Lieberman’s ascent comes largely out of Likud’s support as Netanyahu fails to differentiate himself from Avodah and Kadima, whose programs are similar to his. By splitting the right bloc’s vote, Lieberman and Netanyahu might open the way to Kadima. Ideally, Likud, Israel Beitenu, and other right-wing and religious parties should have joined together in a bloc: the very fact of so strong a bloc would bring them many more votes. The current situation is not bad, either. In fact, I would prefer Kadima forming the government. Counter-intuitive as that sounds, that would be better for the country.

In the government, Netanyahu will continue Kadima’s policies, dancing to Obama’s tune. True, we don’t know his tune yet; as a typical assimilated Jew turns against Jewish goals, so Obama might turn against Muslim ones. But if so, any Israeli government would enjoy an American permission for right-wing policies. In a broad national government which involves Barak and Livni, Netanyahu would pursue peacenik policies. If he refuses, as was the case initially with the Hebron disengagement, Shabak will stage another one of its trademark provocations. [In 1997, after Netanyahu resisted Israeli withdrawal from Hebron, an Israeli soldier opened fire at Arabs in a Hebron marketplace where many video cameras were conveniently ready. Almost immediately, the government passed the Hebron withdrawal, and Netanyahu even apologized to Arafat for the shooting. Arafat, who in his time oversaw many terrorist acts against Jews, was undoubtedly pleased.]

In the opposition, Netanyahu would fiercely condemn Livni-Barak-Lieberman’s government and lash out against its defeatist policies. With Netanyahu in opposition, Kadima’s government won’t be able to push any political concessions through the Knesset. Lieberman will soon join him in the opposition, making the leftist government rather short-lived and further discredited. Jews can safely vote for Lieberman and disregard a moderate threat to Likud’s victory.

Lieberman is the least worse choice in the current elections, but if you want to make a statement, Marzel’s National Union is the way to go.

Kadima is an ad hoc Likud spin-off. Sharon created it for the sole purpose of pushing the Gush Katif eviction through the Knesset. Kadima lacked an ideology of its own, and following Sharon’s push to the left, it drifts in the same direction. The political objectives of Peace Now, Meretz, Labor, and Kadima are similar: a piece of paper from the Arabs with the word “peace” printed on it for the price of the Lake Kineret, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria, and Jerusalem. Theoretically, Peace Now asks for the demolition of all Jewish presence in the territories while Kadima wants some to remain. In practice, the difference is non-essential: as Qurei revealed, the Kadima government has already accepted the withdrawal plan, which would uproot half the settlements in terms of population (250,000 Jews and 40,000 Arabs live in 56 percent of Judea and Samaria. The obvious solution is to relocate the Arabs and annex the 56 percent. The Israeli government prefers to evict the Jews and abandon the land). The Palestinians are pressing for a still broader withdrawal, which the Kadima government is accepting step-by-step. In nationalistic or religious terms, there is no difference between uprooting 150,000 (Kadima) and 250,000 (Meretz) Jews, and abandoning, respectively, 93 or 100 percent of Judea and Samaria.

The democratic process further facilitates the Left’s convergence. Parties seek political dominance for its own sake rather than to reach any particular goals. Their donors need benefits from the government, local activists want official positions, and chiefs crave international recognition. Goals, if there were any in the first place, get sacrificed in the run-up to elections. In order to get more votes, parties blur their agendas to make them acceptable to the widest possible audience. Kadima’s political poles include Olmert’s ultra-left statement that Israel would have to withdraw from everywhere—including East Jerusalem—and Livni’s right-wing statement that Israeli Arabs would have to move into the Palestinian state as a condition of its creation.

