The Israeli elections: “We want a king like all the nations!”
Time of Reckoning Ministry (TORM) Breaking News, 20 September 2019: Three days after the Israeli elections on 17 September 2019, and we are still in a political deadlock that make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party the second-largest with 31 seats, while Benny Gantz’s leftist Blue and White alliance won 33 seats out of 120. These results are confirmed on Friday, as more than 99 percent of the votes have been counted.
Neither of the political rivals had won the majority needed to form a government, as they both acknowledged, but they both called on each other to join in “a unity government”. Gantz responded by saying he would have to be the prime minister of a broad and liberal government, since Blue and White Alliance was the largest party.
This deadlock opens the door for yet another election, if Netanyahu and Gantz fail to form “the unity government” none of them wanted in the first place—possibility the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin already excluded, as he quickly began consultations with all parties to decide who will receive the mandate to form a government.
However, the Israeli elections open the door to deadlock “breakers”, such as the Arab Joint List alliance which won 13 seats and became the third-largest party and the ex-defense minister Avigdor Lieberman’s secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party which won eight seats and also called for a unity government between his party, Likud and Blue and White, excluding the ultra-Orthodox parties.
So, where is Israel going? And what went wrong for Netanyahu?
In short, Israel is going nowhere, and Netanyahu received a stab in the back from his coalition partner Lieberman who left the previous government and caused the political crisis. Netanyahu called new elections last April in which he failed to form a government, and now he is facing another blow when he failed to win the majority in these elections.
But what went wrong for Israel? Much in many respects. All political analysts draw their conclusions what went wrong for Netanyahu analyzing the electoral vote and the public opinion. Much is being written as to what the Israelis want and what should have been done to win more of their votes. But they are missing one thing.
The Israeli public opinion does not matter. It is not all about what the people want and what is good in their own eyes. It has never been all about the will of the people and it should have never been.
What matters is the will of the Elohim of Israel. This is what the nation and the religious elite of Israel failed to understand and thus failed to lead the people to: When Israel dwells in the land and should wish to appoint a king, like all the nations, it is to appoint a man from among the Israelis whom YHVH should choose.
There is no law in the Torah to establish a government in Israel. But the if-then clause in Deuteronomy states that, when the people say “We want a king” then these are the requirements.
The appointment of a prime minister over the nation is not commanded, because Israel can and should exist under the government of YHVH Himself, even without an earthly government; the government is simply permitted, in case the need should arise for it.
Therefore, the provision to set a ruler over Israel does not necessarily acknowledge the right of the nation to choose its leaders.
Nevertheless, rules are laid down for the prime minister, namely he is not to increase wealth and earthly things for himself, because his example may lead back the people to the world and away from YHVH. Therefore, PM is to engage himself to study the Torah and guard the law, in order to learn to fear YHVH that he may not become proud above the people.
However, when the people say, “We want a ruler over us like all the nations of the world”, this sounds as sinful as saying “We do not want YHVH to rule over us”. Then, He may grant it as they have wished.
Even though, the grant is given in the Torah, the nation is to wait for His counsel and not to learn the way the nations of the world choose their politicians. For YHVH has appointed no particular way in the Torah for the establishment of a government, but when the people want elections, He has ceded the right to the representatives of the nation to deliberate on the matter.
But what went wrong for Israel is that when YHVH has declared, “They have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. As they have always done from the day that I brought them up out of the foreign land to this day”, this declaration refers not so much to the desire of the people to be governed, as to the intention of their hearts not be governed by Law of YHVH, but by the laws and institutions Israel has adopted from the nations.
This mistrust is founded on the mistrust in YHVH and His guidance in the Torah. The people want their own PM, because the nation as a whole is secular. Thus, instead of seeking for the cause of the terrorism, they seek false security in a unity government.
In such a state of mind as this, the people’s desire for a prime minister is a contempt and rejection of the kingly government of YHVH and is nothing more than forsaking Him for their own rulers.
But when Israel will cry out to YHVH because of the threat of terrorism and economic hardship, the King may not hear it then.
And even though YHVH may save the nation, as He did in the Arab-Israeli wars, the people still refuse to listen to the words of Mosheh, and they repeat their demand for a government over them like all the nations.
And the Lord grants them according to their desire: election after election. And when YHVH grants them a ruler over the people, in accordance with their own desire, He has shown the nation the man whom He has chosen: a Benjaminite.
But it is not Israel’s desire for an earthly ruler that angers the Elohim, but the desire of the nation for a liberal ruler like the rulers of the other nations, and not a man through whom He will rule over them. And this is what the Israelis have missed,
It is believed in the religious community that the next Israeli government may well be the one that will lead the nation until the Messiah’s coming. Rabbi Moshe Ben Tov once said to PM Netanyahu, “It is very important that your love of Israel continue until the Moshiach comes because you are going to stay in office and are going to meet him. You are the one who will give him the keys to this office”.
So, who will be in office until the Messiah’s coming: Netanyahu or Gantz? Because this makes all the difference between the giving the key of Jerusalem and the taking it away, and all the difference between which War of Gog of Magog Israel will choose. Or, Israel might have already made this choice.
Which of the three scenarios of the War of Gog of Magog will come to pass depends on choice the Israelis have made? Elohim is watching! Read more