Archive for the ‘Israeli politics’ Category
Shootout at the OK Gevald
Posted on: August 9, 2022
Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of the #Israelex5 Blog at the Weekend Holyland Update, brought to you live, with the style for which we strive, by Kedem Productions and GangstaYid Inc, straight from the sweltering concrete jungle of southeastern Tel Aviv.
A lot has happened since our latest dispatch, and while mine own energy levels have been suffering from the stupor-inducing summer temperatures, that hasn’t stopped events from rambling on, to include a brief performance of the annual bloodletting ritual.
As all the official babble, and much of the media coverage, has blathered the usual cliches about Israel’s right to defend itself, the right of its citizens to be free of rocket fire, and blah blah some more, perhaps a brief recap of this proactive, Israeli-instigated short shoot-up show is in order:
In the early morning hours of August 2nd, IDF forces raided the West Bank Palestinian city of Jenin (as they frequently do) and arrested several men wanted for terrorism (ditto), including one Bassam a-Saadi, an operative of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine (IJP) who, whether it was necessary or not, was documented being dragged by attack dogs as he was arrested.
Following this, Israel claimed to have intelligence of planned reprisals attacks by the IJP, and shut down traffic in the south of the country – roads, rail, summer camps, workplaces, events, the works. People in Israel were grumbling about this seemingly craven approach, and crowned the IJP the winners of this round without firing a shot.
But although Israel is stupid, it is yet to reach that nadir. Israel was planning all along (at least since arresting a-Saadi, who may have folded instantly under questioning) to assassinate a senior IJP commander in the Gaza Strip, southern sector commander Taysir al-Jaabari, which objective it carried out at 16:16 hours on Friday, August 5th. Having preemptively made sure there would be no civilians on the road for the IJP to target with their rockets and anti-tank launchers in reprisal, Israel was free to keep hammering the Gaza Strip and making withdrawals on its target bank, to the tune of 35 casualties, of which 11 were non-combatants (IDF’s count) or 46 casualties, of which 16 were non-combatants (Gaza Health Ministry’s count). More non-combatants seem to have been killed by the 200 or so IJP rockets that fell short of Israel, within the Strip. Of the app. 1,100 that did make it across the border separating Israel from its open-air prison, 95% were reportedly intercepted by the Iron Dome system, and the rest causing only some property damage and a total of three wounded from shrapnel and some others who were treated for bruises and anxiety.
So a great success for the interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid in his first baptism by fire (well, not his personally), right? Superficially, yes. It was a well-conducted operation, as such things go, with no funerals on Israel’s side of the border, and the polls (we’ll get to them below) reflect that. But what about the long term?
Well, if you want to be an optimist, there are signs that not everything about this latest round of shootin’ down folks and blowin’ stuff up with drones was same old, same old. For one, Hamas stayed out of it. The IJP, as the distant second place movement in the Gaza Strip* can be all purist and ideological, vowing to fight to the last man with the last pipe-bomb launcher, hiding under the last pile of rubble. Hamas, as the entity in power, has to actually govern in between skirmishes with Israel, and therefore it has to somewhat listen to what its people want, and what the people in the Gaza Strip wanted this summer was a respite from skirmishing. Hell, that’s what they want most of the time. Only when Israel pushes them too far do they truly support the futile defiance of hurling metal pipes out of fireworks launchers against a country that can darken the skies over their heads with drones carrying smart bombs – basically saying “fine, but your life gonna be disrupted for a lil bit too.” This time the vast majority in the Strip, according to what I’m reading, wanted nothing of the sort. This, beyond natural fatigue with the horrors of these extended bloodletting orgies that occur once every year or two, is a product of Israel smartly focusing its recent suppression efforts on the IJP, and working quietly to drive a wedge between the two Islamist terror groups (while Hamas is the actual representative of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Palestine, IJP is a more radical Brotherhood offshoot, much closer than Hamas to global jihadi movements such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh [ISIS].)
