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Contents:
Key Facts About Israel and its Election System: Washington Post, Mar. 16, 2015— Voters will elect a 120-member parliament, or Knesset, Israel’s 20th.
It is All Netanyahu's Fault: David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom, Mar. 13, 2015 — It is absolutely astonishing how one man can be responsible for so much misery. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: It is all his fault.
To Bibi or Not to Be: Shmuley Boteach, Algemeiner, Mar. 16, 2015 — I thought this title was clever (but feel free to roll your eyes), conveying as it does the belief of some that should Bibi lose this election, Israel cannot be.
A House Undivided: Israel's New Consensus Politics: Emanuele Ottolenghi, National Interest, Mar. 16, 2015 — Israelis go to the polls on March 17, and in a time-honored tradition, international pundits are hoping for a political earthquake.
Israeli Elections: Decision Time (or Not): Natan B. Sachs, Brookings, Mar. 16, 2015
A Churchill for Our Times: Thomas Sowell, National Review, Mar. 17, 2015
Dysfunctional Likud: Gerald Steinberg, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 16, 2015
Election Day Israel 2015: Drybones Blog, Mar. 17, 2014
A Most Uninspiring Campaign: Gil Troy, Montreal Gazette, Mar. 14, 2015
KEY FACTS ABOUT ISRAEL AND ITS ELECTION SYSTEM
Washington Post, Mar. 16, 2015
Voters will elect a 120-member parliament, or Knesset, Israel’s 20th. Citizens vote for party lists, not individual candidates. Seats are allocated in the Knesset according to the percentage of the national vote the parties win.
Who is running? There are 25 parties running. Key parties are the governing Likud Party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who takes a hard line against the Palestinians and Iran; The Zionist Union, a joint list headed by Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, which wants to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, repair ties with the White House and has emphasized economic issues; The Joint List, a union of Arab parties that is expected to drive up chronically low voter turnout among Israel’s Arab minority; Kulanu, led by Likud defector Moshe Kahlon, who has focused on the economy and set his sights on the Finance Ministry; Jewish Home, led by high-tech millionaire Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s chief rival for the support of West Bank settlers; Yesh Atid, led by former TV personality Yair Lapid, who is also promising relief for the struggling middle class. Two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties could play key roles after the election. According to a 2014 law, a party must win 3.25 percent of the vote to be represented in parliament.
How is a government formed? In Israel’s 67-year history, no party has ever won an outright majority of 61 seats, and the country has always been governed by a coalition. After the vote, Israel’s president meets with party leaders to determine who has the best chance of forming a government. The president then taps the head of that party, usually but not necessarily parliament’s largest, to undertake that task. That person will have up to six weeks to form a coalition. If successful, he or she becomes prime minister; if not, the president chooses another party to try. The president could also ask the leaders of the two biggest parties to form a unity government.
What are the election-day logistics? There are 5,881,696 eligible voters. Most of the 10,119 polling stations across the country open at 7 a.m. (1 a.m. eastern) and close at 10 p.m. (4 p.m. eastern). Exit polls will be released immediately after voting ends, and official results will trickle in throughout the night. Voter turnout in the last election in 2013 was 67.8 percent. Election Day is a national holiday, and most workers have the day off.
What are Israel’s demographics? Population: 8.2 million, of whom 75 percent (6.2 million) are Jews, 20 percent (1.7 million) are Arabs and the rest are classified as “others,” most of them non-Jewish immigrants. Per capita GDP is $36,051.
David M. Weinberg
Israel Hayom, Mar. 13, 2015
It is absolutely astonishing how one man can be responsible for so much misery. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: It is all his fault. Netanyahu is to blame for the high cost of living in Israel. One can cavalierly hurl this accusation only by blithely ignoring Netanyahu's fundamental economic achievements.
The fact that Netanyahu has kept Israel's economy robustly healthy from a macro-economic perspective, despite the ravages of global economic crisis; the fact that he has kept unemployment and inflation at an unprecedented low, and GDP and foreign reserves high, despite great strains on the public purse; the fact that his governments introduced free day care and dental services and negative tax programs for the lower and middle classes, while simultaneously having to dramatically increase the military budget as the Arab world crumbled and new threats skyrocketed — these stark realities are not relevant.
