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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.

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Why I’m Voting Green This Year

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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.

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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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Lessons from The Rabin Murder

Israel can surprise you – in the most surprising ways. One thing I’ve learned in some 15 years of living here – nothing, but nothing, is what it seems on the surface. There is little, if any, black and white in Israeli life – it’s a rainbow, with lots of shades of different colors in the mix. Take my Rabin experience, for example.

I was at home with my wife and some friends, watching a movie, when I heard the news – “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” Not focusing too closely on the video (men will understand why), I overheard a couple of neighbors talking outside in the courtyard. Rather rare for a Saturday night, I thought, and especially those two, who didn’t generally fraternize, going on at length. Sauntering out of the room (I think it was around the time of the second wedding), I went out to the porch to find out what was going on.

Needless to say, we turned the movie off and watched the proceedings.

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At the time, I worked for a publication owned by a major Israeli newspaper in Tel Aviv. You could count on one hand the number of observant people in this organization (to their credit, the very avant garde, very politically left people at this publication were extremely respectful to my religious principles – for example, they always made sure kosher food was served at staff meetings, etc.).

But not only was I religious – I was a “settler,” too, living in a community east of the green line. This, too, had never been an issue with these people, and my views on politics and Jewish life in Judea and Samaria were well-known. But now, with Rabin killed by a Jew wearing a kippah, and his alleged connections to residents of Judea and Samaria – this was different. With all the talk of how “the right and religious” were behind Rabin’s killing, I walked into the office that Sunday morning with great trepidation, ready for anything – dirty looks, insults, verbal confrontations, or worse.

But either the folks working at this publication were exceptions to the rule, or the very yellow character of the Israeli media had reared its ugly head again, with the tiny minority of loudmouths dedicated to ruining the fabric of Israeli society trumpeting ideas about putting right-wingers in internment camps in the Negev being given a solitary platform. Even the “star” of this publication, who today is famous for his American talk-show shock-jock style radio call-in program where he argues with everybody, and who has extremely left-wing views, didn’t speak to me any differently than usual (gruffly, like he talked to everybody). Astounded, I asked one of the editors of the publication what was going. Where was all the blame, the anger, the “we will not forgive and we will not forget” I was expecting? After all, I was a pretty convenient target!

He just looked at me like I was crazy – and asked: “Why would we want to do that to you? You may be a settler, but you’re ‘our’ settler!”

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13 years and counting

It’s hard to imagine it was 13 years ago that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
No-one can forget where they were or what they were doing when the news came.

I was actually at the rally itself, standing on a building looking out over what is now Rabin Square. We left before the end, bouyed by the incredible mood of hope and optimism at the demonstration. There were so many people there – 300,000 out of a population which was then only five million or so – we thought that this time peace really had a chance.

We drove to a friend’s house just a short distance away and as we walked in the door, they told us he’d been shot.
Minutes later, as we watched the TV, we heard in disbelief that he was dead.

Here, for the 13th anniversary, is a video celebrating Rabin’s life.

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Engineering Politics

It’s election time in Israel, so naturally, the thoughts turn to politics – or rather, politicians. Israelis have opinions on politics that run the gamut, from far left to far right. And that’s cool – it’s part of our “great mosaic,” to take a line from former New York Mayor Dinkins.

But politics and politicians are two different things. And no matter what differences Israelis have on how the country should be run, most of them agree in their opinions on the people who would like to run the country – specifically, been there, done that. I don’t think I would be expressing a specific political opinion if I said that all three of the major candidates for prime minister have had their turn at senior posts, including but not limited to Prime, Defense, Foreign, and Finance Ministers – and despite some small successes here and there, none can be said to have had a particularly stellar record at those jobs. Maybe it’s time for some new blood.

And I think I’ve found that blood – in the form of Dr. Amir Ziv-av, an engineer whose firm, Ziv-Av Engineering, has been in the forefront of inventing better ways of doing things in Israel for nearly 20 years. The company has designed everything from giant earth-movers to miniature electronics, and all sorts of projects in between.

But it’s Dr. Ziv-av – and his ideas on how engineering concepts can help save the country – that are the news here. According to Dr. Ziv-av, there’s a common denominator in the design of something as simple as a plastic chair and the design of something as sophisticated as components for jet engines (both of which his company has helped design) – “does it work? What are the specific things we expect this product to do, or not do?” For example, you expect a plastic chair to be somewhat comfortable, and not fall apart when you sit on it. “You simply design your product to fulfill those needs – usually there are ten or eleven basic ones – and you’ve got a product you can confidently offer to the public,” Dr. Ziv-av says. And what goes for plastic chairs goes for jet engines, education, and even politics; the principles are portable, and can be applied to almost anything.

Now how simple is that? Not to mention logical! But it seems that whatever government puts its imprimatur on becomes overly complicated and goes out of control; in so many areas, it seems as if those implementing the ill-fated policies just didn’t think things through. How could they not have seen disaster coming? It’s not just “hindsight” – like engineers, politicians have to be aware that policy creates change, and a good engineer – or politician – anticipates those changes, and learns from mistakes. And while the engineers Dr. Ziv-av trains do that very well, our politicians don’t.

There are reasons for that, says Dr. Ziv-av – too numerous and complicated to go into here (watch for the full article elsewhere on 21C!). Suffice to say that Dr. Ziv-av is a breath of fresh air – a successful scientist and businessman who has come up with a “whole life” theory, applying scientific and engineering principles to spheres where few have thought they could apply. That, to me, is the mark of an exceptional mind, a social philosopher who has something important to say to the rest of us. I’ve already begun my personal campaign to convince him to run for something (he hasn’t agreed as of yet).

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  Israel is often seen as a place of conflict and strife. In reality there is much more: there's business and research; art and culture; community and family. At ISRAELITY, Israelis blog their daily thoughts, experiences and insights. It's the real Israel, not the media's Israel. It's people living ordinary lives in an extraordinary place.

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