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Contents:
Every Vote Counts in This Crucial Election: Isi Leibler, Candidly Speaking, Mar. 12, 2015 — The wretched state of Israeli politics and this unnecessary election have alienated the majority of voters.
What Israel’s Upcoming Elections Are Really About: Liel Leibovitz, Tablet, Mar. 13, 2015 — What are next week’s Israeli elections about?
Why Does the Arab World Long for Labor to Win?: Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Arutz Sheva, Mar. 10, 2015 — Years of research spent studying Arab discourse, media and culture – in the original Arabic – have led me to the incontrovertible conclusion that most of the Arab population hopes the day will come when Herzog is prime minister of Israel …
#IsraElex: From Ghetto Politics to the Hangover: Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 15, 2015 — Israel’s elections are upon us.
Israeli Elections: Drybones Blog, Mar. 13, 2015
What a Herzog Foreign Policy Would Look Like: Raphael Gellar, Realclearworld, Mar. 16, 2015
Resist the Pressure: Dore Gold, Algemeiner, Mar. 13, 2014
Obscured Achievements: Dr. Gabi Avital, Israel Hayom, Mar. 15, 2015
EVERY VOTE COUNTS IN THIS CRUCIAL ELECTION
Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking, Mar. 12, 2015
The wretched state of Israeli politics and this unnecessary election have alienated the majority of voters. With the exception of those voting Meretz, Habayit Hayehudi, and the haredi and Arab parties, most Israelis will be holding their noses and voting unenthusiastically for the party that they feel least offends them. Opinion polls can be very misleading, especially in the absence of compulsory voting, and the results could well present major surprises. The reality is that the primitive primary system by which Likud and Labor (running on the Zionist Union ticket) choose their Knesset candidates has enabled well-organized fringe groups to promote the candidacy of radicals who do not share the mainstream view of their respective parties. Labor’s current list includes post-Zionists who condemn the national anthem as racist, call on mothers not to send their children to the army and openly declare that they are not Zionist. Similarly, in the Likud there are a number of candidates whose views would not be shared by the party’s mainstream.
This is the context that has led to the rise of the “centrist” parties which has impacted on the dysfunctionality and instability of the entire political system. These parties — Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beytenu and Kulanu — are politically amorphous and lack genuine ideologies. Despite their flow of predominantly negative political babble and raucous electioneering, their principal role is to represent vehicles for their leaders to ruthlessly exploit in order to promote their own personal political aspirations. Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman and Moshe Kahalon handpick their candidates and have all made it abundantly clear that the only criterion for joining a government headed by Likud or Labor will be the position that they can personally leverage for themselves.
The situation becomes more complex because the new united Arab party list is likely to represent a formidable voting bloc, obtaining as many as 12 to 15 Knesset seats, even possibly becoming head of the opposition if a broad government is formed. And if, as current polls suggest, Likud and the Zionist Union emerge with very close results, the Arab bloc could for the first time influence the outcome by recommending that President Reuven Rivlin give the Zionist Union the first option of forming a government. There are also concerns that whichever government is elected, the haredim could yet again hold the balance of power, enabling them to neutralize former legislative initiatives to gradually integrate them into the workforce and engage them in sharing the burdens of the nation. They would then invariably discourage their supporters to work and would revert to extorting funds and living on welfare, which would ultimately result in an economic crisis.
The most distressing aspect of this election has been the lack of any serious debate on the crucial issues currently facing Israel. Indeed, the only item that has dominated the media has been the “anyone but Bibi” campaign, comprising an unprecedented mudslinging and personal demonization of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No other Western prime minister has ever been subjected to such petty and vicious scrutiny and such a vindictive campaign of defamation and slander. His wife was portrayed as a witch from Salem and his household culinary preferences, rebates on recycled bottles, excessive house cleaning and petty cash expenses have been front-page headlines. That the expenses of former President Shimon Peres were 20 times more and that none of his predecessors were subjected to such scrutiny speaks for itself. The visceral personal hatred of Netanyahu by Noni Mozes, the publisher of the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, who formerly championed Ehud Olmert, is highlighted daily on the front pages and represents a disgusting example of the depths to which the media has descended.
