From Barack to Barkat: A Look Back at the November Elections

November 14, 2008 - 1:13 PM by Brian Blum · 3 Comments
Filed under: Israeliness, Politics

The just concluded Jerusalem election, while certainly not as important on a world stage as last week’s U.S. presidential contest, was in many ways spookily similar to its overseas counterpart. For those who supported Nir Barkat, who beat his main competitor Meir Porush by a commanding 9 points (52 to 43 percent), the sheer jubilance that erupted across the city (though certainly not in all parts of it) reminded me of what I’d heard from so many friends and family in the U.S. after Barack Obama bested John McCain.

That tolerance had triumphed over extremism. That inclusiveness would now prevail, not sectarianism. And most importantly, that hope, pride and patriotism had been restored – in the case of Jerusalem, at a time when many residents were saying, either outright or under their collective breaths, what one Beit Hakerem resident was quoted by Haaretz as lamenting: that this election would “determine whether I’m staying” in the city.

The resemblance between the two races extended beyond just the similarity in the winning candidates names. One candidate preached change, the other more of the same. One ran a relatively clean campaign, while the other (or his supporters, it’s not clear) spent much of his political capital on negative attack ads.

To wit: I took a walk several days before the election. There were posters claiming Barkat was really a closet leftist; that with only five years in politics he “lacked the experience” to manage such a complex city as Jerusalem. Sound familiar?

Barkat, to be sure, didn’t run a flawless campaign the way Obama did. He flip-flopped on political positions and took pot shots at low hanging fruit (the light rail fiasco, the over priced “Bridge of Strings”). Posters appeared on city streets in the waning days of the contest almost messianically proclaiming him “HaTikva,” a play on words: the literal translation is “The Hope” but it’s also the name of the Israeli national anthem.

But Porush had his own Sarah Palin debacle when he was caught on tape boasting that, following his presumed election, “there would be no more secular mayors anywhere in Israel within 10 years.” Once publicized, that statement more than any others did the job of scaring away any remaining voters still on the fence.

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