Israel votes: numbers don't campaign

If you live in Israel for a while, you learn one thing: you can talk about anything here - especially faith and all its many streams, the economy and the various inclusive LGBTQ+ codes - except... (war) politics.

On this subject, the far left and the far right here are TRULY extreme. Not the essentially small differences we see between our Dutch political parties. Differences that in the Netherlands are then blown up, making it seem as if tomorrow the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks will start a Russian peasant civil war, or the American North will once again fight the South.

No, in Israel people fight hard for the existence of the Jewish state! Not against an abstract Great Enemy such as climate change or nitrogen emissions.

But a democracy like Israel's (the only one in the Middle East) also comes with elections.

On 27 October Israel decides whether Netanyahu stays on. Here too there is plenty of criticism, and many bus shelters - including the one outside my door - curse Bibi Netanyahu and Ben Gvir with very sticky stickers. As everywhere during elections, hollow slogans are shouted over the heads of voters. Preferably with the obligatory, prohibited face coverings, loudspeakers, fake flags and the wrong (red) Palestinian scarf...

Strip away the rhetoric and the hard numbers remain.

Numbers don't campaign. They only report what has happened. Ergo: let's look at the Israeli numbers. They will surprise you.

The facts:

• Unemployment here is below 3%, one of the lowest in the developed world. In the Netherlands it is 4%. • Property prices are falling, not rising as they did by more than 20% under the previous Lieberman-Abbas government in 2022.

[EDITORS — for Henk's approval: the 2022 government was Bennett–Lapid (with Lieberman as finance minister and Mansour Abbas's party in the coalition), not a "Lieberman-Abbas government". Passage flagged for correction.] In the Netherlands property prices rose by 3.5%. • Inflation is below 2% (3.3% in the Netherlands), compared with the 5.3% inherited from that same government. • The economy, hit at the start of this year by the war against Iran, recovered with annualised growth of 15.4% in the second quarter! The Netherlands grew by a meagre 0.6%. • The Bank of Israel already forecasts growth of 5.5% for all of 2027. • Wages rose by more than 6% last year. In the Netherlands by 4.5%. • The shekel is at its strongest level against the dollar in three decades. • The shekel also rose against the euro.

All in all, a fine list our Dutch prime minister can only dream of... But then again, he is waging his Great War against the Enemies of the Rainbow Community and speaks belligerently about his fight against political opponents on the right (real quote):

"We're going to smack them right in the mouth!"

Yes, the same prime minister who speaks for a minority cabinet through AI-generated speeches and who, before and during his "reign", hasn't achieved a thing. Unless you count the "date boycott" against Israel. Our "Father of the Nation", standing on the podium before our waving flag. Our hero...

But HIS principles are sacred, and the citizen-taxpayer gets to pay the far-too-high bill.

Back to Israel...

Israel still ranks second in the world in cybersecurity investment, behind only the United States. At the end of last year The Economist named the country among the three most dynamic economies on the planet. Quite an achievement for a country at war with more or less the entire Middle East and a misguided public opinion.

TikTok virtue-signallers of the world, unite...

What doesn't fit into an economic theory model or desktop spreadsheet weighs even more. All the hostages, living or dead, have come home, and Hamas is now a shadow of what it was. Without a real army, without hostages to negotiate with, it has nothing left to trade. Hezbollah has been neutered and lost power and territory in southern Lebanon after decades of oppressing the population.

Iran, which promised to wipe Israel off the map, saw its supreme leader and all his henchmen pulverised by the Israeli Air Force and the Mossad. Its nuclear programme has been destroyed and Iran now negotiates from the position of the loser who started this war...

Whoever delivers this should not lose an election. Netanyahu delivered. It is no coincidence that they hate him. He didn't lose to them. He wrecked the script of every domestic and foreign left-wing figure and...

Smacked them right in the mouth.

My hero.