The Right has been in power for most years since the Likud won its first election… So why do many on the Right complain that they still don’t run the country?

Ladies and gentlemen, revolution,” legendary anchorman Haim Yavin famously said of the May 17, 1977, election that brought Menachem Begin and the Likud the premiership and Israel its first government that wasn’t led by the socialist Mapai Party or its successor the Labor Party.

But was it, really? The Likud has spent about three-fourths of the subsequent 40 years in power, and yet the Right is constantly complaining that it doesn’t truly run the country. Google “the Right doesn’t know how to govern” in Hebrew, and you’ll get over 86,000 results, with articles from a variety of publications including the phrase over the years. Continue reading