The prime minister has antagonized many people but it is difficult to fault his responsible leadership during the course of the Gaza war. The opposition has no shame when it condemns him for failing to finish off Hamas. Similarly, despite loud disapproval, his congressional address was a huge success and certainly did not undermine Israel’s relationship with the U.S. as predicted. But regrettably, it is Netanyahu ad persona who is being attacked rather than his policies. Regarding socio-economic issues such as housing and inequality, both Netanyahu and Herzog have pledged to bring about reforms. But many Israelis seem to be unaware or unconcerned about the fact that over the next three or four years, the government will undoubtedly face extraordinary security challenges and be obliged to take decisions that will have a major impact on the long-term future of the Jewish state.
We are a tranquil oasis in a region engulfed by the most terrible barbarism, and unfortunately there are no signs on the horizon of any easing of the carnage and upheavals. We must strive to strengthen our relations with Egypt and gird ourselves for the possibility of renewed terrorist initiatives emanating from Iran, ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas and even the Palestinian Authority, which shares the same objectives as Hamas. Beyond this, we are aware that for the remainder of President Barack Obama’s term in office, his administration will be determined to continue its pressure on Israel to withdraw to indefensible borders and make further concessions that could have profound long-term repercussions impacting on the security of our children and grandchildren.
Voters should understand that the composition of the next government will have major ramifications on these crucial issues. They should also take into account that recent precedents in Israel have demonstrated that, in the absence of cabinet responsibility, overall policies are largely determined by the prime minister with coalition partners having little influence over major decisions…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
WHAT ISRAEL’S UPCOMING ELECTIONS ARE REALLY ABOUT
Liel Leibovitz
Tablet, Mar. 13, 2015
What are next week’s Israeli elections about? If they were about security and the nation’s eternal existential jitters, they would, presumably, feature candidates with a significant range of proposals and ideas. It’s hard to judge a political outfit by the spongy language it puts forward just before an election, but if you want a taste of the essential sameness of Israel’s largest parties, here’s a pop quiz: Which party vows to keep any future Palestinian state permanently disarmed, safeguard Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people, rejecting the Palestinian right of return and keeping the blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria under Israeli sovereignty? That would be the fellows on the left, sounding every bit like the fellows on the right. Is it any wonder that the Israeli voter is bummed out?
One could, of course, make any number of reasonable arguments about the differences between Netanyahu and the others, but none are quite as stark as anything the Anyone-But-Bibi crowd would like to believe. Netanyahu, it’s true, is an enthusiastic privatizer, and his policies have helped create a class of fantastically wealthy Israelis and land Israel the No. 5 spot in the list of countries with the widest gap between rich and poor, right behind the United States. But rumors of the Israeli economy’s demise have been greatly exaggerated: In the last quarter of 2014, it grew a robust 7.2 percent, a number that’s all the more impressive if you consider the massive blow to Israel’s economy caused by last summer’s war in Gaza. The average salary also continues to climb, and if you’re not one for economic abstractions, consider this: While the salary of the average American teacher dropped 2 percent since 2000, that of Israeli teacher’s spiked 54 percent in the same period. These are nice numbers to look at, but Netanyahu’s detractors can take comfort in knowing that, for the most part, this growth happened regardless of who was occupying the prime minister’s office.
So, if neither security nor the economy is at issue, what is? A glimpse at a possible answer was on display last week, when tens of thousands of Netanyahu’s detractors congregated in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square for a rally that organizers described as an apolitical expression of popular sentiment. One of the speakers at the rally, artist Yair Garbuz, had this to say: “They told us again and again that the racists and those who curse don’t represent Israeli society in its entirety, that they’re only a small group. They said that the thieves and the bribe-takers were only a small group, and those who are corrupt and decadent and piggish only a small group. And those out to destroy democracy only a small group, and those who think democracy is the tyranny of the majority—only a small group. Those who kiss good-luck charms, those idol-worshipers who pray by the graves of righteous rabbis, only a small group. Even the sexual molesters and the rapists are only a small group.”
