Exhibition Center, January 5, 2015. Who even remembers that at the beginning of the Likud's faltering campaign, a large press conference was held at the Exhibition Center.
In the shadow of the vote-counting scandal in the primaries, Netanyahu announced a new initiative there: changing the system of government. That was the headline from that event, a new governance law that would make it harder to overthrow the government in the future.
Likud headquarters thought the idea would catch on, but then they shelved it in favor of stronger, more security-oriented messages and then in favor of cooler videos. In the end, that's exactly what voters gave Netanyahu this week. Governance.
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Even if we want to vote for Kahlon or Lieberman or Bennett or Deri or Lapid, we give up this time. Take power, and a lot of it, to run the business more stably.
Rabin Square, Sunday this week. "What? Haven't you heard of the Eviatar outpost in Samaria?" Daniela Weiss, organizer of the right-wing mass rally, asks me, as final sound checks are being conducted in the background.
""Because of our struggle for this outpost, the idea of holding a rally started to emerge, and look where we got to. It turned into an emergency cross-party conference, and even the prime minister came." Even through the armored glass behind which he spoke, one could see the blush on Netanyahu's cheeks and the sparkle in his eyes.
How he enjoyed getting out of Facebook and into the field. There, in the square, his momentum began.
After Netanyahu, Bennett took the stage. The Jewish Home supporters in the audience around me tried to say that Netanyahu was just a warm-up act, while Bennett was the real deal. But Bennett's speech, which also included a guitar rendition of "Jerusalem of Gold," actually sounded like a speech by a bar mitzvah groom after his father's speech.
Netanyahu emerged as the responsible adult, Bennett – the guitar-playing guide from the youth movement. In the three days that passed between then and the elections, there was a major leakage of mandates from the Jewish Home to the Likud. Bennett is a brother, but Bibi is a father.
When I handed a microphone live to a young man in a Likud shirt from Rishon LeZion and asked why he came to the rally, he replied: "We came here to defeat the media and the left." First the media, then the left.
At the end of the rally, one of the participants stopped me: "Well, you'll probably report that there were a hundred people here, right?""
I noticed that she was speaking to me in the plural. Report, meaning you there, all the journalists. Later in the week I remembered these two young men, when the discussion began about the alienation between the public and the media.
It seems to me that in recent years the media has actually been trying to create balance and diversify opinions in the studios, but even that is done in a forced manner. We bring in a "moderate rabbi" or a "settler poet" and feel terribly multicultural, but in reality we have once again brought in representatives of elites.
True, not leftist secular elites, but elites. When was the last time a Likudnik sat on a panel in the studio? Just an ordinary Likud voter. A quarter of the Knesset is Likudnik, but less than one percent of the reporters and commentators' vocal line is Likudnik.
Last Saturday morning. Many synagogues are distributing the letter Netanyahu wrote to religious Zionism: "On Saturday, we will read the closing verses of the Book of Exodus, which recounts the birth and formation of the people of Israel, a nation with a developed tradition, values, and laws.".
Strategic advisor Avi Lerner managed Netanyahu's successful campaign for the religious public together with MK Tzipi Hotovely. Perhaps the two should also sit down with Netanyahu about the book that begins the Sabbath, Leviticus.
Just this week, the parsha discussed how every public servant and leader sins at some point, and therefore must bring a sacrifice.
Netanyahu needs to try very hard not to sin by hubris. He returns to the position of Prime Minister stronger and needs to, on the one hand, govern and stop dealing with survival like in the previous term, but on the other hand, not get too carried away with himself. With 30 seats, it's a little hard not to feel like King Bibi.
Kfar Maccabiah, 10 p.m., Tuesday this week. At the Jewish Home headquarters, the sample results are being watched. The activists are clapping in front of the growing curve of Likud mandates.
They don't know how short their party's column will be in a few seconds.
At midnight, as the short party disperses, the event producer tells me that he still has a lot of confetti left in stock. "I prepared it in advance, in case there are more seats." In the parking lot outside, Ronen Shoval, number 16 on the Knesset list, tells me: "In the end, we are a Jewish state, aren't we? Then a Jew stood up and shouted 'Geweld,' and everyone wanted to help him.".
Wednesday morning. It's unpleasant to see the feed on social media. Joy on the right for the left's loss, and on the left – an atmosphere of "the country is gone, replace the people.".
The assassination of Rabin and the Holocaust are freely brought up, along with curses of course. Violent public discourse, predatory statuses, every inflammatory line a surfer posts is documented with a screenshot and becomes incriminating evidence that his entire camp is like him.
In the evening, a memorial service will be held in Modi'in on the 30th anniversary of the passing of Uri Auerbach.
Chief Rabbi David Lau opens the evening with a talk about speech. "What a tremendous power speech has and how dangerous it is to use this tool incorrectly and inaccurately," he says. "The Maimonides writes that it is better to speak in a foreign language than to defile Hebrew. Uri knew how to say things, even harsh ones, in a respectful and gentle manner, and even with a smile. I hope we all take this quality from him.".
Then Kobi Oz takes up the song. The incessant political humming suddenly falls silent and is replaced by a piano and a violin, and Kobi Oz's voice sings a verse from the Psalms. "I allowed myself to compose the words 'You will hear the cry of the poor, You will listen to the cry of the needy and save,'" Oz explains to the audience. "This verse speaks of God. It is directed upwards, to Him, who hears the poor and needy, to everyone who needs help, but I want us to try to sing it downwards as well, as if it were addressing us directly.".
In the audience, you can see Naftali Bennett and Ilan Gilon and many others in the political system slowing down, enjoying the sounds, perhaps for the first time in a long time. On the eve of the formation of the new government, Oz looks the politicians straight in the eye and sings to them: "You will hear the cry of the poor, you will listen to the cry of the needy and save.".
Jewish status:
""The true choice is between good and evil, and it is a constant choice that a person makes at every moment. Even in the moment when it seems to him that he is indifferent, and has not yet chosen, he is actually choosing" ("Explanation of Concepts in Hasidism")
• The column is published in Yedioth Ahronoth.
