I can already hear the laughter at my naivety, or perhaps my foolishness, but I feel compelled to cry out. Today, I appeal to three sons of our biblical forefather Jacob: Benjamin, Gad and Naftali: Please, pick up the phone and call one another.
Not tomorrow, not after the final election results are announced, not once it becomes clear who has gained and who has lost. Today! Not to agree on everything, not to abandon your beliefs, not to gloss over your differences, but simply to remember that there is one people whose fate we all share, a people with one language and one flag, a common destiny and a history stretching back 4,000 years.
Gadi Eisenkot, Isaac Herzog, Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90, Shalev Shalom, Ryan Froiss)
Three men, three leaders, three phone calls and one simple human word: Please. This is a rare opportunity that may never come again, a moment of profound significance. I beg you, do not let it pass. Pick up the phone. Talk to one another.
At a moment like this, we cannot ignore what is at stake: human lives, the future of our country, the enormous responsibility on your shoulders and the young people who will be called up for military service this year. A single phone call will not solve every crisis, but it could open the door to something greater.
Today, don't ask, "What's politically best for us?" For God's sake, ask, "What's best for the people of Israel? What's best for the State of Israel?" Pick up the phone. Please, talk to one another. At least try. I implore you. I am pleading with you.
In 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War, Menachem Begin showed the courage to call for his bitter political rival, David Ben-Gurion, to head a national emergency government. A decade later, in 1977, he offered Moshe Dayan, another longtime political rival, the post of foreign minister in his government.
That is what rising to the occasion looks like. It can be done. It is possible. All it takes is the will and the belief that, in the face of the dangers threatening us, we need all our strength, not just half of it. We need a nation capable of standing together, not one in which every faction is consumed with defeating the others.
Yehoram GaonPhoto: Ilya MelnikovWe have been fighting a war for a hundred years, with periods of respite along the way. A war that changes its face, its name and its battlefields, and each time we return to it, we are led by different people, with different beliefs and different approaches.
Perhaps it is precisely at this fateful moment that we can do what we have not yet managed to do: unite our leadership around a shared responsibility for our future. Perhaps this is exactly what the Israeli people were telling us in this election: We do not want to give one person all the power. We do not want to entrust our fate to a single political camp. We want you to find a way to work together, to shoulder responsibility together.
This is the wisdom of the crowd, the idea of Vox populi, vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God), not because the majority is always right, but because sometimes it is the many, speaking with different voices, who are trying to teach their leaders something they struggle with, or refuse, to hear.
Netanyahu, Eisenkot, Bennett, I'm not asking you to abandon your beliefs. I'm asking you to rise above your differences for a greater cause. Talk to one another. Find common ground.
There are moments in history when a single phone call can mean far more than the conversation itself. It can show that we understand what is at stake. We must not let this rare opportunity slip away. Years from now, we may look back on this moment and ask ourselves one simple question: We had a chance to choose unity. What did we do with it?