The point was hardly lost on the protesters huddled in the square: Garbuz was being ironic, as the small group he was talking about wasn’t small at all and included more or less all of those who voted for Bibi. Garbuz’s listeners applauded his speech, presumably because they agreed with him that when it came to the elections, and to Israel in general, there was an us and a them, one group that sanctified reason and believed in science and progress and another resigned to more primitive stuff like prayer and faith, both of which were shameful enough to merit being spoken of in the same breath as rape and thievery.
The requisite media storm soon broke out, with some noting that the Israeli left had a rich tradition of making insensitive speeches on the cusp of national elections. In 1981, toward the end of a very contentious electoral campaign, Dudu Topaz, a famous Israeli entertainer, stood on the exact same stage Garbuz had occupied last week and, speaking at a rally against then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, called the Likud’s supporters chakhchakhim, a derogatory term loaded with racist connotations that translates loosely as guidos, suggesting that only inferior Mizrachim came out for Begin while the cream of the crop, the white Ashkenazi Israelis, were smart enough to vote Labor.
Like Topaz’s sorry expression, Garbuz’s, too, is easy to disregard. He represents no political party, and it’s unlikely that he truly believes that rapists, observant Jews, and racist thugs all occupy the same spot at the center of some demonic Venn diagram. But the sentiment at the core of his cri de coeur is hard to ignore, and it is likely the same one that animated so many on the Israeli left in 1981 and long before—the belief that the kippah-clad barbarians were at the gates and that it was the primary duty of educated, well-mannered, peaceful liberals to keep them away from the seats of power. Forcefully expressing this idea earlier this week was Yehoshua Sobol, one of Israel’s most celebrated playwrights, who took to the radio to support Garbuz’s statement. Anyone who kissed a mezuzah, he said in an interview, was stupid.
And here, quite possibly, is where the dark heart of next week’s political contest lies: It isn’t so much between left and right, at least not in the traditional sense of two diametrically opposed camps promoting a clearly delineated worldview. In the past decade and a half, Israelis have voted in leaders left, right, and center; all did more or less the same thing: maintain a Jewish presence in the West Bank while striving to somehow make the peace talks with the Palestinians work. When it comes to policy, then, Israeli voters may be excused if they feel a slight sense of vertigo—even a fierce Netanyahu critic like author David Grossman recently admitted that he saw no alternative to the prime minister’s Iran policy. Instead, as the outrage over Garbuz’s comments implies, Israelis seem to be aligning themselves according to a different dichotomy, one that is much harder to decipher. It’s not precisely the mostly Ashkenazi left versus the largely Mizrachi right. Nor is it exactly between the cosmopolitan secularists and the nationalistic faithful. But it’s somewhere in that zone, a fight between two principal feelings that are having a hard time hardening into coherent policies and clear guidelines.
Which, perhaps, is only normal for a state just three generations removed from its miraculous birth. The founders shed blood and raised the flag. Their sons united Jerusalem and kept annihilation at bay. What might the grandsons do for an encore? The question is profound, and it transcends next week’s elections and the petty calculations of pollsters. To answer it, Israelis would have to consider not only their political allegiances but their deepest ideological ones. They would have to figure out what to make of Zionism, a conviction most of them share but that—six decades after achieving the goal of establishing a national homeland for the Jews in Eretz Yisrael—is in dire need of rethinking. To extricate themselves from the morass of partisan politics, Israelis need to ask better, bolder questions, not about which pale contender they wish to place at the helm of their ship but about which stars they wish to follow as they sail on.
WHY DOES THE ARAB WORLD LONG FOR LABOR TO WIN?
Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Arutz Sheva, Mar. 10, 2015
Years of research spent studying Arab discourse, media and culture – in the original Arabic – have led me to the incontrovertible conclusion that most of the Arab population hopes the day will come when Herzog is prime minister of Israel, for that day – at least according to the viewpoint of most Arabs – is the beginning of the end of the state of Israel .The reason is simple: Herzog is seen as a person of weak character, unimpressive and spineless. He did not serve as a combat officer and was, instead, an officer in my unit, 8200, which is made up of brilliant nerds with the obligatory round-framed eyeglasses.