Likud acts the same way. The ostensibly right-wing party has always been a refuge for demagogues. Except for Oslo, all Israeli capitulations are the Right’s work: Sinai, Madrid, Hebron, and Gaza. Even Oslo was accomplished by Rabin, a right-winger among the Left. Explanation of this phenomenon is best left to clinical psychiatrists; probably it has to do with the Right’s sense of persecution and insecurity, which stem from permanent opposition to the establishment and to international anti-Semitism, and from a peculiar sense of righteousness which demands generosity toward enemies. Be that as it may, Netanyahu’s agenda is perfectly leftist: he is for the peace process, and thus for concessions to Palestinians, thus for evicting Jewish villagers and abandoning the Temple Mount, since the Arabs would accept nothing less—that is, unless Israel bombed them out of any position to accept or reject anything. In a sense, Netanyahu is more pro-Arab than Peace Now; unlike the leftists, he insists on massive economic aid to Palestinians. According to his logic, affluent Palestinians would abandon terrorism. That’s nonsense for two reasons: No amount of aid would make backward Arabs affluent. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, and Qatar need no one’s aid, but their Arab population is as backward as camels. Also, affluent Arabs are still quite hostile to Israel. Kuwait, a mega-rich American client, hosted the PLO; Qatar is a home to radical Islamist organizations; Saudi Arabia is a premier sponsor of Islamic terrorists. If Netanyahu imagines he can make 90 percent of the Palestinians affluent, the remaining 10 percent—200,000 Arabs—are more than enough to man any terrorist enterprise, and economic discontent would prop up their political-terrorist aspirations.

The only position which makes Likud slightly preferable to Meretz is Netanyahu’s insistence on balancing Israeli concessions with Palestinian security measures. Netanyahu, however, didn’t practice what he stood for; he gave away Hebron and much of Judea and Samaria while terrorism was high. A politician who abandoned Hebron clearly would have still fewer qualms about abandoning Ariel. Netanyahu’s balancing approach is a non-starter: Israel agrees to concessions only because of Palestinian terrorism, and public support for withdrawal soars after major terrorist attacks. Jewish defeatism is not unique: Britain abandoned the same land (and also India, Ireland—you name it) under the squall of terror. Palestinians are not stupid enough to cease terrorism before they get a state.

Likud’s squabble with Feiglin also indicates how far to the left the party has really gone. Netanyahu and his cohorts have personal reasons to resist Feiglin’s encroachment, which would deprive them of their positions, but what about the scores of rank-and-file Likud activists who also oppose him? The polls show that Feiglin’s promotion to a realistic slot in Likud’s list slightly improved the party’s popularity, but most activists choose to believe that Feglin is bad for Likud. Their implicit reasoning is this: Feiglin would change Likud’s outlook significantly, and they prefer “their” Likud to the other man’s party, even if it’s genuinely right-wing.

There is huge difference between a Likud with Feiglin in the twentieth spot and one with Feiglin in the first. A reputable right-wing MK is a plus for the party, but an anti-establishment right-winger at the top would drive away many of Likud’s voters. Arguably, Feiglin at the top of Likud could bring in the right-wing voters scattered among the politically amorphous religious parties. Whatever the case, Feiglin barely made it onto Likud’s list and won’t top it in the current elections, and probably not in subsequent ones either. His wisdom in subverting Likud is questionable: on one hand, a systemic MK, one of the Likud crowd, is really more valuable than one from a small party. On other hand, running in his own party, flanked by right-wingers from other streams, Feiglin can consolidate a serious number of seats. In the current elections, though, this discourse is purely theoretical.

Lieberman is not as bad as he sounds. A demagogue supported by financial crooks, he nevertheless has a decent history of opposing leftist measures. On this, at least, he’s more consistent than Netanyahu, who supported Sharon’s government almost to the day of the Gush Katif eviction. Also to his credit, Lieberman resists Russian overtures to bring him closer to the Kremlin.

Shas and UTJ have fixed audiences who will vote for them no matter what. For now, they oppose relinquishing East Jerusalem, but would probably relent if offered enough subsidies for their constituency, just as they did in Gush Katif. The hypocrites who put up with de facto Palestinian occupation of the Temple Mount will find a way to soothe their consciences over de jure Palestinian occupation of Jerusalem. And don’t forget, both Shas and UTJ accept giving away Judea and Samaria.

It follows that any government will continue the defeatist agenda. The best we could do in the current elections would be to turn the Knesset into a platform for some really right-wing views. To be sure, the right-wing equivalent of Peace Now is not only banned from the Knesset but has been made illegal. At least center-right figures can enter the Knesset. This would give the conservative views increased visibility and enhance their reputation; views spoken from the Knesset are for some reason deemed more authoritative. In the best-case scenario, the real right-wingers could serve as the Knesset’s gadflies and perhaps even slow the capitulation.

