The Calm Before Israel's Political Storm ep 43

Israel's election campaign has entered an unusual quiet period. The polls are changing almost daily, new parties are emerging, and political alliances are still taking shape—but how much of it actually matters?

In this episode of Boots on the Ground, Ari and Shaun break down why current polling numbers may be telling us very little, examine the rise of Gadi Eisenkot's new party, and explain why the real campaign won't begin until party lists are finalized.

They also discuss the growing tensions in Judea and Samaria, the latest developments surrounding Iran and the United States, and why Israeli politics has become dominated by personalities instead of serious policy debates.

As election season heats up, the hosts argue that voters should demand something more than slogans and campaign promises: practical, achievable policies that address Israel's real strategic challenges.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Boots on the Ground, where we discuss Israel's war, politics, and identity. In this week's episode, we'll be looking at polling numbers and the politics within the different political parties. But first, thank you to our partners at the Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, BeTheirIsrael.com. For all your events in Israel, BeTheirIsrael.com provides live streaming services so your families and friends can join join you from around the world virtually. And remember, like, share, and subscribe. Ari, how are you? I'm wonderful, Sean. Thanks for coming on today. So I don't want to say it's been slow and quiet in Israel because there's always a lot happening. But we're heading into the summer recess in the Knesset. We're in the summer recess in the Knesset, summer vacations. We're after the lull period of Tisha Abe'Av. And there is a lot of things, as let's say, in the air, but at the same time, everything seems to be calming down and simmering down, looking for something major happening, whether it's a potential new crisis with Iran, something could happen on one of our borders. There's a nothing happening at the same time, a lot is happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

So I think that there's on the security front, a lot of nothing is happening. Again, in Gaza and Lebanon and Syria, things are very, very stable and consistent at this point. Udavish Shamron's a different story, which we'll talk about separately, I guess. But I think more what you're realizing is on the political front, there's a lot of nothing happening. On the political front right now, all the campaigns have sort of like dropped down a gear, sort of lowered speed, lower intensity for two main reasons. One, not all the lists are together, not all the players are even on the field, not all the parties have even announced. So everyone's trying to still feel out who their real competition is. And again, the more, the higher intensity, the more higher profile of a campaign you run, you always run the risk of making a major mistake, saying something really crazy that you can't undo. And the reality is that all the lists won't be closed until I believe the first week of September, or potentially the second week of September, which means from now till then, you're gonna like everyone's they're they're they're working slowly and quietly, but they're doing it very, very low intensity because it everything will change. Every list will change, all the partnerships will come out, there's still room to make deals in the back. Like there's all of that's going on behind closed doors over the course of the next month. So the political side, you're seeing a lot of the it's calming down, and people are like, there's less intensity because they're they're still trying to figure out who and what's going on where.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Right. And with all of that, I'm paying attention to the fact because things are calming down politically, meaning the major players are actually being relatively silent, um the news cycle needs to keep going. So they're throwing out polls all over the st all over the place, and different polls are showing different things all the time. But one consistent aspect of all of the polls at the moment is that Guddy Eisencott's party, Yashar, which is a relatively new party under him, is leading in all the polls. That's the one thing that's consistent. Now, that doesn't really mean anything because so much can change. But what I'm noticing is because he is the top candidate at the moment, he's also the target for everybody, both right and left.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Right, but also his party is only him. Yeah. There's no list behind him. And again, eventually he's gonna have to announce who the other people on his list are, and that will probably drastically affect his polling on the one hand. On the other hand, he's running purely against the members of his of the opposition right now. He's not running against anyone in the in the coalition. His whole campaign, while he thinks he's running and he's claims to be running against Bibi, there's no all the data doesn't show that other votes are coming from the current coalition over to him. It just shows that he's rearranging all the votes within the opposition. So it's not shifting the balance of power and it's not shifting the future coalition in any real capacity. And again, it's all just in the ether, and it's all in theory because we don't even know who all the candidates are. We don't even know who all the lists of candidates are yet, and we don't know in what capacity and in what configuration they're going to be running. Will Smotrich and Bengvir reunite? They keep saying no, but will they? Will one of them bring Feiglin in? Will one of them bring in Ofer Winter? Will Bennett, Lapide, and Eisencott all run on one list in the end of the day? Will new parties pop up that no one's talking about yet, which they will, but that will they'll again reshape the math completely. Will some new party come up in what's the current opposition block that takes away all of Gaudi Eisencott's votes because they're a group of people that actually matter? Like the question is, is it's all just theoretical and it's all just hot air.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Right. I I totally agree. There are a couple of things that have taken place in the news on that front that come up but then fall down pretty quickly. It's that some of the parties are having their internal primaries, uh and there has been some interesting uh things that have come out of that. At the same time, though, like you said, most of the parties, even those that ha have had primaries or will have primaries, all of that is up for debate with regards to some type of future deal or conglomeration with another party. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

