whoever wins the election, whatever government is formed, we Israelis must ensure that the fundamental principles on which we built this country remain in focus.
The truth, as my son reminded me today, is that the future of Israel is ours to determine, tomorrow when we vote and more importantly the next day when we awaken under a new government because ultimately, what we must remember, what we must tell the world, is that Israel isn't going anywhere.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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