The Western media is serving a massive gift to Netanyahu through their inept, incomplete, and uninformed coverage of the election in the past day. Netanyahu and Gantz’s parties in fact received nearly the same vote count, yet American news has taken the appealing step of labelling Netanyahu the victor based on naive speculation on coalition formation based on past associations.

The fact this, this election was not normal, and it can not be taken for granted that former coalition members will again support Netanyahu after he attempted to siphon off their votes in the lead up to the election with his pronouncements on the annexation of the West Bank. The seats his party received were at the expense of the far-right parties that he now wishes to court for a coalition, and they could just as easily switch to Gantz to repay the favor.

Netanyahu has presided over stagnation, and a complete failure to address the central question that has plagued Israel since its foundation, Israel’s relationship with its Arab neighbors. He has overseen a worsening of the situation in the Palestinian territories with ever increasing turmoil in Gaza punctuated by biannual shooting matches, like a childhood rivalry. He has displayed little interest in actually addressing he root of the conflict or making any substantive moves. In recent days, he made dishonest and cheap statements about his intention to annex the territories, an act that while toyed with in the past, he has never done during his Putinesque thirteen year long regime, yet he still expects the world to believe that this is a true intention and not a ploy. He is a decrepit old fool, focused on theatrics over substance, attention over policy, continuity of his reign over the interests of Israel. His continued domination over Israeli politics is reflective of the worst strongmen and banana republics. If he wins, it will be a stain on the history of Israel, a retreat to comfortable mediocrity over progress towards peace and an eternal Israel.
No cheap friendship with an autocrat like Xi Jinping, or a cheap partnership with Trump’s son-in-law that will come to an end in 2020 at the end of Trump’s own very pathetic tenure will make up for the destruction of Zionism and for fundamental essence of the Israeli state that will be lost should Israel continue to flounder under the epic mismanagement that has already constituted a lost decade in Israeli history.
Netanyahu should concede and allow someone less corrupt, less foolish, less willing to sell out one’s country for oneselves’ rule. After 13 years of utter failure, there is little to lose.
Staff writer: Ari B
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-general-coming-to-end-the-netanyahu-era-in-israel-1.6875029