So there's only there's only two that have already had primaries, which is the Democratim, which is the most extreme left, and the the Tsunotadatit, the the National Religious Party. National Religious Party, which again will probably form some sort of configuration with someone else. And the Liquid will be having primaries in depending when this goes out, in a week to two weeks from when we publish this. But again, the Democratim did nothing surprising. They elected probably one of the most far-left extreme lists possible that, you know, people of the list who called for for um Salvanut, for not serving in the army, people who call for a complete and total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, establishment of a Palestinian state, socialism across the board economically. We're talking about what they represent, which is who they are. So there's no real surprise there. I think how extreme the people are is a little bit surprising for Israel today. And there's no real ability for them to cooperate in any real configuration with any other party to run on a joint list. On the right, it's Yunuta Datit. You know, nothing too shocking happened there. Oritzdruk Simchar Rotman and Ohad Tal took the top three spots after after Smotlic. But again, will Ofer Winter join them as um as a reserve spot? Will they work again in conf in um in a cooperation with Benvir and make some sort of a joint list together as a technical block and then all those numbers get messed around? Who knows? We don't know what's gonna happen. So there's no there's no real like I'm um it's nice to have to speak in theory and what could be, but just seems like talking for the sake of hearing our own voices at this point.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Okay, so not much is gonna change politically in the coming weeks, at least until after the summer, when everyone picks up into higher gear for electioneering, and it'll be a lot more clear who are the parties that are gonna be coming out. So let's speak very quickly about the security situation. We said that for the most part things are stable on the borders, being the Lebanon-Syria border and at the same time with Gaza. But we're looking quite far away, not at Yudan Shamron, but at potential flare-up again with Iran. The last time this happened was right after a Netanyahu visit to the White House, a low-key Netanyahu visit to the White House, I need to add, which is exactly what is happening at the time of this recording. Netanyahu left very quietly, uh, didn't take much media press or press with him. He is now in Washington meeting with President Trump. What are they going to discuss? We don't know. But there are there is potential for a significant flare-up between the U.S. and Iran, and may that involve Israel this time?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So Iran, Iran and the U.S. have been back in a shooting war for about three weeks already. In other words, you know, it's it's tit for tat. But what America is doing, what people don't realize, America's cutting off the southern section of Iran from the rest of the country. They're destroying the bridges, the railroad connections, the power lines, all the infrastructure that connects southern Iran to the rest of the country, the part of Iran that really goes right up against the streets of Hurmuz. So that from a ground invasion perspective, the reinforcements that are further away, it makes it that much more difficult for them to come reinforce the southern sector and it forces them through the specific gaps, like you know, mountain passes or areas where even with destroyed roads, large convoys can still get through. So it makes it more controlled, the traffic in and out of southern Iran, so that if America does decide some sort of a limited ground force invasion, they're doing what are called shaping um shaping missions, where they're creating the a higher level of real a higher, a more preferable reality on the ground for a future invasion if they so choose to if they decide to go ahead with it. At the same time, Iran's been firing missiles and drones at American bases in the region, and they've been very, very careful to not directly involve Israel in it because they don't want Israel to have an excuse to come back in and continue bombing. Because the reality is we don't have the restraints that the American government has on it right now. Because in Israel, bombing in Iran would be across the board an expected, if not acceptable, situation for any politician. Whereas in the US, they have midterm elections coming up, politics in the U.S. for or against Iran, different, who knows where that's going. But in the end of the day, Iran's been trying to keep Israel out. And the United States has been trying to keep Israel out so that it can do its own sort of thing right now. What are Trump and Netanyahu discussing as we speak? I don't know. I don't think Trump or Netanyahu know what they're discussing until they actually discuss it. I think the reality is that Trump's base, Trump, that Netanyahu was in the States also to pay respects to Lindsey Graham, whose funeral is tomorrow or today, depending when we're recording this. But um, there's there's a reality that a statesman, you can say whatever you like, like him or not, he was one of Israel's greatest friends in Congress for many, many, many years. We're talking about Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham. And it's it's a level of respect that he he went in to show. In addition, he's meeting with the president. Again, this is his eighth meeting with Trump in Trump's current term in office. After every visit, there wasn't an explosion happening. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Neither one of us has prophecy, neither one of us knows.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

