Israeli journalists who are opposed to this operation in Gaza have been bringing up the elections issue right from the start. They say Ehud Barak cynically instigated this war to better his and his party’s chances, which admittedly were in a bad way.

Shalom Yerushalmi, in today’s print version of Maariv, for instance (it doesn’t appear to be on their online version), talks about the heads of the Kadima party saying that Barak started the war for the elections. This is a bit strange. Maybe they forgot that Kadima is the head of the ruling coalition, and Barak couldn’t start any wars without them. Looks like the ones who are busy with the election calculations are they, not Barak. Or perhaps its just Yerushalmi’s pathetic attempt at manipulating public opinion.

Yerushalmi goes on to point out that the elections, scheduled for the 10th February, should be postponed. The reason for this is that the results of the war will heavily influence voters. He says the issues on which we were hoping to be voting – the chances of peace, the economic crisis and the corruption, have been pushed to one side.

We were hoping to be voting. Who is this ‘we’ he talks about? He says that having these issues pushed aside and voting on the results of the war, as he claims will happen, is not real (he uses the word ameetee, which can also be translated as genuine) and not worthy.

What I understand from this is that he believes that we will not be voting on the real issues, the true issues. Obviously he doesn’t think that thousands of rockets and missiles showering down on Israeli heads is a real issue. Apparently he doesn’t see any connection between these missiles and rockets and our chances of peace, or on the economic situation of the people living in these conditions.

Me, I can’t help thinking of Winston Churchill. Two minutes and a half after he won the war, the people of Britain said ‘Thank you very much. Now go home and write your war memoirs,” (which he proceeded to do, excellently as usual). In other words, the guns of one of the most terrible wars in human history had hardly cooled, and the British people had moved on. So I don’t think Yerushalmi has anything to be afraid of.

I know what’s bothering him. It’s very upsetting for the left-leaning media that their ability to attempt manipulate public opinion in the run-up to these elections has been severely impaired. According to opinion polls this ability was pretty limited even before.

So, dear Mr. Yerushalmi, the war in Gaza didn’t invent itself two and a half weeks ago, for election purposes. We have been under attack for years. Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza would soon have been targeting the Greater Tel Aviv metropolis with their Iranian rockets and missiles. And the only reason we aren’t being similarly attacked from the West Bank, is our military presence there and the separation strategy, preventing human bombs and other weapons from coming into our cities and tearing apart our buses, our schools and our vibrant, innovative, sensitive society.

While you journalists were busy telling us that Israel should stop being so stubborn and while giant street advertisements, decorated with the flags of the Arab states, were promising us peace was just around the corner, we innocent bystanders looked on incredulously, wondering if we were all mad. Because at the very same time, just twenty minutes drive away in good traffic conditions, tens of thousand of Israelis (soon to be hundreds of thousands) were being abandoned to their fate.

Were we living on parallel universes? Apparently, we were. And still are. This war and its reasons are real. And if we go to the elections with them fresh in our mind, we will be voting on issues every bit as real and every bit as worthy as what the future holds in store for our pensions and our saving plans.