Gadi Eisenkot — a nice guy, but for the prime minister’s office you need much more | Michael Kleiner

Let’s assume that ten years from now, at the end of the seventh term of Benjamin Netanyahu, on the eve of the rehearing in an expanded panel at the Supreme Court in case 1000, a plea bargain would have been signed in which Netanyahu is convicted according to his own admission for closing a balcony without a license — and he would step down with a feeling of lack of fulfillment. Then let’s assume that shortly before that a new star joined Likud, just now having shed his uniform, Brigadier General David Bozglо, who soon positions himself at the head of the polls for the leadership of Likud after Netanyahu. Meanwhile, he is elected by an overwhelming majority as mayor of Dimona. Then suddenly, like thunder on a clear day, it would become clear that Bozglо’s parents are of strictly Ashkenazi origin.

Apparently, this is a finding that is supposed to be marginal and meaningless in Israel of 2036. But since in this fictional scenario the phenomenon does not occur in the protected “flowers” wing of the media and the bureaucratic establishment, but in the wing of the punching bags, then whoever discovered the secret of Bozglо’s origin would immediately win the prize “A dog bit a man,” awarded to the outstanding investigator. In this case, it would be the one who got ahead of all the army of investigators who rushed to the story in order to decipher the riddle of how an Ashkenazi Jew is called Bozglо.

This revelation, about Bozglо’s origin, which was supposed to be meaningless in relation to his qualifications for the role, would shake the foundations and also produce a sea of learned opinion articles examining and checking whether, for the candidate’s name—misleading regarding his origin—there is any implication for the person, particularly regarding his motives to stick to the misleading name. Was it an electoral-political consideration that drove him? Or is there another explanation that has no meaningful implication for the person’s personality.

And let’s assume that at this stage a new factual datum is indeed revealed, according to which there was immigration at the beginning of the century of people from Morocco to Poland who learned the Polish language, while Moroccan Arabic was forgotten by them. They even learned to eat a “crushed” leg and gefilte fish, but they remembered that their original name was preserved. Then at this stage, at the height of the wave of investigations, the “Shag” with broad enough shoulders to bear the responsibility for the gross mistake would finally be found, in the form of the immigration official who saw the name Bozglos in the passport and mistakenly replaced the “samekh” in “vav.” And since then his name in Israel has been Bozglо, and he came to Dimona and to Likud as a candidate “Dialana” (ours), strictly to the utmost.

Aila extended

Up to here is the fictional story of David Bozglо, and from here is the real story of Gadi Eisenkot. In November 2014, Haaretz published an article under the title “How is it that the first chief of staff from Moroccan origin has an Ashkenazi name?” In the article, the fact was mentioned that at the end of the 19th century and during World War II, Jews from Russia and Poland arrived in Morocco, some of them Holocaust survivors. They forgot Yiddish and blended into the new place, its language and customs.

The only thing left to them from Yiddish is their names: Goldberg, Serman, Shapira, and Eisenkot. Eisen is iron in German, and “kot” in Polish is a cat. But already then, 12 years ago, an updated version of the story was formulated. Our Gadi’s original name is actually a real Moroccan name, and it is Eisenkot. In Moroccan Berber—“Aila.” But in such a case, the question may be asked why the name that became “Ashkenazi” from Eisenkot to Eisenkot changed: from “Aila” to the exit of iron.

At that time, a not insignificant part of the members of the Mizrahi communities whom the left-wing establishment did everything to instill with feelings of inferiority tried to erase the “het” and the “ayin” and also to Ashkenazify their names. It is clear to any politically sensible person that our Gadi’s catalog in the category of “Ashkenazification by choice” is a death poison for the left’s attempt to elevate to the top a candidate from the Mizrahi communities who will succeed in mobilizing his community more than Amir Peretz, Fuad Ben-Eliezer, and Avi Gabbay, and also to be perceived as an authentic and worthy candidate.

