Like a panic attack that gradually builds, the writers of *Haaretz* and their counterparts in the protest movements invented a nightmare scenario for themselves, then inflated it more and more over the course of months. They claimed that the elections would be canceled or postponed under a security pretext; that even if they were eventually held, free voting would be thwarted through violence; that if free voting somehow took place, the government would prohibit the announcement of the results; and that even if the results were announced, coalition thugs would storm the Knesset and prevent the transfer of power.
“There is a real danger that Netanyahu and his associates will do everything they can to postpone the elections,” *Haaretz* declared almost a year ago. “And if they do hold them, we can expect fraud, violence, and manipulation of the results.”
By late winter, the newspaper was already reporting on “encouragement of violence on Election Day at sensitive polling stations that will be marked in advance by right-wing militias led by the likes of Mordechai David” (February).
Two days later, speculation had become fact, and an article in the newspaper declared that “the streets will not be abandoned to the mercy of the inherently fascist Bibi-supporting militias founded by Mordechai David, Roi Star, and Rami Ben Yehuda.”
The regime coup (a real one this time, apparently) was supposedly planned to take place both on land and in the air. *Haaretz* reported, in all seriousness, that senior Transportation Ministry officials were discussing ways “to reduce as much as possible the number of non-scheduled flights to Israel in the days leading up to the Knesset elections, in an attempt to make it harder for Israelis to return home to vote.”
How? Naturally: “By limiting the number of time slots allocated to each flight. The Israel Airports Authority is responsible for allocating these slots, and an aircraft is not permitted to depart for Israel without receiving one. Another possibility is to restrict the number of incoming flights due to a shortage of parking space at Ben Gurion Airport, caused by the presence of American refueling aircraft.”
When it turned out, much to their disappointment, that flights were landing on schedule without interference, they turned their attention to warning about “a scenario in which the government rejects the election results and its members refuse to vacate their positions.”
Ehud Barak, the foremost purveyor of panic, even established a secret organization of elderly Ashkenazi men with security backgrounds, intended to protect against a scenario in which “Netanyahu or his associates arrange for people to break into the Knesset on Election Day and set fire to ballot papers arriving from polling stations in order to sabotage democracy.”
As a new Knesset takes office, may we ask for a little relief from this baseless fearmongering?
We have had our fill of ridiculous “handmaid” marches. Women are still allowed to walk freely through Israel’s streets, redheads have not yet been systematically exterminated, and leftists have not been imprisoned.
Of course, we must not lose hope: perhaps one day all of this really will happen.
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https://www.israelhayom.co.il/magazine/hashavua/article/21740270#