Haaretz analyst Zvi Bar’el wrote on Sunday that it is possible that one result of Israel’s assassination of Jaabari (and his counterpart, the southern sector commander) is that younger men will be promoted to these important positions who are a) less experienced, naturally, but more importantly, b) less aligned with the organization’s political leadership, which sits in Damascus and Beirut. This prediction may be borne out by the organization’s surprisingly mild response, after the ceasefire which ended three days of one-sided ass-whooping, to a pointed question about Hamas’s refusal to join in: “There are other ways to help than fighting.” When you’ve just been stomped, you can’t afford to fight with your infinitely big brother as well, I guess.
After falling for the same trap the IJP did and braying loudly about the shameful and cowardly shut-down that preceded the op, the opposition played nice once the guns got going, and rallied behind the government during the weekend military excursion, with Netanyahu finally deigning to show up to a security briefing (it’s mandatory for him as Opposition Leader, and he’s refused to do it for a year so as not to have his cultists see him accord another man PM props). As soon as the ceasefire was declared it was back to business as usual, with all kinds of bitchmoanplainin’ about how Lapid and Defense Minister Gantz dared to be photographed doing their jobs and looking all leader-like in election time. A Bibi mouthpiece named Yaakov Bardugo tweeted stupidly that the Lapid government is leading a “stupid trend” of differentiating Hamas from the IJP. So no, dividing your enemies is actually wise. Problem is, Israel already pulled that with the PLO vs. Hamas – and didn’t use its success to actually do business with the more moderate wing of the broken wishbone. So why should we expect any different in Gaza?
Meanwhile, since the media must have its heroes after a shoot-up, even one that’s really fish in a barrel[1], the “hero” dujour is an IDF shero, who bragged to the media about shooting an unarmed man descending an IJP guard tower on the other side of the border – just shot him, for no reason, no threat, no action, no nothing. But it was open season, so it’s somehow cool. It’s a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh wounds in the world aren’t gonna change that.
So much for the shootin’. You can take a breath, a sip, a toke or whatever before continuing to the intra-Jewish politics below.
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[1] (if Hamas is like David compared to Israel’s Goliath, the IJP is David’s addle-brained baby brother who can barely grasp a sling, let alone use it)
Pretty Boy Fails To Revive Flagging Zionist Spirit
There’s a new alliance in town, and according to initial polls, its seemed to actually be doing its job and dragging the corpse of Yamina across the electoral threshold in the polls. But recall Ran Shimoni’s point – no union of existing actors ever exceeded its initial polling, which means there’s every chance in the world that even with Yoaz Hendel’s “Derech Eretz” party, Yamina will still fall short of the goal line. More recent polls indeed have the new bloc, titled “Zionist Spirit” polling at about 2.6% – far short of the 3.5% of the vote needed.
Who’s Yoaz Hendel, you ask? He’s a dashingly handsome naval commando alum, grew up with a knit skullcap but took it off in his youth. Worked for Bibi’s PM’s Office and resigned in protest when Bibi flouted the court ruling, that said his chief of staff Nathan Eshel, who was caught practicing the sexual offense known as upskirt photography, should be banned from public service. Eshel officially resigned but remained as an unofficial advisor to Bibi and a heavyweight power in “court,” and Hendel correctly said “Fuck that.”
But since this display of fine moral spine, Hendel’s conscience has proved far more limber in terms of political loyalty. His adventures in electoral politics began when he and the Frack to his Frick, Zvi Hauser (who likewise quit Bibi’s inner circle due to Upskirtgate) joined their new and untested “Derech Eretz” party to former IDF Chief Moshe ‘Bogie’ Ya’alon, who also formed a new party called Telem, ahead of the 2019 elections (the first of the current neverending cycle of them. There was one in ’19, two in ’20, one in ’21, and the upcomin’ scheduled for November 1st, 2022.)
Along with Ya’alon and Telem, Hendel and Hauser then joined forces with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Benny Gantz’s “Hosen L’Israel” and another former IDF Chief named Gabi Ashkenazi, to form Kachol-Lavan (“Blue and White”) – a brand now left in the exclusive control of Gantz. This alliance vied for electoral supremacy with Bibi’s Likud with considerable success, only breaking up in the third elections (late 2020) when Gantz stabbed his partners and voters in the back and joined Bibi with about half of the unified list’s MK’s – Hendel and Hauser among them, despite their leader, Ya’alon, going the other way.
