How to Vote

By Shlomo Maital

     Half the world will hold elections this year, 2024.  And I want to suggest how you should vote. 

      No – not vote ‘right’, or vote ‘left’.  But – vote love.  Here is what I mean.

      We in Israel are afflicted with a long-serving Prime Minister who, since our elections on Nov 4, 2022, has wilfully and maliciously divided our country, to remain in power. 

       He was first elected Prime Minister on June 16, 1996, heading Israel’s 27th government.  Since then, he has served as Prime Minister for 6,122 days, or 16.78 years,  up to January 1, 2024, heading Israel’s 27th, 32nd, 33rd, 34th, 35th and 37th governments.   You don’t stay in power this long, without singlemindedly destroying any possible competent successor or without becoming corrupt (for which, he’s on trial at present).

       After the government’s disastrous failure to keep us safe, Israelis want elections, to express their anger.  But our Prime Minister doggedly delays this reckoning, glued to his chair.   And here is a small but key example of his perfidious nature.  

         Israel’s top epidemiologist, Dr. Hagai Levine, the chairman of the medical team with the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, initiated a brilliant move, enlisting France and Qatar to broker a deal to get crucial medicine to the hostages.  It was a thousand-to-one deal:  a ton of medicine for Hamas in return for a kilo of medicine for the hostages.  The medicine was delivered in a Qatari plane – but Israel still is not sure whether it reached the hostages.

          Taking credit for the deal, Netanyahu boasted,  “…at my orders”.  As if he did the deal and gave the orders. 

            False.  He had nothing to do with it.  Bald lie.  One of thousands.

                I will not vote for him.  Neither will most Israelis.  But whom should we vote for?  Whom should YOU vote for?

                 Vote for love.  Vote for honesty. Vote for self-awareness.  Vote for truth.  Vote for humility.  

                  Here is what I mean.

                   A family friend, Moshe Engelberg, is a top senior management consultant in California.  He wrote a wonderful book, with the intriguing title The Amare Wave: Uplift Your Business by Putting Love to Work.  (2020).

                   Love?  In business?  When CEO’s are taught to destroy the competition, kill the enemy?   Put love to work?  Really?

                  Here is Engelberg’s argument:  “I coach high-performing executives Here are three things I hear the very best say that might shock you.  1. I don’t know if I can do it. What if I fail? 2. I feel like I’m never enough, no matter how much I accomplish.  3. If I make that decision, I’m afraid people won’t like me.  …This is what self-aware love-powered leaders do.  …it sets the tone for a culture rooted in honesty and safety that brings out the best in everyone.”

                  Does your candidate match Engelberg’s description?   Sets the tone for a culture rooted in honesty?

                  Mine does.