There is no such right-wing party among the established ones. Nor is one needed. In small Israeli society, new parties quickly make space for themselves and on many occasions have garnered decent Knesset representation. Who is this right alternative? Meet the “Our Land of Israel” (meaning, “not their land”) party of Dov Wolpe and Baruch Marzel, the last men standing. In this country with no right-wing politicians, voting for those odd men might be the best choice. At least they are honest men—a trait impossible to find in this Knesset. Marzel, a long-time assistant of Rabbi Meir Kahane, is a linchpin of the Hebron Jewish community, the man behind myriad right-wing projects and incidents; a man whose impeccable reputation and authority will no doubt justify every vote cast for him. Rabbi Dov Wolpe, a maverick Chabadnik with the Rebbe’s unique blessing to live in poverty and help the people of Israel, fully lives up to his reputation. The man behind the call for Chabadniks to heed the Rebbe’s instruction, “A Palestinian state is a danger to Jews,” a propagandist who encouraged IDF soldiers to refuse their criminal orders for the eviction of Jewish families, Wolpe represents the best type of fiercely Zionist Chabadnik.
Marzel and Wolpe won’t change anything in Israeli politics, nor would anyone else. But Marzel and Wolpe will get you the best bang for your vote.

Does not voting for Marzel-Wolpe split the right-wing camp, causing a number of votes to fall down in between the parties as the tallies are rounded to the Knesset seats? A small effect like that will take place, but it has already been started by other right-wing parties. Religious Zionists squabbled over their four to six seats, and Moledet split out from the Jewish Home bloc. Ultra-Orthodox parties failed to unite despite the inessential nature of their differences. On the secular right, Likud and Israel Our Home compete fiercely, and lose their disgruntled voters to Kadima.

If Kadima is on its way back to the top, it can form the government with ultra-leftists, supported by Arab parties in the Knesset. An invasion of Gaza or an attack on Iran shortly before the elections can further boost Kadima ratings. [This article was written before the Gaza operation.] Media continually slander the Right camp’s pitiful leader, Netanyahu, which cannot fail to take a toll on his voter-support. Fake polls predicting a victory for the left are another powerful tool in dissuading the right-wingers from voting. Polls usually fail to account for lower turnout among right-wing voters; they support Netanyahu at the polls but not at the booths. Arabs have a much higher turnout.
If the polls lie, then the right-wing parties gain a majority, and risking two percent of conservative votes to support Marzel-Wolpe is a moderate gamble.

The right can win the election but lose the government. In the scenario in which right-wing and religious parties gain the Knesset majority but Kadima earns the most votes, Livni will be forming a government. Theoretically, Shas should refuse her invitation so that if she fails, Likud can proceed with forming a government instead. In practice, Shas realizes its strong bargaining power and would support Livni in return for massive subsidies to haredim. Presumably, Livni is willing to offer them more welfare than economically conservative Netanyahu. In the economic crisis, when donations to non-working haredim dwindled, Shas would go to great lengths of betrayal for money.

In a sense, we might prefer Likud to fail. A Likud government would continue the peace process just like Kadima does—witness the Wye River and Hebron agreements. But Likud in opposition would jealously carp at Kadima for every concession it made to the Arabs, and build a Knesset coalition against the withdrawals.

Whether the Left or the fake Right wins, we need the most honest, straightforward, and vociferous right-wingers in the Knesset. Weighed against the fake right-wingers of every stripe who subscribe to Israeli capitulation on these or those terms, Marzel and Wolpe offer a refreshing alternative.

HaBait HaYehudi is another good choice, and if you lean toward the mainstream, Lieberman is better than the others.

Israeli education and political concessions work to destroy patriotism as Jews learn about Arab rights to this land and see the government conceding those rights.

Livni is a typical spineless atheist right-winger. Born to an ultra-right-wing family, and a right-winger for most of her life, Livni readily mended her views. And why not? Without belief in the Torah, her belief in Zhabotinsky’s “two banks of Jordan” was a mere preference rather than a stone-cut axiom.