Netanyahu is to blame for the fact that chocolate pudding desserts are more expensive in Israel than they are in Germany. Another political leader — any leader, socialist or populist — would have magically brought down the cost of chocolate pudding as well as the cost of housing for all young families in Israel while easily ensuring true economic stability and prosperity for Israel. It's so simple. Obviously, in a post-Netanyahu era no factories in Israel's south will find themselves in financial difficulty. And if they do, a different political party will be there to generously bail them out with plenty of public cash (and that won't come at the expense of the planned handouts to young middle class couples). It's so obvious and simple.
According to many hypocritical critics, Netanyahu is to blame for Iran's near nuclear status. He should have put his money where his mouth was and bombed Qom and Isfahan three years ago, when he had a chance, before U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected. These are the same critics who admonished Netanyahu all along to work with the administration and not take independent military action. And these are the same critics who would accuse Netanyahu of inflaming the region and precipitating a broader conflict if he were to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. Either way, it's Netanyahu's fault. He is simply irresponsible and unreliable. Always has been and always will be.
Perhaps we should also blame Netanyahu for Obama's progressive and pro-Islamist worldview, which seeks to give Iran a role as a "very successful regional power"? (Yes, Obama actually said this recently). If only Netanyahu had been willing to concede land to the Palestinians, you know, Obama would have been tougher with the Iranians. The same goes for the (badly mislabeled) Arab Spring upheavals, and the consequent instability on Israel's southern and especially northern borders. If only Netanyahu had been more diplomatically accommodating, you know, the al-Qaida types who now inhabit Sinai and the Syrian Golan would have become sedate and satisfied neighbors.
But don't worry, once Netanyahu is out of office and more refined Israeli leaders take the helm, the lamb shall lie down with the lion and the radical Islamist monsters will retreat. Perhaps even Syrian President Bashar Assad will catch the "kinder, gentler" bug from Israel's new leaders and stop slaughtering his people. There is no peace with the Palestinians because of Netanyahu, right? Never mind that he froze settlements for a long time and was willing to negotiate major territorial compromises on the basis of the Obama-Kerry 1967-lines-with-land-swaps rubric. Never mind that the Palestinian Authority fled these negotiations, cut a unity deal with Hamas, and is running around the world seeking to demonize and criminalize Israel and to ram through unilateral "recognition" of Palestinian "statehood." Despite all this, Netanyahu gets the sole blame.
Netanyahu is to blame for tensions between Jewish and democratic principles that have come to the fore in recent years. It's not the fault of super-activist judges who have sought time and time again to sideline the Jewish underpinnings of our legal system, or of ultra-liberal attorney generals and legal advisers working to this end in lockstep with an unbalanced Supreme Court. It is Netanyahu who has unleashed dark demons of radical conservative thinking on such critical constitutional matters.
The fact that it was Avi Dichter and Tzipi Livni of Kadima who first introduced a Jewish nation-state bill into Knesset — a bill designed to anchor Israel's Jewish values in concrete constitutional form, worded in a way that was much more far-reaching than the version Netanyahu recently tried to advance — is conveniently ignored by the chattering classes. All's fair in the war on Netanyahu, and anything he touches is automatically retrograde or fascist.
The fact that the ultra-Orthodox are not serving in the Israeli army in sufficient numbers is Netanyahu's fault too. Of course, no Labor or Kadima-led government over the past 65 years did anything to arrest the mushrooming phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox non-service, nor did they ever make a serious attempt to amend the status quo in place since 1948 and to draft them. But that is not relevant. The responsibility for ultra-Orthodox draft-dodging lies solely with Netanyahu.
Wait! Didn't the outgoing Netanyahu government just pass a potentially-revolutionary haredi draft law? And isn't there a real danger that a new government led by opposition parties in coalition with the Ultra-Orthodox will roll back this important law? I guess that is not relevant in the overall gestalt that lays all ills at Netanyahu's doorstep.
My point is this: It has been a silly and nasty election season. Netanyahu's opponents have taken to ridiculously faulting him for the most far-fetched ills of this world, instead of accurately and intellectually critiquing him, in proportionate fashion, for his mistakes and weaknesses. All the hyperbolic blaming of Netanyahu ought to be taken with a grain of salt.
Shmuley Boteach
Algemeiner, Mar. 16, 2015
I thought this title was clever (but feel free to roll your eyes), conveying as it does the belief of some that should Bibi lose this election, Israel cannot be. Of course no single person is indispensable, as Jewish history has proved repeatedly.
However, what concerns me most about Bibi’s opponents, should they win this election, is their opposition to Jewish communities in the West Bank. Israel can hardly survive another Gaza on its Western border. The only thing that can prevent this from happening is a robust Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria. So I regard this as an existential issue.
