"Friendly fire"? The mistake that could cost the "change bloc" the election | Yoram Dori

Almost every internal criticism within the camp known as the "change bloc" is immediately defined by its members as an attack on the camp, as weakening it, or in short, as "friendly fire." However, political reality is much more complex.

First, it is worth mentioning that the expression itself does not describe a real military phenomenon. Politics adopted it to describe internal criticism, but it is sometimes used to silence different opinions. The "change bloc" is not a single party. It is composed of very different parties, with different and sometimes opposing worldviews. An attempt to force uniformity of messages and thought on all of them is not only unrealistic — it is also harmful from a democratic perspective. Furthermore, even from an electoral perspective, absolute uniformity is not necessarily the right strategy.

An election campaign is a struggle for different target audiences. One party in the bloc can emphasize more left-wing positions and attract voters who would otherwise stay home. At the same time, another party in the same bloc can appeal to the center and even to the moderate right, trying to convince voters to move from camp to camp. It is precisely the differences between the parties that can expand the support base of the entire camp. When all parties sound the same, they compete for the same votes instead of expanding the circle of voters.

In the 1996 election campaign for Prime Minister, in which Shimon Peres ran against Benjamin Netanyahu, there was an interesting strategic thought in Peres's campaign: the campaign staff asked the leaders of Meretz, Yossi Sarid and Yair Tzaban, to criticize Peres from the left. The idea was simple: if Peres were attacked from the left, he would appear less left-wing in the eyes of centrist voters and could attract them to him.

This move was not implemented. The leaders of Meretz chose not to act in this way, and the rest is history: Benjamin Netanyahu won the election by a narrow margin. We are still experiencing the consequences to this day. There is no way to know if criticism from the left would have changed the election results, but this example illustrates that in politics, not every internal dispute is damage. Sometimes it is part of a broad strategy aimed at increasing the number of voters for the entire camp.

Democracy does not require uniformity of thought. On the contrary, it is built on debate, on disagreement, and on the possibility of presenting different shades of worldview. Anyone who tries to turn every criticism into "friendly fire" is not strengthening their camp; they might actually be shrinking it. It is desirable to stop fearing legitimate disagreements and to understand that often they are not a sign of weakness, but rather of the strength of a democratic and self-confident camp. Let differences win, because uniformity might lead to another loss.