Foto Friday – Post-Election Fun
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Politics, Pop Culture
This just in: President Shimon Peres has tasked Benjamin Netanyahu with forming the government. And so, the coalition-building process begins. Against the background of political posturing, jockeying for positions and a moment before disillusionment sets in, Tomeriko, photographer, photo editor and informal archivist of Israeli press photographers, has posted a new series of images on his Israel Press Flickr photostream. Entitled Elections 2009, it provides a humorous behind-the-scenes peek at the recent elections.
Photo by Koko, courtesy of Israel Press
The series, contributed by any number of Israeli press photographers working for various media outlets, deals with the run-up to election day, including things that people living outside Israel might not have known about.
Photo by Koko, courtesy of Israel Press
For example, Kadima party head Tzipi Livni on the cover of womens magazine La’Isha. When she was a little girl, could she ever have imagined this day would come?
Photo by Idan Kenan, courtesy of Israel Press
Inevitably, there are instances of campaign poster abuse…
Photo by Aviad Herman, courtesy of Israel Press
With some enthusiastic party workers perhaps taking the “green” message a tad to far…
Photo by Tamar Matsafi, courtesy of Israel Press
There are those who use election day to promote their own personal agenda…
Photo by Adi Yisrael, courtesy of Israel Press
And some who just tag along…
Photo by Alex Kolomoisky, courtesy of Israel Press
But the big question remains: do we know which way we’re actually going?
Photo by Adi Yisrael, courtesy of Israel Press
New Knesset elected, coalition talks underway
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Politics
The results are in. The election is finally over. Even though the Bibi Netanyahu-led Likud party was well ahead in the polls a few weeks ago, Tzipi Livni’s Kadima garnered one more seat than Likud in a stunning photo finish, explained by Haaretz thusly:
Livni forced Netanyahu to treat her as an equal, despite his negative ads claiming the job is “too big for her.” From that point, he lost the advantage of experience. Livni proved to be an expert campaigner who saved enough energy for the final and decisive round.
Several fascinating statistical and graphical breakdowns of the results can be seen here, while a breakdown of the number of seats per party, along with plenty of analysis and victory speech soundbytes, can be seen here.
Perhaps because the left has splintered into several newer and smaller parties, many of which did not garner enough votes for even one Knesset seat, the mainstream left-wing Labor, led by Ehud Barak, will only hold 14 seats, leaving its leadership disillusioned and vowing to sit out of coalition talks.
Avigdor Lieberman’s hardcore right-wing Israel Beiteinu managed to crystallize Israel’s right-of-center undecided, which, in essence, ended up detracting from Likud’s support among hard-liners, which, in turn, gave the relatively centrist (but Ariel Sharon-founded) Kadima a proportionate edge (causing the world to wonder where this leaves us in terms of options for diplomacy with the Palestinians).
However, it’s Israel Beiteinu that’s going to make or break any coalition which Livni has already hit the ground running trying to form, so Lieberman’s agenda hasn’t backfired completely. Let’s not forget that this is Livni’s second chance to try and form a coalition, with the first time around, this past fall, not yielding any results at all.
So yes, it does seem that public opinion here has moved towards the right, and it’s parties which sit decidedly on the right which have the power to make or break a government. But at the same time, the Likud’s failure to seal the deal says quite a bit about the strength of the middle ground (whatever that may or may not mean).
Image courtesy tzipilivni2009 from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Israel elections a defeat for everyone
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Politics, Pop Culture
The Siamese twins of Israeli politics.
If last night’s voting tally – showing a slight victory for Kadima and Tzipi Livni over the Likud and Bibi Netanyahu, but overall a stronger showing by the Right block – proves anything, it’s that our electoral system is as irreparably fractured as the population of the country.
We’re in a situation where the party that received the most votes is going to likely end up out of the government and in the opposition – sort of like Al Gore and the Democrats in 2000. Netanyahu, instead of graciously accepting defeat and offering Livni the opportunity to form a coalition – a task she failed to do last year which resulted in these elections, and which she’s unlikely to do now – instead claimed a from the back end victory.
While smaller Right wing parties like Habayit Hayehudi and the National Union sapped votes from Likud – not to mention Israel Beiteinu and Avigdor Lieberman maintaining their strong showing of 2006 despite predictions they would do even better – Kadima undoubtedly lost a mandate or two from those well-meaning souls who gallantly but gullibly threw their support to the Green Movement-Meimad or the Green Leaf parties.
The spread of parties in the next Knesset, therefore, is going to continue to be a representation of the total schism in Israel society, where Arab parties, the Sephardic stronghold Shas, the waning Left faction Meretz, and the fringe Right Wing parties all sit together and cause a paralysis.
It’s time to raise the minimum threshold to even run for the Knesset by 1,000 percent or so, and cap the number of parties to 10 maximum, instead of this year’s unmanageable, outrageous 34. It may not be democratic, but neither is the government we’re going to get next.
What in the world made people like Ephraim Sneh or Michael Melchior think they could garner enough votes to even get one Knesset seat? Can anyone name a difference between Habayit Hayehudi and the National Union? the Green Movement and the Greens? And for that matter, Kadima and Likud?
If the politicians really believed their mantra that the good of the country comes first, then next week, we would see a coalition announced consisting of Kadima, Likud, and either Labor, Israel Beiteinu or Shas. But don’t think for a second that’s going to happen.
Ah, the hell with it. I’m going to bury my head in the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue with Israel’s own Bar Refaeli on the cover. At least that’s something we can take pride in.
