The opposition's buffet syndrome: if this continues – we will all lose

The elections for the Knesset will take place in 80 days. Defining them as fateful is accurate. That is exactly the situation. While the people understand that these are elections that will determine the future of the country for generations, the politicians demonstrate an incomprehensible fastidiousness, expressed in reservations and the disqualification of people and parties.

At first, it was more evident in the opposition. They acted as if they were in front of a buffet full of everything good, which is all theirs, and only they have to decide what to take from it. To eat their fill and also leave the cake whole. Avigdor Lieberman will not sit with the Haredim, Arabs, and would prefer to do without the Democrats. Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett also disqualify the Arabs and the Haredim. Hili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel, who have not yet secured their place in the polls, set endless conditions in exchange for their support, when it is not at all clear which side they are on.

It is also impossible that schemes are starting in the opposition. How to trick Gadi Eizenkot, who is leading in the polls? They talk about a connection between Bennett and Lieberman after the elections, so that together they will be larger than Eizenkot and will demand the premiership in a rotation. They forgot that they let the public understand that they agreed to the principle that whoever's list receives the most mandates will be the bloc's candidate for prime minister. However, the public is not stupid and will not give a hand to a scheme. Its very publication, I estimate, will even propel Eizenkot forward, so that there will be a clear decision.

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This is also the lot of the current coalition. There, too, they boycott an endless number of people. They turn up their noses and announce that they will not sit with this one or that one. They do not hesitate to go very low and attack people personally, including AI videos from the workshop of Yonatan Urich, which do not stop at red.

With everyone, right and left, you hear the word "no" more than the words: we will sit, we will listen, and then we will decide.

The fastidiousness that has attacked Israeli politicians, some of whom have been in their positions for too many years (and it is appropriate to limit the tenure of Knesset members as well), could drag us into endless election campaigns.

Whoever wants change must not suffer from fastidiousness. Yes, including integrating Ra'am into the coalition to bring about real change. And on the other side, whoever wants the continuation of the current situation, let them stop zigzagging. The place of Gilad Erdan, Yuli Edelstein, Ayelet Shaked and their likes is in the Likud. The party they are trying to establish suffers from so many boycotts that it would be better for them to wait in the Likud for the era after Netanyahu.

The irony is that precisely those who boast of political fastidiousness demonstrate limited taste. They prefer the familiar one-dimensional world, where there are only good and bad, worthy and disqualified, ours and theirs. Me, and me, and only me.

A politician is supposed to be a person capable of living within complexity. He does not have to love every person, every position, or every opinion. On the contrary, it is his right and even his duty to criticize. A democratic society is not tested only by its ability to say "no". It is tested by the ability to say: "I object, and yet I am willing to listen".

It is time to return the word "fastidiousness" to its original meaning. A true connoisseur is not someone who knows only what he likes. But someone who has enough confidence in his taste to be exposed also to what he does not like and perhaps add a new taste to the spectrum of tastes he has known until now. To listen to someone you do not agree with, that is true fastidiousness. It is what will bring about the real change in the political system.