Election Day is a national holiday in Israel, with schools and most businesses closed, and for good reason.
Speaking in the name of nearly 6 million eligible voters, we are suffering from a two-month major migraine from the emptiest and most shallow, slummy and stupid campaign ever.
We have a migraine from the egomaniacs that are sure that the louder they shout that they will be the next Prime Minister, the more likely it will happen.
It brings to mind the Prophet Eliyahu (Elijah), who challenged 450 idol worshippers to pray to God for rain during a severe drought. As evening approached and rain did not come, the prophet said, in Kings 1:18, 27-29:
And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.’
And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.
And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
I doubt whether Elijah’s words will be in the ears of voters at more than 10,000 polling stations today, but who can blame them?
In the past week, I have received at least five phone calls from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and almost twice that many from Naftali Bennett, chairman of the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home).
His party’s most popular Knesset Member, Ayelet Shaked, almost drove me to vote for Meretz after calling me seven times within 24 hours.
If Moshe Kachlon, when he was Communications Minister, really wanted to revolutionize the phone business, he would have passed a law prohibiting computerized phone calls.
The only good side of the appeals from Bibi, Bennett and Ayelet are that they made me forget the phone calls that I should go on a diet, which thank God I need like I need another day of election campaigning, and treatment for ADD, with which I function quite well, thank you. Is there a journalist who is not ADD?
Election campaigning, thank God, is forbidden on Election Day, so the biggest headlines are that the Prime Minister and his wife have voted, Aryeh Deri has voted, President Reuven Rivlin and his wife have voted, and Tzipi Livni has voted.
Isn’t that a relief?
The turnout is expected to be unusually high, perhaps even 70 percent. Don’t bet on it, but the hope of all is that we won’t have more migraine headaches for another four years.
The worst migraine from this campaign has come from what I call the “media establishment,” which includes the wrongly-named Radio Kol Yisrael (Voice of Israel, which it isn’t), Yediot Acharonot, the newspaper owned by the Moses family that considers Netanyahu and his wife Public Enemies Number One, and most of the Israeli television stations.
They make MSNBC pall by comparison in their panting over the liberal left.
If Yitzchak Herzog is the next Prime Minister, then Abraham Lincoln’s phrase that “you can’t fool all the people all the time” no longer is valid.
Considering the vicious lies propagated by the media and the American-funded anti-Bibi campaign, which The Jewish Press reported here yesterday might have been illegally funded by the Obama administration, Netanyahu has to be given credit that he still is the race.
If he does form the next government, and there is no way Herzog can do so unless right-wing and Haredi voters are given some of the stuff promoted by the Green Leaf party before they vote, the anti-Netanyahu crowd should do some soul-searching.
