To my fellow Jews in Israel:
I, a Jewish American, agree with Senator Charles Schumer that Israel needs to have an election as soon as possible. I came to that conclusion long before Senator Schumer said it. I suspect that many if not most Israelis would welcome an election. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped the ball in not heeding the advice of Israel’s intelligence reports that Hamas was planning a barbaric attack on Israel and then blamed his intelligence people instead of himself. Netanyahu favored Hamas over the Palestinian Authority which is located in the West Bank. Netanyahu is allied with the radical religious members of the Knesset like Smotrich and Ben Gvir who have the view that West Bank settlers are doing a good deed by establishing more Jewish settlements in the West Bank and preventing a State of Palestine there. Netanyahu is on trial for engaging in corruption during his previous times as prime minister. He therefore tried to suppress the Israeli Court system which is the most reasonable part of the Israeli government, and he now has a personal interest in continuing the war to protect himself from being convicted of his crime.
Winning the war without winning the peace means endless conflict and is contrary to Herzl’s dream of a Jewish homeland (as envisioned in his novella Old New Land) which would also bring modernity to the Arab Palestinians. The IDF has essentially won the war which Netanyahu negligently allowed to happen. Now it is time for the Israeli politicians to win the peace. In order to accomplish that, Israel needs an election ASAP to allow the Israeli people to speak.
In order to win the peace, the war has to end and Gaza has to be rebuilt with Israel taking a demonstrated primary part in that rebuilding in contrast to the devastation brought on by Hamas terrorism. The international community should help Israel in this endeavor, but Israel has to take the lead. The Arab Palestinians and the multicultural but 75% Jewish Israelis both inhabit Israel/Palestine and neither side is going anywhere else. So, there is no other solution.
In my entry in this blog on January 21, 2024, I suggested a confederation between Israel and Palestine with a panel of judges appointed by the Israeli Supreme Court as intermediary (at least in the beginning). It is not possible to just cut Palestine loose and expect it to immediately and miraculously become a mature non-terrorist nation. The idea of a confederation is not just something I thought up. It is an idea developed by others as demonstrated in my January 21, 2024 entry.
I believe that the people of Israel should remove Netanyahu as prime minister and replace theocratic members in the Knesset with secular members. I am not an Israeli and do not vote, but I can have an opinion (as Senator Schumer can).