Livni has changed her ways drastically at least twice. She tamed her right-wing views to join Mossad, a profoundly leftist institution. She changed drastically again when appointed foreign minister: after a series of covert meetings with “peace-loving” Palestinians, often in Jaffa, she converted to the peacenik tune. From “there are two banks of Jordan, and both are ours,” she turned to no bank at all. From Israel in the West Bank and Jordan, she turned to a Tel Aviv beach strip.

As a woman, Livni is very easily influenced. Her Mossad bosses, her Palestinian counterparts, Sharon—too many people were able to convince her of anything. She told the Winograd commission that she believed Olmert’s promise that the Lebanon campaign would only last a couple of days. She prefers to believe even when belief is absurd: she told the Davos conference that she supported Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza “to give peace a chance,” destroying the lives of 9,000 Jews and destroying the hopes of millions more, in order to test an extra-flimsy chance.

Livni is patriotic, but her patriotism is warped.

As the next prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu is by any measure preferable to Ehud Barak, who has already demonstrated his willingness to surrender to Arafat just about everything, including Jerusalem. Netanyahu’s position, at least on paper, is somewhat more Jewish. In the face of the Iranian threat, Netanyahu would possibly appoint Barak a defense minister, thus compensating for Netanyahu’s own weakness in military management. On other hand, it is no less likely that Olmert would bomb Iranian nuclear targets shortly before the elections in a bid to secure across-the-board electoral support.

To what extent can we expect Netanyahu to follow through on his pre-election promises? Such consistency is unlikely: Israeli politicians are remarkably dishonest. Rabin campaigned on promises of harsh retaliation against the Palestinians for terrorist attacks, only to sign the Oslo Accords soon after being elected. Sharon scored points in his election campaign by ridiculing the left’s plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza—which he soon adopted in its entirety and realized with utmost cruelty to Jews. After Menachem Begin—the leader of the ETZEL terrorist group—gave away Sinai, and Yitzhak Shamir—the leader of the LEHI terrorist group—agreed to the Madrid conference, you shouldn’t expect an American-educated business consultant and politician like Netanyahu to be particularly honest.

Netanyahu was not particularly bad. He didn’t give away as much as other right-wing prime ministers have done. It is somewhat diabolical that the worst concessions—indeed, all the concessions—were made by the ultimate right-wingers: Begin, Shamir, Sharon. To this list we can add Rabin, who although leftist by political affiliation, was rightist to the point of fascism in his political and military methods. A possible reason for this tendency is that leftists know that they are lying about democracy and liberalism, so they have no problem promising the world powers one thing and doing the other. Right-wingers are somewhat more honest, or rather straightforward; once they lack faith and see no rational way out, they agree to foreign proposals which seem to promise peace, and follow through on their promises.

Again, Netanyahu wasn’t very bad: he even insisted, with that minimal shrewdness of a business consultant, on some reciprocity from Palestinians. If they wanted Israel to implement the Oslo Accords, they would have to implement them too, and reduce terrorism to begin with. Only in the warped world of Israeli politics could this attitude be presented as an achievement. Anyway, Olmert practices such policy, too, albeit from a different angle: he doesn’t demand reciprocity too insistently, as it is clearly impossible—and impossible demands, whether reasonable or not, would signify his refusal to implement the left’s peace policies. Instead, Olmert buries the issue under the heap of unfulfilled promises to Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s trademark approach is demonstrating the Palestinians’ non-cooperation. He signed the Wye River memorandum, which promised huge concessions to Arabs but required from them some impossible steps, such as prohibiting anti-Israeli incitement, collecting huge numbers of illegal firearms traditionally held by Arab villagers, and disbanding all terrorist organizations. It remains unknown whether the Palestinians never intended to realize the memorandum and just signed it, as the Israelis did, to please their American donors. Or perhaps Arafat believed he could get away with wholesale violations of the memorandum and still claim concessions from Israel. Whatever the case, the agreement went sour—but not before Israel fulfilled her first steps and transferred considerable areas to the Palestinian Authority. In fact, Israel transferred twice the stipulated part of Area C (2 percent instead of 1) and 59 percent of the stipulated part of Area B (7 percent instead of 12). Here lies the danger of Netanyahu’s approach: every time he agrees to demonstrate the (self-evident) ill will of the Palestinians, he has to make irreversible concessions.