Herzog's gentle way of speaking and the unconfrontational terminology he uses, those that make him attractive to Israelis who want to think like Europeans and Americans, have convinced the Arab world that Herzog is the only way to soften Israel enough to step all over it and turn it into a dishrag that can be wrung into oblivion. The Middle East's agenda is set by stereotypes and images, and the image Herzog projects is so weak that any threats Israel might pronounce would be met with derision. The distance from that derision to all-out war is a short one. In the Middle East, anyone who proclaims non-stop that he wants peace, projects the image of someone who is afraid of war because he is weak, thereby awakening the militaristic adrenaline glands of his neighbors, who then resemble nothing so much as eagles and vultures hovering over a dying cow.
And the opposite is just as true: anyone who radiates power, strength, threat and danger enjoys comparative tranquillity because the bullies leave him alone. This is the reason the Arabs hated and respected Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan – they were afraid of them. Sadat made peace with Israel because he could not defeat the Jewish state despite the surprise factor he had in opening the Yom Kippur War and his early success in crossing the Suez Canal. Hussein also made peace with Israel, hoping it would use its power to help him face the Baath party of Syria and Iraq. Arafat agreed to a hudabiyya peace – that is, a temporary "peace" for as long as the enemy is too strong to defeat – after the failure of the first intifada.
Yitzchak Herzog at the helm of the government is the sweetest dream the Arab world can imagine, because it is proof that Israeli society is tired, exhausted, lacking the motivation to protect the country and ready to pay any price for a paper that has the word "peace" written on it. Herzog at the helm of the government will be subject to pressures from the Arab world – and from Obama's White House – because he creates the impression that "this time it will work", or shall I say, "Yes, we can". The pressures he will undergo will be much greater than those exerted on Netanyahu, because the White House and the Arab world will sense that his days as Prime Minister are numbered and therefore, they must make every effort to squeeze as much out of him as they can for the short period that Israelis will let him function before waking up to realize the imminent catastrophe and removing him from his seat as they did to Ehud Barak when he gave in to Arafat.
Yitzchak Herzog may bring about harmonious relations with the White House and perhaps even with the angst-consumed leaders of Europe, but he will bring a war of blood, fire and tears to the area called the Middle East where only those who are truly powerful, threatening and determined to deter their enemies survive. Let us continue with MK Tzipi Livni, Herzog's rotation partner in what the two self-titled "The Zionist Camp": Tzipi is the other aspect of the sweet dreams of the Arab world, a woman born and raised in a courageous Revisionist family, a home filled with healthy and strong Zionist principles. She began her political career in the Likud, but became more and more spineless, deteriorating from party to party, until she joined up with the other leading invertebrate, Yitzchak Herzog.
To the Arab world, Livni symbolizes and represents the dispirited and weary Israeli, those who have had enough of the struggle for survival and are willing to offer their necks to the slaughterer hoping that he will butcher them gently if they speak politely. The internet tells us that in the eighties, Livni was actually a Mossad agent in Europe, and several Arab websites tell of the "special services" she did for the state of Israel.These services are understood in the West as undercover and secret, but in the Middle East the expression is interpreted in a totally different fashion. We can imagine how they will react on the web in the Arab world and what our image will be if she becomes prime minister…
However, the problem with Tzipi Livni is not just about her image, because in her case, our neighbors have proof that Livni hasn't the foggiest idea of how to navigate the complex, thorny paths of the Middle East: she was Foreign Minister during the Second Lebanon War, and was the Israeli architect of Security Council Resolution 1701 that allowed the Hezbollah – already clear in the phrasing she espoused – to renew and enlarge its rocket arsenal. I would expect someone with a law degree to comprehend the built-in failure in the way the resolution was phrased, but Tzipi Livni did not even reach this minimal legal test. Is there anyone in his right mind who would hire her to prepare a contract for renting out his apartment?…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
#ISRAELEX: FROM GHETTO POLITICS TO THE HANGOVER
Seth J. Frantzman
Jerusalem Post, Mar. 15, 2015
Israel’s elections are upon us. Now that all the dirty tricks, campaign propaganda and other ups and downs are in the past it is worthwhile to consider what hasn’t been revealed. Here are five aspects of the Israeli elections that the pollsters, pundits and politicos missed.
