I remember the 1992 voters, who were lovely people just like you. I remember them both before and after the fateful vote when Shamir’s rightwing government was replaced by Rabin’s leftwing government.
On paper, those nice people’s votes made so much sense. They voted for the hero of the ’67 war. “Israel is waiting for Rabin," proclaimed patriotic slogans on the busses, the billboards and in the media.
Within a terribly short time, these voters personally felt awful. They saw the busses exploding, the heads rolling on the ground, the appalling injuries, the disfiguring, searing burns, the slaughtered teens and elders, the orphaned babies. They knew they had been duped into voting for something they never wanted, by clever campaigners - too clever. So many of these voters shared their pain and anguish with me. “I cannot look at the 'settlers'," a female accountant said to me quietly one day at work, “I am so ashamed".
And far, far too many of these voters paid a personal price for their honest and innocent mistake at the ballot box. Because the ballot box looks like - well, just a box. The little slips of paper feel like - well, a party game.
But it is a very vindictive box. And when you hold a slip of paper on election day, you are holding your life in your hand. And your family’s.
The problem in 1992 was never Rabin. Rabin was a bit misguided in his political thinking, but he was mostly simply captive within the leftwing camp he belonged to - a camp that included elements whose concealed reckless appeasement agendas were light years away from the beliefs and ways of life of most of their wise-but-duped voters. They gave us the Oslo Accords and exploding buses filled with "sacrifices for peace." Remember?
The problem in 2026 is, in the same way, not Eisenkot. It’s not, but yet it is. Because Eisenkot, like Rabin, is a “top brass" figurehead, behind whom lurks an ideology which, without even knowing you, is way way far from, way way opposed to, your own beliefs - you reading this now. Do not make the mistake, now, that so many voters fatefully made in 1992.
There is a reason why 55% of Israeli voters identify today as right, and only 11% identify as left. Do not vote for a figurehead - Eisenkot - who brings with him, perhaps through no fault of his own, a hornet’s nest of leftists. Those shadowy figures with whom you are not yet familiar, will stop at nothing. Either because these are their beliefs, or because they are enmeshed in a cobweb of anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-civilization interests that they themselves barely understand or discern.
Do the right thing on election day. This is not a game. The 50-50 deadlock of today is caused by shadowy campaigners angling for your vote, as they did in 1992. This time it's by cleverly and falsely redefining Israel’s core existential issues (which are hawk vs. dove, Land of Israel vs.peace-process, Palestinian-state vs. Jewish state, standing firm against pressure to retreat on all fronts and being pro-active against our enemies).
The billboards today are telling you the campaign issue is none of that - it’s about “mobilizing hareidim". Nonsense. It is impossible to turn people who don’t want to be combat soldiers into combat soldiers by passing laws. Being in combat requires conviction, bravery, and levels of patriotism that the Hareidi community (and many in North Tel-Aviv and Ramat Hasharon) lack. A generation will be required to handle that effectively.
Eisenkot (and Ofer Vinter, and Bennett) have themselves been duped. Don’t follow them down a path that’s dangerous for you, for them, for us all. Do the right thing on Election Day. Because the wrong slip of paper can cause so many lives to slip away, and some of those lives may, G-d forbid, belong to those you love.
Israel’s enemies are waiting for there to be just one government which is “temporarily focussed on the Hareidi issue" (for which purpose “leaders" will, our enemies hope, be empowered, by your hand, on Tuesday. “Leaders" who, politically, are NOT able to block our enemies’ nefarious aims, and that is the hidden real point). Don’t give those brutal enemies the months or years of grace they seek, with your own misguided hand.
And warn your relatives and friends - anyone who might listen.
Before Tuesday.