Around 6 p.m. on election day, attorney Dov Weisglass informed me of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks about Arab voters "coming out in droves to the polls." A few minutes later, on Tamar Ish Shalom's Channel 10 News program, I sat with Weisglass and Nadav Eyal, foreign news editor of Channel 10 News, and we all agreed that Netanyahu's comments were unbecoming. No U.S. senator would ever make a statement like that about Jewish voters in America. We thought the matter would end there, but two days later the White House issued a harsh response, sparking a week of chatter about it. On Monday, Netanyahu walked back his remarks. After President Reuven Rivlin said earlier in the day that the new government would have to serve "all the citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs," the prime minister used a meeting with pro-Likud Israeli Arab leaders to apologize for his remarks. Joint Arab List leader Ayman Ouda's interest in not accepting the prime minister's apology is completely understandable, but there was no basis for his tying of Netanyahu's remarks to the granting of permits for illegal homes in Arab communities. Though Netanyahu enjoyed the "forbidden fruit" of his remarks (the higher turnout of Likud voters), his apology carried a significant weight. Yes, his remarks were tasteless, but an apology was far better than indifference, and it does not matter if he decided to apologize due to foreign pressure or domestic criticism by the media and various political parties. Leaving things as they were could only have caused damage. The 2015 election campaign was marked by vile language, and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman holds a Guinness world record for that. Amir Hetsroni, Yair Garbuz and Yehoshua Sobol disgraced all that is dear to the Jewish people, its legacy and the ingathering of the Diaspora (for the life of me, I do not understand why Hetsroni would insist on Ariel University as his academic home). The verbal aggression did not end there and also manifested on the other end of the political spectrum with the statements made against singer Achinoam Nini and the physical assault on author and poet Yehonatan Geffen, whose outrageous remarks did not justify breaking into his home and throwing eggs at him. A difficult period lies ahead for Israel. It is subject to internal and external struggles, and if it does not control its discourse, it could be overcome. If we are not careful, our society may become "kol dalam gavar" (Aramaic for "the might is right"), where decisions are made according to considerations of power and not on the basis of morality and justice. We should begin a process of reconciliation, which will require forgiveness. As the saying goes, "To err is human; to forgive, divine."