At the same time, we should all be honest with ourselves and look at the recent past in Israeli politics. When it comes to the attack on Bennett that he is violating election promises, it is worth reminding all the critics that Naftali Bennett is neither the first nor the last to break election promises. In fact, the well-known sentence coined by the late former prime minister Levi Eshkol, “I promised, but I did not promise to keep,” applies to all politicians from all over the political spectrum.
Prior to the 1992 elections, the Labor Party’s candidate for prime minister, the late Yitzhak Rabin, assured the Israeli public that the Golan Heights would remain in Israeli hands forever and that his government would not negotiate the Golan with the Syrians. Reality proved that when Rabin was elected prime minister, he negotiated peace with Syria through American mediation in which he agreed to withdraw from most areas of the Golan Heights in accordance with the 1923 international border.
THE LATE prime minister Ariel Sharon also declared before the 2003 elections that “the fate of Netzarim is the fate of Tel Aviv,” thus promising that he would not evacuate settlements in the Gaza Strip. But the reality proved otherwise, when in the summer of 2005 Sharon led the disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip, a move that in my opinion was essential for Israel’s security and for securing its future as a Jewish and democratic state.
Netanyahu is also not innocent of the fact that before the election he made empty promises to his constituents. Before the 2020 elections, Netanyahu stated many times that he would form a right-wing government and not sit in a government with Benny Gantz and Blue and White.
“Gantz does not deserve to be prime minister, he is weak, and he has the most dictatorial party in the Knesset of Israel,” stated Netanyahu. But Gantz, for his part, also promised before the 2020 elections that he would not sit with Netanyahu nor under Netanyahu in the government.
“Netanyahu cannot be a minister because he has three indictments. If Blue and White will be the largest party and lead the next unity government, Netanyahu cannot be prime minister,” Gantz declared. The end of the act is well remembered by all of us, when Netanyahu and Gantz formed a government together, despite all their promises to the electorate, an act that was worthy and desirable because indeed, the State of Israel comes first.
Given the fact that politicians make promises but do not promise to keep them, why when all the leaders mentioned above – Rabin, Sharon, Netanyahu and Gantz – break election promises, it is fine, and when Naftali Bennett does so it is a notorious act? In the end, although Bennett did promise that he would only sit in a right-wing government, would not be a partner in the Lapid government nor allow the latter to be prime minister, he is no different from his predecessors who also broke election promises.
In the end, in order to move things in politics, we need pragmatic politicians who see the good of the state before their eyes. The State of Israel needs a functioning government, not a fifth election!
The writer is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the University of South Wales, UK, and an adjunct researcher at the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa.