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Friday, Friday in Israel

Things seem to be going from bad to worse on this Friday, as we head into Shabbat.
Or, at least back to the way things were just a couple months ago, before Operation Cast Lead.

According to news reports this morning, at least 10 mortar shells have fallen on the Western Negev. At the same time, Israel’s chief negotiator in trying to get Gilad Schalit freed, Amos Gilad, has cancelled a planned meeting in Cairo, following the Israeli cabinet decision to tie a cease-fire arrangement with Hamas to the release of Schalit.

And it looks like we’re headed for a narrow Right-wing coalition under Binyamin Netanyahu, following reports in the papers this morning that Kadima leader Tzipi Livni said she wouldn’t let her party be the token centrists to make the coalition more palatable to the world.

Maybe a Right-wing government is what is needed, since we haven’t accomplished much in the last 10 years or so under various moderate leadership. Who knows?

That’s why I’m dealing with the Friday errands that we all surround ourselves with here, to take our minds off the mess. It’s a red-letter day in our household as our 14-year-old son has relented to getting his first haircut in a couple years. So hurray for that!

And then we’re going to bring our puppy to the vet for a third round of shots (hopefully one that will inject him with a going outside to the bathroom ethic).

But the highlight of the day is that our oldest daughter just returned home from her last day of her army service. She’s sleeping it off now, but tonight over Shabbat dinner, we’ll celebrate, and I’m making a Pillsbury chocolate cake with my own secret recipe homemade frosting. And a secondary celebration will take place for daughter # 2 who just received a letter from the army that she’s been accepted for an elite combat track when she’s inducted later this year. Great for her, that’s going to be three years of no sleep for her worried parents.

So, we take our happiness where we can, even as the news around us looks bleak. After all, those everyday treasures are the real reasons we’re living here anyway. Shabbat Shalom.

New Knesset elected, coalition talks underway

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

One of my favorite Elvis Costello songs begins, “Well, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.” I’ve sorted adopted that credo regarding life in Israel. But after the election results, I’m back to being disgusted.

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.

Deviating from the election norm

Elections are just a couple days away and the nation seems, well, uninspired. It’s quite frustrating actually. It seems like everyone I talk to is annoyed and sick and tired of the same old faces and the same old parties. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone speak enthusiastically this election or about the party they support. The prevalent attitude I’ve been hearing is that nothing is going to change so I’m just going to vote for [name party affiliation here]. Some might argue that the problem is with the system (true) and that it does not allow for any real representation or accountability (double true). So where does this leave us? Depressed? Slightly. Disappointed? Absolutely. I’m still not sure what to do. I fall fairly flat in the center – so naturally Kadima should be an option for me, right? Wrong. I won’t vote for a party with the ilk of Tzachi Hanegbi in a leadership position. He was indicted a couple of years ago for political appointments while serving as minister of the environment between 2001 and 2003 and has pretty much acted like a thug his entire life.

Kadima Shadima I say. Everyone I know is voting for Kadima because “they don’t really have a choice.” Thing is, there is a choice. And for me that choice is integrity. Kadima is in essence a national unity government running on the same ticket. They may have filled their initially filled their ranks with star academics and new faces (where are they now?) but the fact remains that sleazy politicians like Hanegbi and Ronnie Bar-On are still in the top spots. That’s not anything I can believe in.

Bottom line is that Kadima is just more of the same – self-interested politicians who represent nobody but themselves.

Everyone always promises reform but no one delivers. Since 1991, Knesset members have voted to raise their salaries by 90%. And two years ago NIS 10 million was allocated to the expense accounts of Parliamentary aides. An increase of NIS 10,000 a month per aide, that’s almost double their salaries. Reform…right.

This is an election about national security and nothing more. That’s what people are voting for and I guess everything else falls to the wayside.