Likewise, Netanyahu was proud that he set up the terms in the Hebron Agreement, which are impossible for the Palestinians to carry out; those terms are similar to the Wye River ones. But look just a bit deeper, and the agreement commits Israel to the undivided city of Hebron—which in context means, undivided under Palestinian jurisdiction.

Short of Olmert bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities, Netanyahu will win the elections. Lincoln remarked, “You can fool all the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but not all of the people all the time.” That maxim doesn’t apply to Jews, who sheepishly vote for the same politicians who fooled them before. Is there a better prime ministerial prospect than Netanyahu? Probably not; all of them are equally bad. The Jewish state was established in a very totalitarian manner, by a single being, God, and cannot survive democratically. We don’t expect any good to come from the democratic process. Any prime minister raised through the corrupt and subservient hierarchy would become corrupt and subservient. He would also be faithless, as people of true faith (as opposed to Shas politicians) don’t get donations. So it matters to a very limited extent who would be the prime minister. The solution, if there were any, would come from the streets rather than from the Knesset.

But the elections can be useful by bringing a handful of good Jews into the Knesset. So our approach is voting for people such as Baruch Marzel, a true follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane, or perhaps Aryeh Eldad. Netanyahu doesn’t really need our votes; with or without them, he will win the elections. But our votes can bring Baruch the gadfly into the Knesset, and he at least won’t keep silent. Given the Knesset tribune, he can steer Israel a bit to the right, and to righteousness.

No major Israeli politician accepts the fact that a Jewish state lives or dies on a single question: Do we desperately want this land? Peace is better than land, but is peace better than Judea and Samaria? Israel has lost the territories when Judea and Samaria became the “West Bank.”

Ideologically charged English-speaking immigrants to Israel and many Russians possess the common sense understanding of “we,” “our,” and “enemy.” Israeli-born sabra Jews, brainwashed since inception, have little ideological zeal. Lieberman the phony sucks in Russian votes. Netanyahu is the ideal candidate for right-leaning, Israeli-born Jews: he talks right, retains political correctness and is generally nice, and doesn’t embroil the state in the consequences of actual right-wing policies.

No mainstream politician is worth going to polling booths.

Bibi had never studied economics in any depth. His degrees are in architecture and management, and he also studied political science when universities already burned with leftism. Netanyahu’s experience in business consulting, admired by Israelis, is negative advertising for him in America, where consultants are recognized as generally worthless, the subjects of myriad jokes.

As Finance Minister, Netanyahu presided over a booming economy, a late spillover from the American boom. Clinton and Netanyahu did not influence the economic successes of America and Israel. Netanyahu the prime minister presided over a bad economy – a consequence, as he ridiculously claims, of the downturn in Russian immigration. In fact, large immigration initially burdens the economy; by the time of Netanyahu’s prime ministry, earlier immigration had already started producing a beneficial effect.

Netanyahu followed the basic precepts of economic liberalism, known to every undergrad: privatization, deregulation, floating currency, decreased welfare, and lower taxes. He privatized state companies without bothering to create competition first. Oligarchic monopolies replaced the state monopolies. State-run companies – ill managed, thus with low profits – were valued on the cheap, and the oligarchs purchased our national assets at low prices. Acting properly, Netanyahu would have first changed the management of state-owned corporations, making them well profitable, deregulated the markets to allow competition to spring up, and only then – privatize. Commercial competitors would offer higher prices for government assets, and manage them more professionally than the oligarchs who lack appropriate business experience. Netanyahu later began breaking up the monopolies, but by then it was too late: de-monopolization should precede privatization.

One type of Netanyahu’s privatization was catastrophic: Jews and Arabs held about equal amount of land in private property, while the government controlled the rest. In 1997, Netanyahu opened up large-scale privatization of land in the Galilee and the South. The move uncritically served the ideals of economic liberalism and rationally catered to Netanyahu’s investor friends. Jews predictably didn’t rush to settle the Galilee, full of dangerous Arabs, or the inhospitable South. Netanyahu thus opened the floodgates of land purchases to Saudi-funded Israeli Arab organizations.

