How I Would Vote In Israel

Tomorrow is Israeli election day and also Saint Patrick's Day. Normally I would not get into politics in the Holy Land, leaving the election to my six Israeli first cousins and their offspring. But after my own country's politics were disrupted by an unprecedented Israeli intervention I feel I have the right to retaliate.

Be informed that in tomorrow's poll, I back the Israeli politician with the closest links to Ireland, the opposition leader, Isaac (Yitzhak) Herzog. He is the grandson and namesake of Isaac Levi Herzog, chief rabbi of Ireland in the 1930s. Rabbi Herzog, born in Belfast to Lithuanian immigrants, worked to unify the Auld Sod. He lived in Dublin and was able to speak Gaelic when required to.

Rabbi Herzog later made aliyah and went to Israel where he later became chief rabbi as well. With him went his Dublin-born son, Chaim Herzog (né Vivian, a man's name in Britain), later a famed diplomat and the President of Israel. Both Rabbi Herzog and his son famously walked in New York's St. Paddy's Day parades to the astonishment of my parents. “Only in America” as my father used to say.

Israel and Ireland both wanted independence from the British Empire then.

The leader of the United Zionist opposition to Likud's Benjamin (Binyamin) Netanyahu is Chaim Herzog's son.

Netanyahu is running scared. Today he stated that he would block a 2-state solution allowing Palestinian rule over most of the West Bank, something he has allegedly supported in negotiations the USA has been organizing for decades. “As long as I am leader, Israel will keep the West Bank”, he roared. This appeal to the hardest-line Israeli settlers defies US and Israeli supporters of peace.

Moreover, in an astonishing break from his normally overconfident manner, Netanyahu apologized for failing to adequately address Israel's high cost of living during his term of office. He has also earlier blustered his way into a foreign policy split with Israel's chief defender, the USA, by an ill-considered partisan address to Congress.

Evidence of his panic includes his tacking both left and right in Israeli economic policy, a key concern of the electorate. Premier Netanyahu offered the post of minister of finance to Kulanu party leader Moshe Kahlon, himself formerly of Likud to try to split the opposition. This led to a sell-off in the Tel Aviv stock market yesterday, for fear that anti-business Kahlon might get the job.

“I can't form a government without him,” Netanyahu told Israel Army Radio. He added: “Together, Kahlon and I will be able to solve the housing problem and the cost of living problem just as we dealt with the mobile telephone market”. Kahlon himself brushed off the offer because Netanyahu had made offers of finance ministry and other cabinet posts to him in the past which he did not followed up.

Then in Tel Aviv yesterday, PM Netanyahu pleaded with right-wing voters to “stop a left-wing government from coming to power.” He said: “Our rivals are investing in a huge effort to harm me and Likud, to open a gap between my party, the Likud, and [United Zionist] rivals. If we don't close this gap, there is a real danger a left-wing government will rise to power.”

We know Netanyahu from his days as Israeli UN Ambassador, as a slick power-mad politician. I think he is losing his touch.

There is a famous tale of how a scorpion persuades a frog to take him across a river, promising not to sting him and drown them both. But as they get near the further shore, he stings the frog anyway. The frog says: “Why did you sting me? We will both now drown.” To which the scorpion replies, “this is the Middle East.”