In a serious address, Herzog should take Barack Obama’s famous framing. Acknowledge that peace is just, that peace is necessary, but explain, in ways that no peace-processor, leftist, or Obama Administration representative has, how peace can possibly be possible in a volatile, hate-filled, missile-laden, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic region, with our lovely Palestinian neighbors led by an ailing Abbas and an evil Hamas.
Only a realistic, hard-headed, demanding peacemaker has a shot at leading a traumatized, justifiably wary, post-Oslo, post-Gaza withdrawal, post-Southern Lebanon pullout, pre-third-Intifada Israel. He must explain: how do we stop this new wave of terror and others in the future? How do we ensure another territorial withdrawal doesn’t produce more violence against Israelis? And how do Palestinians fulfill their national dreams without making every Israeli jet taking off and landing at Ben-Gurion Airport a possible target of some extremist with an RPG on his – or her – shoulder?
Tactically, Herzog must mobilize his base while wooing Russians, the religious, Sephardim, proving he is ready to lead and will forge a viable coalition when given the chance. He should not preclude allying with Likud if necessary– Netanyahu could be defense minister, putting his skills on the Iran file to good use. Herzog is wisely courting Amir Peretz, highlighting their shared passion for social justice while helping the party – and many Israelis – apologize for not appreciating Peretz’s foresight in greenlighting the Iron Dome.
Stylistically, Herzog must be tough when squabbling with Likud and his opponents, turning every confrontation, and every Bibi bumble, into opportunities to show off his smarts, his strengths, and his resilience. Buji needs an arsenal of one-liners, elegant comebacks hitting fast and furious, supplemented by a storehouse of ideas, using every controversy to knock his rivals while proactively advertising solutions to every problem.
Herzog should study how Menachem Begin, who could easily have been even more distant, more elitist, more aristocratic than Buji, connected with so many voters who were so unlike him. He should study how Bill Clinton in 1992 mastered the right combination of parries against opponents and ideological, programmatic, inspirational, thrusts of his own. And, he should study Naftali Bennett’s big surge in the last election which was powered by appealing commercials celebrating traditional values (until Lapid wooed those voters).
In that spirit, Herzog should run proudly, unashamedly, flamboyantly as the leader of the Labor Party in its latest incarnation. His campaign commercials should celebrate his Labor predecessors as Israel’s founding heroes, as courageous leaders who knew how to make war and how to make peace, as visionary state-builders who knew how to grow an economy yet protect the less fortunate, and as great Zionists who envisioned Israel as a thriving Jewish and democratic state.
Buji's commercials, his speeches, his campaign must deliver what any potential prime minster should provide, especially now: a restored sentimental sense of pride in the past, renewed tough-minded insights into how to solve the most pressing problems in the present, and revived passionate faith in a safe, peaceful, prosperous, principled Jewish-democratic future.