Israel Must Get Sense from Its Centrists

Every week, as regular as clockwork, I receive an email message from the business networking company, LinkedIn:

'Do You Know Natalie Wood?  …. Natalie, you have a new suggested connection to review’.

Whether the question and invitation are abstract, literary or philosophical I am unqualified to say. However, it gives me a chance to complain about the unending stream of spam telephone text messages I am receiving in the weeks before the 09 April Israel general election from people who know nothing about me; care yet less and seek my opinion solely to boost their poll ratings.

Although irritating, it is not half as annoying as understanding that  the major parties and their leaders suffer from chronic cronyism and are convinced that being a ‘centrist’ means pleasing only those who live in the country’s fashionable and densely-populated centre! Believe me. I can’t boast a Tel Aviv zip code, so I am nothing!

Meanwhile as l await a response from the recently formed Blue and White Party about a possible pre-election English language event in Haifa, I may report that a tentative offer to help arrange a small meeting closer to home was all but laughed out of court.

Here, I must remind Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid that by his own admission he made a terrible ‘power drunk’ mess of his initial Knesset role as finance minister and one of his worst blunders was trying to halt  the work on what became the new railway station at Karmiel.

 As commonsense self-evidently prevailed, this means that if Lapid and senior colleagues ever do venture to the frozen wastes beyond the Sharon Valley I could be in Haifa within an hour to cheer them on. Oops! But I must not forget my place. As a mere Anglo in the northern provinces, my vote must count for naught.

Further, the fates have choreographed the rise of political ‘centrism’ in Israel in perfect formation with that in the UK where  the emerging Independent Group of  Members of Parliament is to be headed, I understand, by Liverpool  Wavertree‘s Luciana Berger. 

The increasingly distinguished Ms Berger (also ‘Mrs Alistair Goldsmith’) is a former Director of Labour Friends of Israel but resigned from the Labour Party in February because its increasingly anti-Jewish atmosphere has now degenerated into "institutional antisemitism".

But as constituency elected MPs, Ms Berger and her colleagues have, I insist, a huge advantage over any of their Israeli counterparts as they enjoy an intimate knowledge of both the areas and the populations they represent.

So I end here by pointing out that while one recent London Times newspaper promotion, ‘Making Sense of the Centrists’ charged Westminster politicians with behaving like animals, yet another has outlined ‘Why Clever People Make Stupid Mistakes’.  I think sensible Israeli politicians should read it.

© Natalie Wood (31 March 2019)