The Itzik Theory in the Israeli elections

With election day Tuesday closing in, the race for the 18th Knesset promises to be one of the closest in history. Thanks to the rising star of Israel Beiteinu and its strong-armed leader Avigdor Lieberman, the wide lead enjoyed by the Likud and Binyamin Netanyahu over Kadima and Tzipi Livni has virtually vanished according to the latest polls, as Leiberman has been stealing away Likud votes on its way to becoming the country’s third most popular party.

The end result is that the two Right-leaning parties may end up cancelling each other out, leaving Kadima with the most seats on Tuesday. However, as Gil Hoffman pointed out in today’s Jerusalem Post, just because you get the most seats doesn’t neccessarily mean you’ll end up being asked by the president to form the coalition. It’s a combination of that, plus an overall look at how many seats the Right bloc gained versus the Left, and perhaps most importantly, which party the other parties advise the president during post-election consultations to deposit the authority of forming the next government coalition to. And according to Hoffman, an overwhelming majority of MKs will advise President Shimon Peres to give that responsbity to the Likud and Netanyahu, no matter the outcome of Tuesday’s elections.

But I feel pretty confident going out on the limb and predicting that Likud will end up topping the list of vote getters on Tuesday. If only because of Itzik.

He’s a 22-year-old resident of Ma’aleh Adumim, and a player in my weekly Shabbat touch football game. Recenly demobilized from the IDF, Itzik has a great, self-deprecating sense of humor, a twinkle in his eye, and like alot of young, Right-leaning Israelis, a has a strong hint of racism against Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel.

He doesn’t really differentiate between the two, and being brought up on a sea of Palestinian terrorism, from the first Intifada, on down through the rocket attacks on Sderot that prompted the latest war in Gaza, he wants as little to do with Arabs as possible.

Quite naturally, he’s a big supporter of Lieberman. But he’s going to vote for Likud. “Bibi’s obviously going to give Lieberman a very senior cabinet position, so he’ll have alot of authority in the next government. So, I don’t see any reason to vote for Israel Beiteinu, we have to make sure Likud beats Kadima,” he explained during a break in the game.

So, extropolating a little, Israel Beiteinu might actually lose a little support and gain less than the 18 or 19 seats the polls predict. But that’s only because their supporters are going to prop up Likud to ensure a Right victory on Tuesday. That, at least, is the Itzik Theory.

Why I’m Voting Green This Year

Shas trying a bit of feminism

The Shas party has had the upper hand on Tzipi Livni ever since the Kadima leader’s aspirations to take over from Olmert as prime minister were dashed by Shas’s coalition holdout tactics.

As a result, Livini and Kadima were forced to keep Olmert at the country’s helm, and the general elections scheduled for next week became a necessity. With Kadima trailing in the polls, one can’t resist wondering if Livni has been secretly regretting her decision to not kowtow to Shas back in the fall.

One of the most popular of the second-tier parties, the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Shas party doesn’t stand a chance to elect a prime minister, but it always finds a way to obtain big cabinet appointments and budgets for its programs as coalition bargaining chips.

But until now, Livni has had one clear advantage over all of the other parties: the feminist card. No other major contending party in this race has a woman at the top of its list, which, as we know, can be a major draw.

And Shas can always use some good PR for believing in the leadership potential for women – especially given that the party’s spiritual figurehead, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, makes a habit of saying politically incorrect things. Shas has been “trying a bit of feminism” (as our friend Ali G puts it) ever since it launched a “Strengthening Women” platform in December.

This week, the party upped the feminist ante by allowing Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s daughter-in-law (and flat-mate), Yehudit Yosef, to take on a more public role, Haaretz reports. Apparently, Yehudit Yosef has for years been a major playing behind the scenes with Shas, but this week, she began campaigning on behalf of the party, rallying supporters with an inspiring speech in Jerusalem on Monday:

“I know how concerned [Rabbi Ovadia Yosef] is about women’s issues, how he educated his children to take care of their womenfolk so that they would not lack for anything,” she said. “When he gives his class on Saturday night and comes to the issue of women, he gives them a lecture on how to treat a woman, what to do for her, how to behave, what to buy her, and so forth. It’s such a lovely thing.”

