People vote in elections for a variety of reasons. Foremost, they wish to have their voices heard, and they believe their vote truly can make a difference.
They have a sense of civic duty and are particularly interested in ensuring that a certain candidate or party is as influential as possible.
There is another motivating factor: anger and intense disagreement with the way their candidate or party is being treated, either by those opposed to it and its leaders or by how state institutions relate to them.
Their identification with those they perceive as persecuted is intense and personal.
They can’t wait to give it to those whom they oppose.
Ever since 1977, when Yitzhak Ben-Aharon declared that despite the electorate’s decision, “With all due respect … I am not prepared to respect it,” Likud supporters, especially those from a Mizrachi background, have borne a grudge.
That grudge developed after immigrants from North Africa and Iraq were categorized as the “second Israel,” a term first used in 1962 following the Wadi Salib riots in Haifa.
That grudge only increased as the electorate perceived a very pronounced anti-Right prejudice, which only became more pronounced as the “anyone-but-Bibi” camp developed.
One could have presumed that white, Ashkenazi, secular liberals who vote Left in Israel would have learned the lesson by now, especially as they claim for themselves a status of the more enlightened and cultured element in Israel’s society.
Seemingly, they haven’t.
Dr. Dubi Luxman, a gynecologist with the Maccabi health organization and a senior surgeon at the Assuta network, published a highly racist post targeting Likud voters on August 3. He referred to them as “baboons,” “chimpanzees,” “gorillas,” and “orangutans.”
Luxman further described Likud voters as “predominantly Mizrahi – with a Moroccan majority – market stall owners, violent, dim-witted, and consumed by rage and feelings of inferiority.”
Assuta summoned him for a disciplinary hearing, after which he was suspended.
The next day, Luxman responded to the criticism and remained unrepentant. He blamed “institutions that consider themselves value-driven” for having “fallen captive to the architects of today’s ‘marketplace culture.’”
He noted that “giving up my skills is rather foolish.” Was he exerting professional occupation privilege? That would only increase what bothers voters of the Right.
Israel’s society certainly is not monolithic, but when a portion of the electorate begins to believe that they are pigeonholed not only for their opinions but due to their ethnic, religious, or cultural identity, the level of anger turns them into a very assertive, defensive position.
Luxman was not alone. Dan Shilon, a veteran television personality, shared a post on July 29 comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu and then defended himself for doing that in a televised interview. He was permitted to be extreme, he assumed.
On a different issue, that of resolving the non-enlistment of many in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sector into the IDF, Yair Lapid, now of the B’Yachad alliance party, continues to demand that all economic assistance to haredim (ultra-Orthodox) be cut off as punishment.
He avoids the issue of the non-compulsory service of Arabs even within a national service framework, and those on the Right feel that he’s not targeting the problem of manpower shortage and commitment to the state as much as he’s playing the haredi card.
The Supreme Court’s avoidance of that matter also irks.
Yair Lapid’s political game: Draw attention to haredi, not Arab, enlistment
Another instance of double standards was Yair Golan breaking his promise last week to Einav Zangauker, mother of the hostage Matan, to reserve for her a top spot on the Democrats list after asking she tone down her media presence.
He didn’t quite apologize, but on Channel 12, Avri Gilad termed his explanation “compassionate,” thereby providing sympathetic support for unethical behavior that no right-wing politician would merit in the media.
Would Golan have acted similarly with, say, Shikma Bressler?
On Sunday, August 2, during a live interview by Defense Minister Israel Katz on Channel 14, answering pointed questions concerning Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth, the commander of the IDF Central Command who is responsible for Judea and Samaria, Katz expressed criticism regarding an administrative detention applied to a Jewish resident.
Bluth had, according to Katz, acted contrary to his policy.
He then continued and noted that in any case, a decision was taken earlier to appoint Maj.-Gen. Dado Bar-Kalifa to replace Bluth.
Critics clamored that he had fired Bluth on television and was politicizing senior military appointments. But he hadn’t.
It wasn’t an immediate removal and was already in the pipeline.
The replacement decision had been discussed back in April, and even Bluth, who joined in the criticism, had approved, in principle, the rotation.
Katz had made that clear, that is, if anyone had listened to his words rather than seeking to score political points. On the Right, this was media agenda-setting.
Ennes Elias, Gadi Taub, Naveh Dromi, and now Benny Ziffer have been let go by the Haaretz newspaper for not towing the ideological line, thus putting the lie to the daily’s liberal, pluralist, and diverse facade.
And yet, it is the paper most read by Israel’s opponents, feeding their anti-Zionist frenzy.
The list of what riles right-wing voters is long – too long. Was the leak to the German Bild truly deserving of a criminal investigation, or should those who decided not to pass on the information to the prime minister have been investigated?
What about the leaked controversial video clip from Sde Teiman to Channel 12? How is the investigation of Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the former IDF chief military advocate, proceeding, if at all?
Moreover, what about the Supreme Court blocking the appointment of a supervising investigator for the inquiry into the matter?
All of the above and much more is not sour grapes of insignificant interest but evidence of a rotten system and an institutional, not state, perverted allegiance.
What bothers the right-wing voters is the fear of an ideologically-driven state bureaucracy that is dangerous for us all.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.