Israel’s center-left must restore concept of truth
Even if Blue and White leader Benny Gantz manages to establish a governing coalition, he has a long way to go toward conquering the hearts of a divided Israeli public.
The woman in the red dress holding up her elderly mother with one hand while the other clutched her cell phone was clearly uneasy. She was next in line for ballot box 1.1 at the community center of Even Yehuda, a town of 14,000 in the Sharon region north of Tel Aviv. “Help me,” she pleaded. “I have to go in in a minute and I don’t know who to vote for,” she told the person on the phone. The guard was politely urging her to end her conversation and go in to vote. “OK, OK,” she said, shrugging. “I wanted to vote for [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu but my daughters are making me vote for [Blue and White leader Benny] Gantz.”
An outsider overhearing the conversation would have thought that he had walked into the midst of elections for the country’s premiership or presidency. It’s Netanyahu or Benny. It’s a choice between the corrupt guy everyone knows and the new guy with an unblemished record but lack of political experience.
