There is definitely a lot of truth to that. Benny Gantz has no government experience and probably has no idea (more than the average Israeli) how the ministries interact, how laws are passed, how to interact with foreign interests and entities, he expresses no plans or ideologies, etc. Yair Lapid was a failed Minister of Finance and as an MK in the Opposition he did not stand out, to be generous - he hardly even showed up to work. Can Israel really afford a prime minister of two who will be learning everything from scratch while on the job? I don't know.
The thing is, for anybody who feels that we need to get rid of Benjamin Netanyahu, this seems to be the only feasible way at this time. There does not seem to be anybody else right now capable of unseating Netanyahu. If Lapid and Gantz do, it seems that chances are high that we will be back at early elections again at some point in the not too distant future. And that is not so bad. We have survived bad prime ministers in the past, and hopefully we'll survive them again int he future. But, if you feel this is the only way to push Netanyahu out of the picture, this is the way to do it, and then in a couple of years we replace these guys with someone hopefully more qualified and experienced.
The question is, how many people feel the most important thing right now is just to get rid of Netanyahu and even Gantz-Lapid is a reasonable enough risk...
One other point, I am somewhat enjoying seeing all the people who have spent the past 4 or 9 years bellyaching about Netanyahu not being right wing enough, implementing the Left's policies, worried about his own seat, and all the regular complaints about him, suddenly defending him and saying there is nobody else experienced enough to take over, everyone else is too Left and only Netanyahu is Right, etc.... I guess people do not want anyone new to complain about and want to just keep complaining about Netanyahu...
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"We have survived bad prime ministers in the past"
ReplyDeletewell over 1500 killed by oslo didn't survive bad prime ministers. likewise the soldiers killed (so far, and barring miracles, many more in the future) in gaza didn't survive another bad prime minister. not to mention that the toll in human suffering of both oslo and the expulsion from gaza was huge.
so if your point is that so far bad prime ministers have not managed to bring down the entire state, that's setting the bar pretty low.
All-in-all, that's not so bad. Lincoln is considered one of America's greatest presidents, and he led the US into a civil war in which hundreds of thousands died. Whether deaths caused by conflict reflect poorly on the leader of the time depends entirely on ones politics.
ReplyDelete"Yair Lapid was a failed Minister of Finance"
ReplyDeleteWhat does this mean? did Israel go bankrupt at the time? This statement is obviously your opinion, or you copied it from somewhere, so it should be stated as such
fair questions. I dont have good answers. I would not even know how to measure it myself, but it is what I have read in just about every review of his tenure, and not just in haredi newspapers. The most flattering description of his tenure said that his time in the position was too short to judge, though they then listed the pros and negatives of his time in office and the negatives were greater than the positives.
DeleteBut you are right that it is probably just opinion and reputation.