Then there’s the issue of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Bibi is condemned for being too bellicose, too argumentative, too paranoid, and too prickly in his relationship with President Obama. To all those who believe this, I remind you of the famous saying of baseball great Yogi Berra: “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” We who have fought alongside Bibi in the American media in his battle to bring an awareness of the dangers of Iran to the American people and its lawmakers have likewise been accused of fear mongering. But does one take a chance with a government like Iran?
The real question is whether Yitzchak Herzog and Tzipi Livni will have a better relationship with President Obama than Netanyahu has. No doubt they will. But only if they do not defy the President’s wishes, as Bibi has done. Had Netanyahu kowtowed to the President’s wishes, no doubt they too would have been best buds. So, if Herzog comes out against the President’s deal with Iran one can imagine the President will be as annoyed with him as he is with Bibi. The same is true if Herzog allows the expansion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
So capitulation to President Obama’s wishes might be the price a new Israeli Prime Minister pays to be in the President’s good graces. This is a curious facet of the President’s relationship with Israel — especially in that it does not pertain to other world leaders. Last week The New York Times reported that President Obama feels close to President Erdogan of Turkey, at least he did up until recently. Now, Erdogan has certainly never listened to much of what the President has wanted. He has not closed the border to Syria. He has not joined in the fight against ISIS. He has not even allowed Turkish air bases to be used in the campaign against ISIS. Still, the President has the cordial relationship with Erdogan that he does have with Bibi and which he will presumably not have with Herzog if he does not accede to the President’s demands.
It seems equally curious that Israeli voters will choose a Prime Minister based on his relationship with President Obama, when our President only has about a year and a half left to his Presidency. What could President Obama accomplish in that period?
Well, he can sign the catastrophic deal with Iran. That would be about the worst of it. As far as getting Israel to sign a final-status treaty with the Palestinians, that seems highly unlikely. Hamas remains an unrepentant terror group committed to a genocide of the Jewish People. Mahmoud Abbas remains an unaccountable dictator, and who seems to have lost the mandate of his people now that he’s in the 10th year of a four-year term. So, who exactly is Israel going to sign the treaty with?
Also, will the President really convince the American people that a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians is our country’s most important Middle Eastern priority when ISIS is running around chopping people’s heads off and Syria, Libya, and Yemen continue to totally implode?
In the larger scheme, as well, it seems odd that any country would choose a leader based first and foremost on how they get along with the leader of another country. Shouldn’t the priority be to choose who’s best for your own country?
I recognize that many Israelis believe that Israel’s most important security issue is its relationship with the United States. And indeed, my country, the United States, is benevolent, loving, and supportive of Israel. But leaning too instinctively on America seems antithetical to one of Zionism’s primary values — that of Jewish independence. As Netanyahu beautifully argued at the UN, what makes Israel different for Jews is that — for the first time in 2,000 years — Jews are defending themselves. They are not dependent on a Prince, a Pope, or a President for their protection. They are not supplicants. On the contrary, they have built a world-class defense establishment, and are the ultimate guarantors of Jewish safety.
And besides, it’s not just the President who determines the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. There is also Congress, which, under this President, is becoming more assertive and vocal, as we’ve seen with the recent letter of 47 Senators to the leadership of Iran.
Tuesday’s election is being portrayed as a referendum on Netanyahu. And perhaps it is. But of much greater importance: whether Israelis vote for Bibi or for Bougie, this election will be a referendum on how Israel sees itself. The choices are stark. Israel is either a nation whose first consideration must be what will please the American president. Or, Israel is a sovereign nation whose first consideration must be what is good for the Israeli people, even as Israel pays homage to its great friend in the West.
To be or not to be is the ultimate existential question. And in 2015, that question for Israel is more stark than ever before.
A HOUSE UNDIVIDED: ISRAEL'S NEW CONSENSUS POLITICS
Emanuele Ottolenghi
National Interest, Mar. 16, 2015
Israelis go to the polls on March 17, and in a time-honored tradition, international pundits are hoping for a political earthquake. This ballot, they say, will finally and completely determine whether Israel ever makes peace with the Palestinians, whether its inter-communal tension will devolve into civil war and whether it can stop an Iranian nuclear bomb before it is too late. However, it is likely that, like most of Israel’s preceding elections, this one will bring incremental rather than apocalyptic change, and Israel’s domestic, regional and foreign situation will remain largely the same as it had been before.