The next prime minister of Israel – Dennis Ross?
Ross - Ammunition both for and against Bibi
With the major parties – Kadima and Likud – frothing at the bit after being held up due to the the ‘national unity’ displayed during the war in Gaza, they’re now finally unleashing the campaigns that their spin doctors and media specialists have been cooking up these last few weeks.
And, strangely enough, they’re using some of the same strategy, courtesy of a one-time aide to Bill Clinton who is set to make a comeback under President Barack Obama – Dennis Ross. The former Middle East negotiator, who’s expected to be appointed as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s point man on Iran, was up to his elbows in the Israel-Palestinian issue during the 1990s and he knew all the players involved.
That’s why both Kadima and Likud are planning to use quotes from Ross’s published memoirs to both praise and bury Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu, according to Gil Hoffman writing in The Jerusalem Post.
“Bibi rarely seemed to know how to act on his ideas – how to present them, to whom, and even when to do so,” Ross wrote about Netanyahu in a quote from his book, The Missing Peace, that was distributed by Kadima. “Translating an idea into action seemed beyond his grasp. It was not lack of intelligence… it was the lack of judgment… but there was something more: Often he would come up with ideas simply to get himself out of a jam.”
The Likud, by contrast, focused on Ross quotes that were policy-oriented and not personal. They distributed interviews with Ross and articles he wrote in which he regretted not insisting upon reciprocity with the Palestinians as Netanyahu had advised him.
“Rather than trying to resolve issues like Jerusalem and refugees, we would have focused on expanding the scope of Palestinian independence from Israeli control, developing and investing in the Palestinian economy, and expanding the connections between the Israeli and Palestinian societies,” Ross wrote in The Wall Street Journal in June 2007, sounding very much like Netanyahu’s current “economic peace” diplomatic plan.
How the new prime minister of Israel will work with the Obama administration is playing a big role in the election propoganda.
Likud officials said they hoped Kadima would continue to portray Netanyahu as someone who would have a difficult relationship with the Obama administration, because they believe this would help Netanyahu win more support among the public. Both Kadima and Labor have already started warning that Netanyahu would have an adversarial relationship with Obama, according to Hoffman.
“Whoever thinks that it will be easy for Israel with Netanyahu as prime minister is wrong,” Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog told Army Radio on Friday. “It will be hard because it seems that Netanyahu’s policies will be in direct contrast with those of Obama.”
So while Americans can now relax in the knowledge that the election is over and Obama is firmly ensconced in the White House, here in Israel, the charismatic leader is still smack in the middle of the election campaign.
Knesset poster decay
Filed under: Art, General, Israeliness, Politics, Pop Culture
Meet the news boss, same as the old boss.
Little by little, the campaign posters for the 613 parties running (ok, it’s only ???) are starting to appear on busses and billboards, and the media moguls and spin doctors are gearing up for the always entertaining TV ads which begin airing later this month.
But if you’re waiting for it all to be done and finished, at least one political observer is on your side. Rafi Mann, a veteran journalist for Hebrew paper Ma’ariv, and currently their oped page editor, loves to take photographs of campaign posters – but months and years after they’ve been posted, when they’ve been torn, faded, and petrified by the elements and grafitti artists.
Mann’s been shooting these pieces of ‘art’ for over 12 years, and now, ahead of the February 10th elections, he’s putting on a photography exhibit of some of the best posters – called appropriately ‘Poster Mortem’.
“Sometime after the 1996 elections, I saw some election posters that were still on billboards, pasted one on top of each other, and it was fascinating what happened to them, how they deteriorated and blended together,” Mann told me this week.
“I took some photos, and since then I carry a small camera around and when I’m traveling around the country, whenever I see an interesting old poster still up, I take a picture.”
Poster Mortem promises to be a fascinating look at the political culture in Israel – where Ehud Barak’s face on one poster blends into Bibi Netanyahu’s on the poster beneath it to create a kind of Bela Lugosi hybrid only someone like Tim Burton could think up.
“My sense is that the way the posters look after the elements and time have gotten to them is kind of a metaphor of what happens during elections and the promises that are made,” said Mann.
Let’s hope this year it’s different. But don’t bet on it.
Poster Mortem opens on Thursday evening at Beit Sokolov in Tel Aviv, and will be on display through the elections.
Yes we can? Really?
It all started when Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu completely ripped off Barack Obama’s website. And when I say completely, I mean completely. Not just the idea of integrating social media – but layout, graphics and color scheme as well. Purely shameless. That was just the beginning. Bibi, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and even Shas (also using Obama’s “Yes we can” mantra) have twitter accounts. Some really have the campaigns behind them, others do not. We’ve also seen, for better or worse, the introduction of “Livni Boy” a blatant rip off of the enormously popular (and hot) Obama Girl as well as “Asulin Girl,” an even more blatant rip off of the original which promotes Sagiv Asulin, a young leader of Likud who used the video to garner support in the primaries and consequently will most likely make it to the Knesset. 
Apparently when it comes to political campaigning, originality is not a strength in the Holy land, though silliness is. At least Channel 2 is doing something that can potentially involve Israel Israeli (like Joe Sixpack but Israeli) in the political process. They’ve teamed up with YouTube and are asking for Israelis to submit questions that will actually be answered live on the air by all three party leaders who are vying for prime minister. CNN did something similar during the primaries and proved to be really, really bizarre and surreal at times. I am of course referring to an actual snowman asking a question about global warming. Not sure how any Israeli can top that or if Channel 2 would even be courageous to broadcast a camel asking about the receding Dead Sea.
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