So that's something else that unfortunately uh we're just gonna have to wait and see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Exactly. And by the time this gets published in a few days from now, then this all might be old news and we might look kind of silly.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Or the war could have happened come and gone.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Started and finished.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Right, which is also something that has happened. All right. The last thing we do need to touch on is what is happening in Yudan Shamron. Over the last week, there has been growing violence tension between Israelis and Arabs in the region. Uh we spoke about it in a previous episode about the strategic importance of the expanding farms in Yudan Shamron. The reality is ha is that this creates friction on the ground, which is, again, part of the reality, and it's done sometimes unwillingly. In some cases, in some cases, it is actually instigated by the Palestinians who want to prevent Isra Israel exerting s sovereignty. The problem that happened over the weekend was that it led to two Israelis being murdered by a Palestinian terrorist.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

So I I think the reality is in Judean Samaria, there's always friction. And it's one of the questions is is the friction greater or lower at any given point in time and at any given point geographically within Judean Samaria. The reality is that the friction is only going to increase. It's only going to get worse. At times it'll be quiet for a little while, but it's managing levels of friction between the Jewish and Arab residents of Yudavish Omron to what end? The Arab residents in theory say they want a Palestinian state. The Jewish residents, along with the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the state of Israel, say there will not be a Palestinian state, but there will be ultimately ever-growing levels of sovereignty of Israel over Judea and Samaria. And those two realities go head to head. And we see it in reality in the field. So we can talk about the incident where there were a group of Jews who went on a hike. We can say it was provocative all we want. They were hiking around empty fields in Judea and Samaria. Why that's provocative, that's not that's already up to our interpretation. You can say where they went was provocative or where they weren't, that's the whole question. That led to a conflict. An Arab, one of the Arab people stole a gun away from the Jews and then shot two people. And again, and four Arabs were killed in the conflict as well. How only four is a different question. But you can't look at that incident as an isolated incident. You have to go to the 24 hours before that, where Khavar Gilad, where the the farm where the people were going for a hike around, an arson attack basically burned the place to the ground, including a massive business that was there that destroyed people's livelihoods. And then before that, there were rock attacks by the Arabs on the road leading up to it. Like you can't look at any one incident in an isolated view because you get a very distorted view of reality. So that friction is growing. And it seems to be, I look at it, as every side is going to use it for their own narrative and their own political advantage. So you already see the the party with the Democratim, the party we spoke about earlier that had their primaries that elected a fairly extreme slate, is saying that the the Jewish residents of Jude and Samaria are going to pay the price for their violence. They deserved what they got. First of all, how anyone can say when your own brother is killed is he deserved it based off of political opinion, I find nauseating. But it has to do with their worldview of our position in day and Samaria. They look at it as we shouldn't be in Jude and Samaria at all, and there should be a Palestinian state, which has been a failed ideology for decades already, and this war has only proven how much it's been failed. On the other hand, you have the polar opposite extreme calling for immediate sovereignty over all of Judean Samaria, and you're left with the question: well, what do we do with the Arab residents then? So the question comes, it's it's the never-ending question, and every political side of the aisle is trying to use what's a tragic event for their own political advantage while none of them are offering real solutions. None of them are talking about actual policy. They're just talking about how we're right and they're wrong, or they're wrong and we're right. They're not talking about anything pragmatic or practical on the ground. We've gotten used to politics being very much personalities. We've discussed this previously on the show, we've touched on it. So I've been thinking about a lot, that we've realized that we talk about personalities. No one knows or thinks about Ghari Eisencot's party as Yashar. No one thinks of the Benet Lapid slate as Yachad. It's Benet Lapid, it's Eisencot. It's not the Likud even, it's Bibi.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