This is not to say that Israeli elections are inconsequential. The rise of Menachem Begin and his Likud party to power in 1977 brought an end to five and a half decades of Labor-movement dominance before and after Israel’s independence. The 1977 upset—known to Israelis as the Ma’apach, or upheaval—inaugurated a 24-year period of competition between left and right, where right-of-center coalitions battled with their left-of-center counterparts, and during a six-year stalemate, had to cohabit under grand coalitions aptly named national-unity governments.
The coalition dynamics of that period may appear preferable to the current proliferation of personality cults, short-lived splinter parties and ad-hoc alliances, but it also reflects greater polarization within Israeli politics than at present. During that era, Israel witnessed the rise of the settlement movement and its polar opposite, Peace Now; it launched the 1982 Lebanon War, survived a financial crisis and hyperinflation; and confronted the First Palestinian Intifada, or uprising (1987-1993).
The 1992 elections restored Labor to power and ushered in direct negotiations between Israel’s Labor-led coalition and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The issue was so divisive, however, that it dominated elections in the 1990s to the exclusion of other issues. Israel lived through the drama of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination and, in what became known as the Second Intifada, suffered through the first wave of mass suicide terror attacks inside its population centers.
Ultimately, the Oslo Accords’ peace dividends were elusive. The traumatic impact of the Second Intifada still accompanies Israel’s collective psyche, and the 2001 and 2003 elections delivered a sound defeat to the pro-Oslo leadership. The collapse of negotiations and the Second Intifada undid Israel’s left but did not move Israel to the right. In fact, the dynamics of Israeli politics have since had one constant element in common—gravitation towards the political center.
The prevalence of right-of-center politicians and coalitions is deceptive. For starters, Israelis have reached a near wall-to-wall consensus on the enormity of the Iranian nuclear threat. Netanyahu’s Bar-Ilan speech in 2009—where he grudgingly accepted the notion of a Palestinian state—reads almost like the Labor platform that carried Rabin to victory in 1992 and formed the prelude to the Oslo process. If many voters moved to the right, in other words, it is also because right-wing politicians have met them halfway in the center.
A victory for the left-of-center alliance of ex-ministers Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog may change some, but not all, of the parameters of Israel’s regional and foreign policy. Some of their likely partners—the Yesh Atid party of the former celebrity newscaster Yair Lapid, Kulanu of ex-Likud minister Moshe Kahlon, and at least one religious party—are the same interlocutors that Netanyahu would court in his own efforts to form a coalition.
New parties have risen, triumphed, and disintegrated so quickly that it is hard to keep track of mergers and splinters. Despite the erosion of support for both Likud and Labor, Israeli politics have developed around a new national consensus that wants cautious leaders to navigate the geostrategic horizon prudently. Israelis are keen to reach a compromise with the Palestinians but despair of having one given ongoing Palestinian incitement and terror, the presence of Iranian proxies at Israel’s borders, and regional turmoil left unchecked by a retreating American superpower.
Increasingly, Israelis regard more ideological proponents of the settlements project with suspicion, but are loath to renounce strategic settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley to a Palestinian society increasingly dominated by Islamic extremists. Crucially, they have little faith in the Palestinian Authority’s ability to prevent a West Bank a replay of the scenario that followed the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip ten years ago—with thousands of rockets indiscriminately launched at its civilian centers. That is why, ultimately, whoever wins will have to embrace that consensus and govern from the center.
There’s the rub. Those who view Israel’s elections as a clash of titans on which the fate of Zionism depends fail to see how stable the Israeli political system is. The truth is less exciting and more mundane…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Israeli Elections: Decision Time (or Not): Natan B. Sachs, Brookings, Mar. 16, 2015 —One day away from the Israeli elections, the race is too close to predict; when the polls close Tuesday night, it may still be too close to call.
A Churchill for Our Times: Thomas Sowell, National Review, Mar. 17, 2015 —When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on March 3rd, it was the third time he had done so.
Dysfunctional Likud: Gerald Steinberg, Jerusalem Post, Mar. 16, 2015—Regardless of the results of the elections on Tuesday and the coalition negotiations that will follow, it is clear that the Likud, as a national political party, is largely dysfunctional.
Election Day Israel 2015: Drybones Blog, Mar. 17, 2014
A Most Uninspiring Campaign: Gil Troy, Montreal Gazette, Mar. 14, 2015 —Two videos frame the March 17 Israeli elections.
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