https://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Election-mode-2-saying-a-final-farewell-to-consensus-601871
To make sense of what's going on as Israelis head to the polls Tuesday, one would need to be part mathematician and part psychologist. Determining who will sit with who in a prospective coalition is like choosing sides at a schoolyard pick-up basketball team.
Blue & White will consider forming a unity coalition with Likud if Netanyahu isn't its head; Deri would sit with Liberman but Liberman won't sit with Deri or join any coalition with haredi members, likewise Blue & White; Liberman also isn't crazy about sitting with Blue & White at the helm; the haredim will sit in any coalition that lets them keep their subsidies and draft deferments; the Joint List will support Blue & White from outside but won't join a Zionist coalition; Netanyahu will talk with any party that would conceivably enable him to stay in power – even the outside-the-tent- Otzma if they pass the electoral threshold; and poor Amir Peretz (the chubby, glasses-wearing last player picked) would probably accept an offer from just about anyone.
The Trump Era. Partisanship gone critical mass. Kablooey! Consensus is so pre-Trump.
ReplyDeleteEmbrace the New Democracy. No holds barred selfish aggrandizement.
Principles are for princes. Real leaders in democracies use principles the way a chef uses spices -- they sprinkle them around liberally in order to make their unstable gyrating pronouncements palatable.