Dov Lipman – Blue and White contributed to its own failure
Regardless of what happens regarding the formation of a new government or the need for a fourth election, Blue and White lost to Likud in the number of mandates it received. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brilliant “get out the vote” campaign most certainly led to the surge that Likud received in the election, the Blue and White Party contributed to its own election loss as well.
The first mistake was not creating a unity government after the last election. While many party members said they could not trust Netanyahu, who offered to serve as prime minister for six months and then move aside for Benny Gantz, mechanisms could have been put into place to ensure the transition occurred. There were also forces within Blue and White that refused to allow the party to sit in a government with Netanyahu as prime minister, despite the election results screaming for a unity government. That refusal paved the way for their loss of seats, power and influence in this week’s election.
The decline really began with the release of the Trump Middle East peace plan. Voters watching to see how Blue and White would respond were met with confusion. No one knew if the party was in favor of the deal, against the deal, or if it was going to bring it to the Knesset for a vote, as Gantz said he would do. This lack of clarity scared off left-wing voters who wanted to see the plan rejected, and it chased away right-wing voters who wanted the party leadership to embrace it.
Blue and White’s next great blunder came with their advertisement geared toward the moderate religious-Zionist community. The ad showed an Israeli flag with yellow mustard stains on it that said, “There’s so much mustard that it already has no taste.” This was a knock at the more conservative element in the religious-Zionist community who are known as hardal – an acronym for haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and nationalist – but is also the word for mustard.
The ad concluded, “This is what we’re here for,” accompanied by the Blue and White ballot slip. The ad appeared in Shabbat magazines given out in religious-Zionist synagogues. Even those in the religious-Zionist community who disagree with the more conservative religious Zionists saw the ad as hateful, and from that point on there was no significant population among the religious Zionists that would consider voting for Blue and White. Their Election Day slip shifted to Likud and Yamina.
The next huge mistake made by Blue and White was when MK Yair Lapid said the party would not sit in a government with Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz and Arab MK Heba Yazbak. Yazbak was banned by the Knesset from running (a decision that was overturned by the Supreme Court) because she glorified a terrorist who killed an Israeli child by smashing the child’s head against a rock.
PERETZ SERVED as an Israeli Air Force pilot, and then as IDF chief rabbi. Even if Lapid disagrees with Peretz’s ideologies, the very suggestion of comparing or equating a Zionist leader with a radical terrorist supporter pushed more religious and moderate right-wing voters away from Blue and White.
Then Blue and White was hit with the news that there was going to be an investigation regarding possible corruption at the company that Benny Gantz ran. While making it clear that he would resign if he were ever accused by the prosecution of any wrongdoing, Gantz himself was not a suspect. But instead of focusing on that alone, Blue and White also claimed that the Likud justice minister and the acting state prosecutor whom he appointed were behind the investigation.
Likud has long been blaming the prosecutor’s office for what it calls a witch-hunt against Netanyahu. Blue and White has portrayed itself as the dignified party that accepts the rule of law and the justice system. Now it allowed itself to be dragged into the mud by suggesting that Justice Ministry officials were making corrupt political decisions. This no doubt led voters drawn to Blue and White over their support for government institutions to question its commitment to this value.
That questioning continued, and Blue and White lost more voters when in the closing days of the campaign it began to refer to Netanyahu as Erdogan.
Saying that Netanyahu is not fit to serve in office while going to trial is fair game. Claiming that he is being indicted for serious charges of corruption and needs to be replaced is a stance that resonated with many voters. Saying that he at one time was a good leader but that something changed and he cannot continue leading Israel definitely drew voters to Blue and White. But comparing someone who risked his life serving in a commando unit and then dedicated his life to the success of the Jewish state to one of the most anti-Israel figures in the world – who leads an Islamic country that is becoming more and more radical – turned Gantz into “just another politician” who will say anything to get elected, and that cost Blue and White dearly,
I spoke to a Shas MK about the party’s electoral success. He told me that the party leadership made a deliberate decision to run a positive campaign focusing on tradition and spirituality – and that decision paid off.
Blue and White was established to show a different type of leadership; one that focused on the positive and on unity, as a counter to the Likud campaigns that have been negative and divisive. But Benny Gantz and Blue and White fell prey to the game of politics and veered from that path, and that change was the big reason for their poor performance in Monday’s election.
The writer served as a member of the 19th Knesset
Originally posted in the JPOST
