A few intellectuals on the Left are once again encouraging that voterssubmit blank ballots. Their slogan is: A White Slip of Paper. White isthe color of purity. The color of conscience. The color of innocence. Aperson of conscience, they say, can vote only for a totally trustworthycandidate, one who would lead an ethical government, one who would lay outin advance his clear and credible credo on all matters that concern peace,social justice and an ethical policy. Let him state the truth, the wholetruth and nothing but the truth during the election campaign. For thelack of such a candidate, a person of conscience must express his or herprotest with a blank slip of paper.
In my opinion, this is actually an immoral approach, as well as aninefficient one.
The “white” ones say: All the candidates are bad. All are the same.There is no difference between Netanyahu, Barak and Mordechai. Andtherefore one shouldn’t vote for any of them.
It sounds lovely, but it isn’t logical. The same? Are there ever any twopeople who are “the same?” Is it possible that two politicians fromdifferent camps could be exactly “the same” in their views, personality,moral values or performance capability?
Okay, the “whites” may claim, perhaps not exactly the same, but almost.The difference between them is small.
And this is where the matter of morality comes in. A small difference?How small? When the stakes are war and peace, literally life or death?The lives of youths who are still with us, and who would be sentenced todeath by the policies of one, versus being allowed to live and raisefamilies and live out their natural lives by the policies of the other.Just how small need the difference be in order to change the destiny ofeven one person?
Then there are such matters as making a living. Poverty. Unemployment.Economic growth. Education. Freedom of conscience. Freedom of choice.The rule of law. Security. Those and dozens of other issues whichdetermine our daily lives. If there is a “small difference” between thecandidates — is it really such a negligible matter?
The use of a blank ballot may appear as an act of protest, but in realityit is merely an act of resignation. There are those who believe that itteaches a lesson to the leaders, who would learn to treat us differentlythe next time around. But it is a risky gamble. The reward andpunishment system may work in the free market: A mass boycott of aparticular product in favor of another will affect the producers. Not soin the world of politics. Barak still expresses the views of the vastmajority of the Leftist and Centrist camps. The weight of the consistentLeft is too weak to force Barak to lean towards it, when the price iscertain loss of a large chunk of voters, large enough to bring victory tothe Right and with it a catastrophe. In a democracy, work is harder andmore serious — large sectors of the public must be convinced about therightness of the new path, if one wants the leaders, too, to change theirways and means.
Ehud Barak is far from my ideal candidate. Some of the things that he hassaid during the campaign raise my hackles, even when I understand thestrategic calculations behind them. But it behooves us to look closely atsome of those “small differences” between him and Netanyahu:
- We are not electing just a Prime Minister but also the party which is behind him. Is there really just a “small difference” between such men as Shlomo Ben-Ami, Yossi Beilin, Avraham Burg, Chaim Ramon and Uzi Bar’Am, all doves’ who heard the list of the Labor (“one Israel”) patry and the likes of Tsakhi Ha’Negbi, Limor Livnat, Doron Shmueli and Israel Katz, all of them hawks with a record of oral and/0or physical violence, to say nothing of Ariel Sharon?
- In fact, we also elect indirectly many hundreds of other key people, from the General Director of the Israeli Broadcasting Authority to the Ambassador of Israel to Washington. Are all these people “the same?”
- On the matter of political hygiene, moral values, securing the rule of law and democratic procedures, is there only a small difference between the two camps? The poisoned public discourse, the wild demagoguery, the general atmosphere of daily incitement under Netanyahu — are these negligible matters, or do they touch the very core of our society and state?
- The “whites” assert that there will be a national unity government, and that therefore it doesn’t matter who is elected Prime Minister. I am willing to go so far as to say: Even if, heaven forbid, such a government becomes a reality, there still is a vast difference between a national unity government with Netanyahu as its leader, and a national unity government with Barak as its leader, whose ear would be leaning toward the U.S. and Europe, and who has behind him the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin. And it goes without saying that the very danger of a national unity government would greatly diminish if Barak and his people could set up a viable coalition without the right-wing.
The color white is also the color of the flag of surrender. At atime when the enemies of peace, the despoilers of the country and thehate-mongers are mobilizing to their last man in order to force us intoanother four years of disaster, standing by passively is anintolerable self-indulgence.