More than half of the electorate is made up of zombies. It doesn’t matter what a political party does, they are attached to it. They will continue to vote, year after year, for a party that is demonstrably working against their own interests. They don’t ask questions of their elected officials. They are never outraged. The Israeli electorate faces real financial troubles and yet it does not demand answers of its politicians. Whether it is sub-standard schools or rising tuition costs, housing, or the price of everyday products, there is a collective shrug of the shoulders. This election more than most illustrated the fact that the politicians did not have to provide answers and clear policies for a laundry list of issues. Whether it was conscription to the army, civil marriage, peace with the Palestinians, there was virtually no frank discussion of the various parties’ strategies. Issues such as unrecognized Beduin villages in the Negev or the issue of African migrants were left untouched. As long as some of the parties can count on the slavish devotion of voters, they will never provide an answer or come up with a plan.
Since the 1970s Israeli voters have been on a never- ending quest for a new centrist party. It has the air of a magical quest, at the end of which is a promised “new politics” that never emerges. Over the years parties like Third War, Shinui, Kadima and Yesh Atid achieved impressive results with upwards of 20 percent of the vote. Yet their long-term achievement is marginal. The electorate likes “new politics” and is forever moving from one of these new centrist parties to another. The new Koolanu Party seemed like it would eclipse Yesh Atid, becoming the new “center” in this election. That hasn’t happened, but it still shows that around 20 percent of the voters are hungering for this new center.
But what do the centrist parties bring voters? Their lists tend to be more diverse than the old parties, usually including more minorities and women, and representing a broader cross-section of society. This is because the parties are generally undemocratic; their leaders cherry-pick interesting individuals to staff the lists. The 20 percent of the electorate who vote for these parties tend to be slightly better educated than average and more urban (as revealed by looking at the locales they come from). But they choose parties that are weak on ideology and strong on promises. These centrist parties end up being the plaything of the old Left and Right; they get some plum position in the coalition, but are frustrated in their attempts to make real changes by the Old Guard who fear that the new politics, if it were allowed to succeed, would make the old parties and their zombie voters irrelevant…
A unique element of the Israeli political system is how balkanized it is. Each ethnic and religious group has its own party. Like districts in other democracies that are controlled by one political party (so-called safe seats), the creation of these electoral ghettos is good for the parties that have a monopoly on them and bad for the voters and the country in the long run. Is it good that there are Meretz kibbutzim, Labor kibbutzim, Shas neighborhoods and United Torah Judaism neighborhoods? The positive aspect is that it guarantees some diversity in the Knesset, so that the interests of smaller minority groups are represented. But it feeds racism and stereotypes. In early March artist Yair Gerboz gave an offensive speech at a Tel Aviv anti-Netanyahu rally where he accused right-wing voters of being “amulet kissers…bowers at the graves of saints,” a reference to them being more traditional and religious…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Israeli Elections: Drybones Blog, Mar. 13, 2015
What a Herzog Foreign Policy Would Look Like: Raphael Gellar, Realclearworld, Mar. 16, 2015—Days before millions of Israelis head to the election booths, a Channel 2 poll published Friday night revealed that the Zionist Union led by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livini is set to win 26 seats.
Resist the Pressure: Dore Gold, Algemeiner, Mar. 13, 2014—There are increasing indications that Western powers will seek to renew Israeli-Palestinian negotiations right after the Israeli elections.
Obscured Achievements: Dr. Gabi Avital, Israel Hayom, Mar. 15, 2015 —It is said that the truth is generally the rule of thumb for average citizens.
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