Shalom Pollack writes: It was a very embarrassing day for the pollsters and the media talking heads. No one predicted anything close to what actually happened on election night, March 17,2015. It will be studied and referred to by analysts for a long time to come.
Since elections were announced three months ago, the media, academia and entertainment class pooled their efforts to unseat their hated nemesis. prime minister Netanyahu. It was simply and unabashedly a “just not Bibi” campaign.
President Obama sent his trusted advisers and lots of tax payer money to oil the anti Bibi machine. Thousands were hired to knock on doors to get out the “just not Bibi” vote.
The Israeli Arab population ( lately they prefer to be called “Palestinians”) were their key target. This year, for the first time, three Arab parties consolidated to form the “Joint List”. The ardent “volunteers” urged the Arabs to get out and vote as the “United List” would hopefully block a right wing/Bibi coalition..
I must say, like many right wing voters, I was really concerned that the atmosphere created by the opinion maker elites would indeed grease the wheels for an Arab/Left government. Israelis were fed by the “elites” three months of doom and despair and the personal dehumanization of Bibi and his wife. Now, I am not a blind fan of Bibi but, hey, if Obama and the Left/Arabs want to destroy him, he must be doing something right.
When it looked like a sure victory for the Arabs/Left was just hours away, Bibi yelled “Gevald!”. Hours before the polls closed, he warned that the Arabs were storming the polls in droves. In a moment of urgency, the politically correct mask came off. The Jewish, if not the Israeli state was in real danger. Apparently this revelation was enough of a wake up call for lots of now very concerned Jews.
So, what was predicted as a clear Left lead over the Likud, turned out to be the opposite. Thelikud surged ahead of the left despite Obama’s advisers and money. There is an old Yiddish expression,”der mentch tracht und Gott lacht”(Man plans and God laughs). The wisest of men, King Solomon wrote in Proverbs: The hearts of kings are in the Hand of God” . In 1996 when Shimon Peres called early elections and ran against Netanyahu,a similar thing happened. The Arab/Left bloc was, according to the experts, supposed to beat Bibi hands down. After their early victory announcement Peres and Israel woke the next morning up to a slim Bibi victory.
When a stunned Peres was asked, “who lost this election? he answered, “The Israelis”. He was then asked , “and who won”? He answered, “the Jews”. Is there anything more revealing in this honest expression of a stunned loser?
