Israel needs to stop recycling its political leaders - opinion

‘Wars mint heroes.” It’s a phrase that catches the paradox of war – how, in the midst of devastation, war forges individuals into symbols of heroism.

Ordinary people who find themselves thrust into extraordinary circumstances, where their courage and resilience are tested to the absolute limit, turning them into national icons of pride.

But wars do more than mint heroes; they also create leaders. Those who distinguish themselves on the battlefield often return home with newfound fame, carrying the potential to channel their wartime experience into the peacetime struggle to improve their nation from within, rather than solely combating external adversaries.

This idea is worth thinking about, especially now. Israel has been at war for over 10 months, yet no one has emerged from the battlefield as a future political leader.

There are countless heroes – soldiers and commanders who have confronted Hamas and Hezbollah with remarkable bravery, sacrificing their lives so others might live.

But where are they? While it’s understandable that career officers and conscripts will remain out of the political spotlight, what about the reservists who served in Gaza for months on end? Why haven’t they stepped forward and thrown their hat in the political ring?

And what about those civilians who, after October 7, decided to alter the course of their lives, dedicating themselves to healing Israeli society? These individuals are doing extraordinary work, focused on ensuring that Israel does not revert to the divided state it was in on October 6, when the country was more fractured than ever. Where are they?

All these have a unique opportunity – to leverage their actions to enter politics and continue their fight within the Knesset.

Yet they remain absent. Since the war began, no new political parties have been announced, and no new politicians have declared their intentions to run. Even those who seemed to be eying political careers – like former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen – have fallen silent, retreating from the public eye.

And when there is no one new, Israel does what it has always done – it recycles its leaders. The Center-Left’s great hope now is Naftali Bennett, the man who served as prime minister for a single year. It’s true that since the war began, he has impressively defended Israel on the international stage, but at home, his silence on substantive issues is deafening.

Does he support the terms for a hostage deal or not? Does he advocate for a preemptive strike against Hezbollah? And what would he do about the ultra-Orthodox military draft if he were to return to power?

The problem with Bennett

So while it’s nice to see at least Bennett warming up on the sidelines, it ultimately means little. He has yet to be tested on policy. For now, he continues to offer soothing rhetoric, but does very little to address the pressing issues at hand for the simple reason – he knows that whatever he will say will lose him support and why do that now if he doesn’t have to.

ANYHOW VOTERS will have a hard time trusting Bennett. All they have to do is go back to 2021 when, during the campaign, he vowed not to form a coalition with Yair Lapid and not to add Arabs to the government. He even went on Channel 20 – the precursor to Channel 14 – and signed a pledge that he would not do so.

The Right was naturally upset at Bennett. They had voted for him and he had taken their votes and then moved them – at least this is how they viewed it – to the Left and into a government with Arabs. As a result, even now with his high popularity, he is getting almost no votes from the Right which was naturally burned by him.

Instead, he is pulling votes from Benny Gantz’s party as well as a bit from Lapid. Basically, the Center is playing a game of musical chairs.

What these voters should think about, is what Bennett will do the day after the election and ask themselves a simple question – will he form a government with Netanyahu? On the one hand, even if he says he will not it will be hard to believe him after the last time, but the truth is that his interest actually is to join Netanyahu assuming he cannot form a government on his own.

The reason is because Bennett understands that he made one big mistake back in 2021. Yes, what he did crowned him as prime minister, but deep down he knows that the prime minister needs to come from the Right and that if he ever wants to get back to power he will need to regain the trust of the Right. 

The way to do that would be for him to join a coalition with Netanyahu, either as the defense minister who will rehabilitate the IDF after the war, or in a rotation that would also give him part of the term as prime minister.

But here is the important part – besides for Bennett who has been out of politics for just 18 months, where are the other new people? How come there are no other options beyond everyone about whom we already know? Where is the innovation for which this country is world renowned? It can’t just come to life for technological advancement; it is also needed to advance ideas and our political system.

A time for heroes 

I recognize that politics are difficult and that deciding to run for public office puts a target on your back. That is why we need heroes. Israel needs people in politics who have what it takes not just to fight in Gaza, but also to fight in the Knesset where change is so desperately needed.

If there are no new options then we can already predict where the discourse will go. It will fall back to the past – was it the judicial reform that was responsible for the war or the pilots who said they would refuse to serve? We will focus on questions like yes, Bibi; no, Bibi and the main election issue will not be our recovery as a nation, but rather who will sit with Netanyahu and why.

We need a new conversation and a new future. For that to happen, Israel needs new leadership – in the IDF, in the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and in the Knesset. What happened on October 7 has to be a wake-up call for the country to undergo a complete overhaul.

Recycling the leaders who have already tried and failed is not the solution.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.