I Accuse

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Standing on the deck of a ship screaming, “We need to go to the left! If we continue sailing to the right, we will hit an iceberg and sink,” will not help make the ship change direction. The ship will continue going right—even if most of the travelers on that ship are the ones screaming.

To change direction, one should analyze the relative strength of the engines of the ship.

If we analyze the strength of the engines of the ship called the country of Israel, the one on the left, which is driving the ship to the right, is very strong, and all its parts are united with a clear vision and plan of what it wants to achieve and do. The one on the right, which should drive the change in direction, has no vision of what it wants except to defeat the one on the left. It has no compelling clarity on where it wants to take the ship. Moreover, its parts are not integrated for the engine to be able to perform its function of making the ship change direction.

I accuse the Israeli political opposition of not providing constructive leadership to a country in deep need of one. By not providing the desperately needed leadership, it is as guilty as the coalition for the fact that the ship called Israel is sailing toward its potential dissolution.

The opposition should stop its internal sparring and competition over who is the leader or future prime minister and elevate its eyes to see that without unity, there is no chance the ship will change direction.

True, the opportunity to make the change is in two years when the next elections will take place, but the opposition needs to develop the vision of what it intends to do together when they get to power and prepare the nation for it now. It will not be able to develop that vision once it gets to power because, when in power, it will face an endless list of urgent issues demanding attention. I repeat: taking the present government down will not make much of a change. The ship will continue sailing in the wrong direction. The settlers will continue trying to settle as much of the western territory as possible, and the conflict with the Orthodox Jews will persist. Without a uniting vision that addresses the question of what the effective solution to the Palestinian problem is and what the right balance between being a Jewish state and being a democracy should be, the problems stemming from the lack of clarity on these two issues will continue to plague the country and deepen the sense of despair many in the country feel.

The opposition should unite now, develop an answer to the root problems the country faces, i.e., have an answer to the above two questions, and, during the next two years, change the mindset of the Israeli population to accept the new vision they come up with so they can get elected. Once in power, they should implement the vision with its solutions. Only then, I reckon, will the ship change direction. Without the prescribed unity of the opposition, the one in power is gaining strength, getting stronger, and the ship is sailing faster toward its demise.