No more '50 shades of gray'

The chairmen of Likud and Yisrael Beytenu set their alarm clocks to 8 p.m. Thursday evening, and awakened the sleepy elections process with a loud bang. Suddenly, a surprise. You could call it a bipolar surprise. Suddenly there was a merger. Suddenly there was an agenda. We finally have a good reason to hold elections. No more running on security issues or social-economic issues, now there is a clear ideological dichotomy that includes well-rounded whole worldviews.

On January 22, there will, as there always are, dozens of slips at the voting booths. But this time, at the crux, it will boil down to two options: Left vs. Right. Black vs. white. Thesis vs. antithesis. In the eyes of the beholder it may even be good vs. bad.

This election cycle could mark the end of a phenomenon that has been causing extensive damage to Israel's ability to govern. I like to call this phenomenon "50 shades of gray" because on a long list of issues it is difficult or even impossible to discern between the various parties.

The political move that was set into motion on Thursday could, for better or worse, remove the small parties from the Israeli political map. It may eliminate those small political endeavors that end up convincing quite a few Israeli voters to "waste" their vote thus stripping them of any real influence on the proper political map here.

So who is the winner and who is the loser of this surprising move? First of all, in any surprise it is better to be the one springing the surprise rather than the one on whom the surprise is sprung. In that regard, there is not doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are the true winners here.

In fact, if Likud and Yisrael Beytenu manage to win a collective 40 to 45 Knesset seats, they will have a relatively easy time assembling a coalition, as a bloc.

Furthermore, the coalition's dependence on the ultra-Orthodox parties will all but disappear. Shas, for example, will lose its traditional role of kingmaker. The parties in the Center and the Left, the ones that had the surprise sprung on them, are in for some serious problems, at least for now.

Only a similar merger in the Center-Left can pose an alternative to Thursday's move, and as of now, it doesn't seem likely.

Labor Chairwoman Shelly Ychimovich, Yesh Atid (There is a Future) Chairman Yair Lapid, Independence Chairman Ehud Barak, Meretz Chairwoman Zahava Gal-On, Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz, and possibly even former Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert all face a serious leadership test now, not to mention an "ego test."

If such an initiative does take shape and the Center Left springs another surprise, Israel will go back to the age of the party blocs, the way Israeli politics were run several decades ago, when each bloc could potentially assemble a viable coalition.

Will Israel's political map resemble the U.S.'s or England's in the future? It is too soon to tell.

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