During every election cycle, a few Israeli politicians wheel out the tested, tired mantra: “boycotts are bad!” Refusing to “sit” with a particular party, refusing to hand it ministries, and refusing to restore it to power after years of failure are presented as unfair, unfriendly, and elitist.
The people making this argument usually wrap themselves in lofty words about unity, healing, and respect for the voters, as though parliamentary democracy were designed to guarantee everyone a seat around the cabinet table.
But this has no basis in the practice of any serious democracy. It exists almost exclusively because Israel’s right-wing has spent years persuading Israelis that it does.
The remarkable thing is that people like Benny Gantz, Chili Tropper, Yoaz Hendel, and others, who describe themselves as sober centrists, accept the premise. Millions have voted for Benjamin Netanyahu, we are told.
The implication is that excluding Likud from the government would somehow violate democratic norms. Polls show a party standing for this idea may get into the Knesset – so the issue could soon become urgent and decisive.
Therefore, let me ask: When Netanyahu assembled the current government, did he feel compelled to invite his principal opponents into the cabinet because millions had voted for them? Did he consider Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beytenu, Labor, or Gantz himself to be entitled to ministries by virtue of the ballots they received?
He governed with the coalition he preferred and consigned everyone else to the opposition without the slightest hesitation. Nor would it have been honest of the opposition to join him and help him in his project of dismantling Israel’s democracy.
Nobody in Netanyahu’s camp called that anti-democratic. Nobody claimed that the opposition’s voters had been disenfranchised.
No democracy allots the opposition and the coalition equal governing power
Now, on the eve of what could become a genuine electoral reversal, we hear it again. “No boycotts!” As if Likud, uniquely among parties, deserves permanent access to executive power and Knesset representation were insufficient – cabinet participation as a civil right.
One searches in vain for another parliamentary democracy that functions this way. Britain’s Labour Party does not expect Conservative ministers when it governs, or vice versa; it expects to try to implement its agenda. Germany does not require every large party to join every government. India’s Congress Party is not waiting for an invitation from Modi.
Some will argue that Israel is special, because there are especially big issues at stake (they say this only when Likud cannot form a government). Israel, they say, lives under constant external threat – Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, international isolation, and perpetual security challenges. Thus, it supposedly requires the broadest possible unity government.
It is an appealing slogan – but you could argue just as easily, and more persuasively, that a nation confronting extraordinary dangers requires especially effective government and not one paralyzed by disagreement.
You know that other countries face big issues? The United States. And there is definitely no “unity” in the Trump administration. There is an incredibly divisive leader doing things that at least half the country hates – and that is the price for the Democrats’ having run a terrible campaign with a terrible nominee.
Everyone understands that representation is in the parliament, while the government is run by the victor – within the bounds of what is legal (except for Likud, which does not understand the “bounds” part so well).
This coming election is seen by many Israelis as a referendum on the direction the country has taken during the Netanyahu years.
Many citizens believe that Israel’s democratic institutions require repair, that its international standing requires rehabilitation, that its economy requires a different set of priorities, that the relationship between religion and state demands fundamental reconsideration, and that long-term demographic and educational challenges have been postponed for far too long. Others disagree, and they are entitled to do so.
If a majority elects a government committed to changing course, what conceivable logic requires handing veto power over those reforms to the very movement whose program the electorate rejected?
Because that is what “unity” means. It means the monumental fix that Israel needs will be blocked at every turn by the Likud half of the government (as Likud tried to do during the critical unity governments of the 1980s).
When the central task of a new government is to reverse the course of the previous one, unity becomes an instrument for preserving the damage done.
By the way, a version of this happened during the “change government” – which was largely paralyzed by Naftali Bennett.
Yes, it did some fine things and was infinitely better than its benighted and corrupt incumbent (and successor), but urgent reforms needed in the country’s dealings with the haredi sector, measures to prevent a criminal defendant from becoming prime minister, and all kinds of other needs were blocked by Bennett’s hesitations and calculations.
Democratic elections are meant to allow societies to impose consequences
The habit of celebrating endless compromise also ignores an important democratic principle. Elections are not merely opportunities to distribute portfolios. They are mechanisms through which societies impose consequences. A party that governs successfully earns another chance. A party that governs poorly spends time in opposition, reflects, renews its leadership, and returns with fresh ideas.
That is why calls to avoid a political “boycott” miss the point entirely. You tried to turn Israel into a Jewish version of Turkey? You failed miserably to stop and respond to the October 7 Hamas-led massacre? You embroiled Israel in forever-wars that failed to reach their goals, resulted in the deaths of dozens of hostages and over 1,000 soldiers, and left the country isolated and hated around the world? Then you richly deserve a “boycott” – and your remaining loyal adherents will need to suffice with representation in the Knesset.
And there is the practical aspect. One of the most consequential dangers facing Israel is domestic and self-inflicted. A society cannot indefinitely sustain a rapidly growing population – the haredim – that receives inadequate preparation for participation in a modern economy while relying on political leverage and state patronage to preserve precisely that arrangement.
It is economically unsustainable even beyond the unfairness implicit in the sector’s mass draft evasion. Likud has never had a natural majority on election day without them – even if sometimes coalitions looked different. So it is in the pocket of the haredi establishment – as we saw with the blitzkrieg of pro-haredi legislation in recent weeks.
The relationship between the state and the ultra-Orthodox community requires a fundamentally different incentive structure. Education, workforce participation, military or national service, and civic responsibility must cease to be optional. This cannot be done if Likud has a significant say. It is critical: considering the high haredi birth rate, if Israel doesn’t fix this, it will expire as a modern, wealthy nation.
I am prepared, however, to throw unity a bone.
If the Likud undergoes genuine renewal, it can potentially one day be a partner. Even before that day, one might not “boycott” individual Likud members. If, after the party is mercifully removed from power, individual Likud MKs accept the change in the government’s positions, they might be welcomed.
So Gantz should heed his own favorite slogan: “Israel Before All Else.” Saving the country is, indeed, the most important thing. More important, to be sure, than fake and naive unity that will saddle us with more years of the Likud.
The writer is the former Cairo-based Middle East editor and London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and publisher of danperry.substack.com