Often, certainly in the days leading up to elections, all sorts of experts emerge and provide interpretations, prophecies, and predictions that actually raise only one question: How does the public continue to 'buy' the stupid statements of people whose prophecies don't even survive a day?
What does this say about us?
Shalom Yerushalmi is considered one of the most prominent political commentators in Israel. For many years, he served as the senior political correspondent for the then-Ma'ariv newspaper - the second most important newspaper in Israel. Today, Yerushalmi still publishes articles in the first edition and on the nrg website, which create considerable resonance.
But the same Shalom Yerushalmi estimated in the previous elections that Yair Lapid and the Yesh Atid party would not pass the threshold. In fact, Lapid would reach "the threshold of the threshold," Yerushalmi predicted at the time.
I return to the difficult ones: The senior political commentator predicted that Yair Lapid would not even win the tens of thousands of votes that would grant him passage to the Knesset.
Shortly thereafter, Lapid received 543,458 votes, meaning 19 seats.
A senior Haredi journalist spoke for weeks that Netanyahu would defeat Sharon in the elections held between them for the leadership of the Likud, and when Netanyahu was defeated, he explained half-heartedly that the circumstances had changed, but what? The failed attribution is always to the situational circumstances, not to the forecaster's weak vision.
The same thing happened to those who promised that Livni would defeat Mofaz, that Shelly Yachimovich would defeat Bozi Herzog, that Lieberman would be convicted, that everyone who supported disengagement would die in agony, and that Ehud Olmert would still be prime minister.
And what will happen in the upcoming elections?
The Haredi street keeps telling itself that Yair Lapid is going to collapse. He is a 'mood' party - and hence he will disappear. Exactly what happened to his father, Tommy, will happen to him. The public is fed up with Lapid and is only expecting the great geniuses Gafni, Deri, and Litzman to return to running the country.
Sure. Self-persuasion is one of the ways known in psychology in a process known as 'cognitive doxology.' When behaviors and attitudes conflict with each other, the individual acts with self-persuasion that 'moves' the problematic attitude, so that it aligns with his own self-aspiration.
Don't like Lapid? He'll probably disappear. For the best.
Even Shalom Yerushalmi said this in the previous elections.
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