Shelly Yacimovich’s Labor and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid are different in many ways, but beyond election rhetoric they are facing the same dilemma now sharpened by Europe’s clear position that Israel has overstepped all bounds of civilized political behavior. The dilemma: Should they join Bibi’s next government, or should they go to the opposition? Electorally the answer is clear: they should stick to their respective social agendas, and continue to indicate that they are willing to join Bibi’s next coalition. So far this tactic has been working well for both of them.



But at some point Yacimovich and Lapid will have to ask what is good for the country. Each in their own ways want a better, cleaner, more humane Israel, but they will not have the leverage to change the course of Bibi’s right wing coalition from within, and they will not reach any of their goals. Any other scenario is wishful thinking: Whenever Bibi will have to choose between his own extreme right wing partners and even more right wing coalition partners of Habayit Hayehudi and Labor, he will align with the right. We have learned that much from the last government in which Labor was nothing but a fig-leaf that covered the extreme right wing nature of his government.



This tendency is likely to intensify in Bibi’s next government. The remaining liberal democrats of the Likud have given way to young MKs like Danny Danon and Zeev Elkin who, drunk with their new power, are steaming ahead towards their stated goal of annexing the West Bank.



Bibi’s natural right-religious bloc will have an absolute majority. As a result Yacimovich and Lapid’s power to bargain on Israel’s truly existential issues, on the questions that will define its future will be negligible. They will neither be able to stop the building in are E1 that connects Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim and that drives the final nails into the two state solution’s coffin. Nor will they be able to stop further legalization of outposts or get Bibi to engage in negotiating on the two state solution that he doesn’t really want.



Lapid and Yacimovich must face the difficult truth about this historical moment. Israel is going down the road other countries have travelled before: South Africa thought it could get away with Apartheid, and many other liberal democracies have had dark times in which they sunk into nationalist totalitarianism, until they woke up to a reality of total isolation.



Joining Bibi’s next coalition means to disregard the truly dangerous situation in which Israel has found itself. Any party that will be part of the next government is bound to be a collaborator with the forces on the right that are turning Israel into what it now looks like to most of the world, as recent polls have shown: A country obsessed with power that makes its decisions without any regard for the needs and the well-being of others

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I am aware that this sounds like a jeremiad. Liberal commentators have been warning for the last few years that Israel’s international isolation is reaching unprecedented proportions. We were laughed off as un-Jewish weaklings who care too much about the gentiles. Meanwhile Israel is paying the price: Europe is now officially turning away from Israel.



I do not know what it will take to wake up Israel’s majority and make it realize that our country has left the path of the original Zionist dream of being the democratic homeland of the Jews. But until Israelis will wake up from the bunker mentality in which they have been living, the main goal is to keep Israel’s democracy alive.



One of the catastrophes of the last four years was that Netanyahu could run the country without real opposition. Labor and Yesh Atid must avoid this scenario by all means. If they join forces with Tzipi Livni and stay out of the government, there will be a sizeable opposition that cannot be laughed off and delegitimized as "extreme left." They will have to pound Netanyahu’s coalition relentlessly on every step that brings Israel closer to losing its liberal democratic character.



They must make clear that while today Israel’s majority is often oblivious of liberal democratic values, Bibi’s allies do not speak for all of Israel. They must show through their actions that Israel’s parliamentary system is alive, and that there is a significant opposition that holds the government accountable for its deeds.



In doing so, they will first of all do much to stop the deterioration of Israel’s standing in the world. But they will also remind Israel’s citizens that Israel can and must be different. In doing so, they will position themselves as genuine alternatives for Israel’s future. If indeed they want a better, cleaner, more humane Israel, they must have the stamina for a fight of many years.

Open gallery view Netanyahu chairing a cabinet meeting. Credit: Emil Salman