Will lip service like this woo away some potential Kadima voters? We’ll know next week.

Image courtesy tzipilivni2009 from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Getting Ben-Gurion high, and other TV ads

It’s here – the only redeeming aspect of the Knesset election campaign – the television ads!

Tonight beings the perennial ritual of the screening of the TV ads developed by the political parties running for the Knesset. Instead of airing them whenever they buy the air time, the three main Israeli channels – 1, 10 and 22, group the ads together in preset blocks of time. So tonight for instance, Channel 10 has been given the hour slot begining at 6 pm for those that just can’t wait, Channel 1 will air the aids at 10 pm and Channel 2 gets the late-night 11:15 pm slot.

The ads used to be screened in prime time, but there’s been a waning interest over the years among viewers, so they’ve been relegated to the early and late evening periods, and they’ll only be shown for two weeks instead of the traditional three. Still, the ads are always good TV and provide more laughs than any sitcom on the air.

Following the rich get richer mode of thinking, the amount of time each of the 34 parties receives for commercials is based on how many MKs each party has in the current Knesset, so Kadima will dominate the broadcasts and new parties will barely be seen, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Kadima’s ads are focusing on tearing down Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is leading in the polls. One ad depicts a polygraph machine as Netanyahu vowed to oppose the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, while a picture shows him voting in favor of the plan.

The Likud will go after Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, portraying her as indecisive and zigzagging – by supporting the Second Lebanon War but calling it unwinnable, and calling to topple Hamas while giving them money. The Likud slogan – “it’s out of her league” is purposely read by a woman so as not to look chauvinist, says the report.

The religious Shas party is adopting the tactics of President Barack Obama, by featuring the “Yes, we can” slogan, while the Left-wing Meretz-Hatnua Hahadasha ads have candidate Nitzan Horovitz drinking from a toilet to highlight the problem of water pollution.

The less popular the party, the more outrageous the ad, it turns out. The Power to the Handicapped Party will feature disabled people having sex to prove that they are abled, while the Green Leaf Party which favors legalizing marijuana will feature chairman Gil Kopatch smoking a joint on the grave of Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion.

Everyone’s happy now – the ad agencies have their creative juices flowing, the TV viewers have something to watch and talk about the next day, and the politicians are seeing themselves as God-like. Now, if all this only helped the voter decide who to vote for…

The next prime minister of Israel – Dennis Ross?

The war-delayed election season is in full swing finally. Now the real war can begin.

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.

The Quiet Within the Storm

You have to give Israelis credit; when the chips are down, even the ones who aren’t necessarily suspected of idealism come shining through.

As Israel went to war against Hamas over the weekend, the leaders of the major political parties all decided to suspend their political campaigns for the duration of the operation – which, both Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak said could be lengthy. Barak, who leades the Labor Party, said that he had to concentrate on the operation and had no time for politics.

The Likud, too, suspended its campaign, and has put on hold a radio campaign featuring ads attacking Kadima chief and Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni. Posters that bear the campaign’s tagline – “Tsipi, the job is too big for you” – that have already been put up will be taken down. In a statement Saturday night, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu said that “there is a time for debate and a time for unity, and today is a time for unity,” he said. “If our enemies thought we would not be united under rocket fire, they were wrong. The cannons roar, but we are united.”

With the elections coming just about a month from now – and the gap between the Likud and Kadima narrowing, according to the latest polls – the suspension of campaigning is really extraordinary. It wouldn’t be surprising for opposition politicians, for example, to accuse the government of timing its operation to cynically improve its standing in the polls, giving it a “January surprise” type of bounce that could sustain it until the elections. But no – politicians on the left and the right spontaneously announced (without any coordination, as far as I could tell) that they were holding off on the negative noise we are set to be subject to. Not that any Israeli, given the choice, wouldn’t opt for the noise if it meant that the south was secure. But it does show that our political leaders and would-be leaders are a better caliber than we usually give them credit for being.

(Photo courtesy One Family Fund)

 

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