Israel also still has to live through banking deregulation. Failures of ill-conceived small banks are more than likely. Netanyahu smelled an obvious fact – that Bank of Israel practices are outdated – but did not know the cure. Instead of painstaking, slow deregulation, Netanyahu forcibly broke the earlier practices without building infrastructure for new ones. His political time horizon was short; he was cramming more reforms into his time in office. The rushed policy was especially dangerous in the small Israeli economy, and amplified stock market and currency swings.

Netanyahu danced to the IMF’s tune, forgetting that the IMF did not improve the long-term economic outlook in any country. On the contrary, countries like Japan and South Korea created closed, heavily, if informally, controlled markets, and regulated currencies, and achieved sustainable growth – and only then slowly opened themselves up to the world economy. Netanyahu’s wide opening of a weak Israeli economy resulted in colonization: foreign investors became major employers in Israel and the added value slipped away. Instead of fostering domestic hi-tech, as Japan and South Korea did, Israel welcomed foreign companies and satisfied herself with being their R&D labs; salaries remained in Israel, but the entrepreneurial profits flowed away. US hi-tech companies pay their employees in India a few times less than Americans for a reason: Indians have lower productivity. Israeli Jews are at least as efficient as their US colleagues, and salaries are lower Israel than in America only because of the Israeli government’s unprofessional economic policies.

The current revaluation of the shekel is a consequence of reckless liberalization. The oligarchic sector of the economy – large export companies and major foreign investors – grows and brings foreign currencies into Israel, while most people are relatively poor and therefore consumer imports remain low. The systemic distortions of the Israeli economy parallel those in other quickly liberalized markets, such as Ukraine: the GDP is concentrated in a few big companies, and income distribution is highly unequal with oligarchs controlling the lion’s share, the poor being extremely poor, and the middle class income outpaced by unusually high and rising prices. Netanyahu concentrated his deregulation efforts on big business, not – properly – on small companies. His target income tax rate of 35% is the highest practical level in developed economies, while Israeli post-socialist economy can only develop meaningfully with income tax of no more than 15%. Low income tax is especially important for developing the middle class’ purchasing capacity.

Netanyahu’s superficial economic policies guarantee a systemic crisis such as that encountered by most countries that observe the IMF’s recommendations.

Israeli politicians demonstrated that trickery pays. Begin, Rabin, Netanyahu, Barak, and Sharon bluntly lied to voters and abandoned their election platforms upon entering the office. Voters don’t learn, as the current support for Netanyahu indicates. Voters are superficial and fall to simple change of forefront: many are ready to swap Olmert for Tzipi Livni whose track record and agenda are similar to Olmert’s. Voting costs no money, and voters are more credulous than Tulip bulb investors: just-formed political parties with catchy names, like Pensioners’ Party, receive windfall vote. Populism and demagoguery are politicians’ trade stock: witness Lieberman who pandered to his potential voters during elections, did absolutely nothing while in the office, and still counts many supporters.

What are the alternatives? Barak did not disagree with Clinton about the return of refugees. Netanyahu cheated the voters and sold Hebron to Arabs. Livni is dangerous: she is unprincipled, with no sense of Jewish values, weak – and popular. She will give in to American demands of withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, and talk Israeli public into supporting that suicide.
Leftist establishment’s attacks on Olmert speak for themself. He is not good anymore for the ruling anti-Semites.

For the right, there is regrettably no choice but Olmert.

A simple alternative method is ranked pairs. Each voter ranks his preferences, like Kahane > (is better than) Olmert; Olmert > Peres.

The possible number of pairs is large on a ballot with a few dozen candidates, but voters need not rank them all. Voters rank their preferred candidates and declare others equal to them: Peres = Rabin = Abu Mazen. When a voter doesn’t include some candidates in the pair ranking, he declares them equal among themselves and worse than all others.

The ranked pairs method could be compromised by splitting voting districts, but small Israel could count the vote as a single district. The method theoretically fails on participation criteria (sometimes, it’s better not to vote at all), but a practical realization of such a strategy is all but impossible. Beside, voting could be made a legal duty for all Israeli Jews.

The ranked pairs system is more fun than the simple plurality method. It also gives a picture of voter preferences rather than a single winner. Ranked pairs voting will require computer touch screens rather than paper ballots; installing them is no problem. Alternatively, Israelis could switch to voting from home on the internet.

No country uses that system, but Israel could.