It's Netanyahu, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Right. It's not Tsunuta Datit, it's Smotric. It's not Utsmayyudit, it's Bengvir.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

It's very per it's very personal. It's very personal. And people are used to we're voting for the person who tells us what we want to hear, the people who we like the way they look, maybe, they sound good to us. It's all very populist and very shallow. And I think one of the things we're starting to see while politicians are bringing it down, I've been at a few events now, political events, where I went just to listen. Both people I agree with, people I vehemently disagree with. And I think that the electorate, the citizens, are getting a little sick and tired of the personality. The questions they're being asked, it's no longer, oh, what would you do about this? They want to hear real policy. They want to, the second a person starts speaking about actual policy, they start getting attention. And I think that's something we have to look out for. And we should keep our eyes and ears open to when politicians, the ones that are coming up, are talking actual policy. And I think right now, the country's at a place where we could potentially shift our political discussions back to policy and away from populist personality shallow nonsense.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

That could be potentially excellent. Um I'm gonna be a little bit cynical or maybe skeptical in that at the end of the day, I don't even like the word populist because yes, it is elections quite literally are a popularity contest. Oh, for sure. And what we're seeing in elections around the world, but particularly what's what happens in the US and in Israel, you can't compete with somebody who tells you I will give you whatever you want. It doesn't matter what your opinion is, is if you are a socialist or a communist and somebody says, Yeah, I will give you free stuff, you will vote for him. If you are a right-wing person in Israel who wants to expel Arabs and somebody says, Yes, I will create hundreds of settlements and I will expel all the Arabs, you will vote for him. Whether there is reality in that or not, or whether it is even a sane position, doesn't matter. It's somebody will give me what I want, I will vote for him. The reality of it is not part of the equation, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

But I actually think people are getting sick of being told what being voting for what they I think people are getting tired of hearing politicians make promises that everyone knows they can't keep. Promising that we're gonna do something. We're gonna we're gonna throw all the Arabs out in Samaria and we're gonna have, you know, Singapore in the Middle East.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Well, the alternative. We will create a two-state solution and everything will be wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Everything will be wonderful. Exactly. Either option. Everyone knows neither one of those is happening in the next Knesset. But I think that people are waiting for the person to come up and say, okay, practically, this is what we can do to further that goal. That's our ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is one state, you know, full Jewish sovereignty. In order to achieve that goal, these are the steps we're going to take. And this is what we're planning on doing over the next one, two, three, five. Say, come with a real policy and a real plan of how to accomplish that and lay it out. Those are the voices that I'm starting to see pick up steam. And I think that this is an opportunity we have now because people are so are so fed up with the nonsense at this point. Everyone, whether you're in the opposition or the coalition, you've had enough of people promising you something and then not being able to deliver it. We've had that for how, I don't know, since I can remember voting. It's 20-something years. No one ever can deliver on it. So I'm sick of people promising things that we all know they can't deliver on. How about you don't promise me anything, but tell me something pragmatic, a policy plan that you can actually put into play? I'm looking forward to seeing that grow. I think we'll see it more and more, and you're gonna see it grow pick up strength in this election cycle.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Well, I very much hope so, because I am looking forward to a breath of fresh air, something new, policy that I can get behind rather than people who lie to us.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Overpromise and underdeliver.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Right. Although, again, I think as much as you say people are tired of it, I think it's become the reality we've expected. So potentially new parties, new blood can shift all that. Okay, and with that, thank you to our partners at the Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, beTheirisrael.com, for all your events in Israel. BeTheherIsrael.com provides live streaming services so your family and friends can join you virtually from around the world. And remember like, share, and subscribe. And as always, I'm Israel Chay.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

I'm Israel Chay.