For this matter, a wide-shouldered immigration official was found who provided the world with the redeeming script: due to the overload, the upper part of his body—between the shoulders and above them—suddenly spun, and he erred in the spelling of the “resh” of the name and added a different “yud” to the first letter. And the “Aila” became “tsua” of iron. From Eisenkot to Eisenkot, an Ashkenazi name, strictly to the utmost. And thus our Gadi won the name “Tzofeh ve-eh,” which can always be normalized in the next update, or in the upcoming Mimouna—everything according to the matter and the time.

The truth needs to be said: Eisenkot is not a gimmick. He is a candidate who dresses according to the public’s current taste when choosing a leader. His problem is that his aura is tied mainly to his character and his personal conduct; in short, if he were younger, any Jewish father would want a son-in-law with such qualities for his daughter. The problem is that the State of Israel does not need an ideal son-in-law for the public’s daughter. For prime minister, you need entirely different qualities, especially in a country like Israel. Especially at this time. Gadi is not Ben-Gurion, Golda, Dayan, or Peres. He is even not Levi Eshkol. He does not have Eshkol’s sharpness, performance capability, and humor. He also does not have the authoritative and natural authority of Yitzhak Rabin.

Fateful? How fateful?

Many define the next elections as the most fateful in the history of the state. I fully share the feeling that all the election systems so far pale in comparison to the current campaign. They do not reach its hem. I do not dispute the position that this time it is the real thing. This time it is the choice that will determine our future and shape our fate.

But just before the current election system is declared the winner in the test of fatefulness, a small problem arises: since the turnaround, there has not been an election system that was not defined as “the most fateful—this time for real.” Until the turnaround, election results were known. Labor, like all its previous incarnations, would win first place with a large margin and form a coalition with satellite parties that received generous budgets to fertilize their small plot of God, and to let Labor steer the state as it pleased.

In May 77’, Israeli democracy moved from a one-party regime to a two-party regime, in which on one side stands Likud and opposite it stands Ma’arach—Labor. Since the 2019 elections, following the crash of the Labor Party, the campaign became two-bloc. The Likud bloc, the religious parties, and Yisrael Beiteinu, against the Left bloc. Since then, the tendency of all sides to define their campaign as “a fateful campaign to save the homeland” has intensified and sharpened.

In the end, a not insignificant part of the election systems produced results from which it turned out retroactively that it was yet another election system in which what came before it is what will come after it. It was fateful only for the individuals for whom a gate was opened—or closed.

In any case, I do not recall an election system that was defined in advance as unimportant or boring. And if there was one election system that was perceived as relatively drowsy, it turned out that it was truly fateful. These were the 1992 elections, which brought to power the Labor—Meretz government with the support of Hadash, the Communist party, which as part of the Oslo agreements brought 40,000 terrorists into the Land of Israel who were expelled from Lebanon to Tunisia—and established the infrastructure of a Palestinian state on the way in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

In this context precisely, finding lines of similarity between the 1992 elections and the current elections should worry. It is important to remember that the 92’ elections were decided by the edge of a mandate, because Rabbi Lewinger burned 3,000 votes and the Tehiya party did not pass the electoral threshold and burned 2 mandates. For the attention of Michael Ben Ari, Moshe Feiglin, Yonatan Pollard, the people of Noam, and Ofir Winter, and of the right-wing voters.

Complacency in the face of this dangerous abandonment may be the third version of “weeping for generations.” After the original one, in which Ben-Gurion’s proposal to conquer parts of Judea and Samaria was rejected, and the 92’ elections, which produced Oslo. Therefore, in the final analysis, the conclusion is that this time requires placing in the cockpit the most experienced pilot, even if this is his tenth term. And when the day comes, when we sit under our vine and our fig tree—this hour’s dish is to place the ideal son-in-law for our daughter as a candidate for prime minister. But until then—only the one who knows the craft.