Then the two jumped ship again and joined Gideon Saar’s New Hope (“Tikva Hadasha”), and now they’re fleeing that host (which united with Gantz, who they already burned and who carries a grudge) and latching on to the dying cadaver of Yamina, which for the first time in all its iterations over the past decade or so, does not have a single religious person in a realistic spot on the list. They’re keeping the 3rd spot open for outgoing Religious Affairs Minister, Matan Kahane – but he already spurned the offer in such disdainful terms, I can’t see him swallowing it and reneging.
Which brings us to another desertion from the listing ship of New Hope, which as the mindful reader may recall, united with Benny Gantz’s Blue and White to form the third largest bloc in Knesset, with 14 seats in the current Knesset and 11-14 in the polls for the next. MK Michal Shir, a long-time ally and follower of New Hope Chairman Saar, announced that she is taking her seat and MK’s funding unit and going over to Lapid’s Yesh Atid. Her reason, btw, is quite hilarious. “Benny Gantz is a socialist leftist” (‘scuse me, as Jimi said, while I fix to die laughin, cause Benny the Goose Boy is about as socialist as Milton Friedman; carry on) and some more shade about how he isn’t fit to be PM (which is what he is explicitly aiming for, and not unrealistically as things are shaking out) and how Yesh Atid “reminds her of the old-school Likud” (i.e. before it was taken over by thugs and religios and Judonazis).
On the left, Zehava Galon did indeed come back to stand for leadership (as predicted by this fine and friendly family feature) and save the day, and the polls give Meretz under her leadership a whole seat more than under dumbass IDF he-man Yair “Being called a lefty is like being called the N-word” Golan. I’ll be shocked if he comes close to beating her. By close I mean 40%.
The upshot of all this is, according to the polls, that if Yamina does indeed clear the bar and get in with 4 seats, or even 3[2], Bibi will have his parliamentary majority, with Judonazis as his senior partner.
Bibi Didn’t Know!
In other news: The defendant Benjamin Netanyahu was under questioning again, this time not as a defendant but under implicit warning. This questioning took place in connection with the Meron Festival disaster, where 45 pilgrims were crushed to death in a stampede in April 2021 due to overcrowding, a shoddily constructed stand collapsing, and a lack of regulation and oversight undergirding both those factors. Bibi was PM at the time and despite the panel of the inquiry commission showing him more and more instances of communications to him on the subject over the years (this is an annual event that just keeps getting bigger), he kept insisting that he never saw them, that this is low-level stuff that simply doesn’t reach the actual PM’s actual eyes. Thus, even when presented with “The PM’s response to the State’s Comptroller Report,” which mentioned conditions at Meron being ripe for calamity, he insisted that “it’s called the PM’s answer, but in practice it’s written by someone in the office. I didn’t see it.”
What did he see? COVID-related stuff! As there was, somehow, no epidemiological disaster at the festival – it somehow didn’t become a super-spreader event – Netanyahu took a victory lap. And the 45 dead? That’s somebody else’s department, see.
And as us Jews continue our interminable petty squabbles about the precise flavor of the regime of Jewish supremacism in this land, we have (in addition to the spree of carnage in Gaza) continued killing Palestinians in the occupied territories at the clip of 2-3 per week (most recently: An elderly, unarmed mental patient and a 15 year-old boy), and our Supreme Court overturned its own ruling from two years ago, and in an expanded panel ruled that private Palestinian land, stolen for the purposes of creating a settlement outpost that’s illegal even under Israeli laws, does not have to be returned to its owners if settlers are already living on it, because said court ruled that the land was stolen “in good faith” (i.e. the thieves didn’t know it was private property, and thought it was merely public Palestinian land they were appropriating in the name of God’s master race.) The court did pay lip service about how future cases will be held to a high bar of “good faith,” but this one the gonifs get away with.
Post bloodletting polls:
Likud 33 (-2)
Yesh Atid (Lapid) 23 (+2)
JudoNazis 11 (+1)
Blue&White / New Hope (Gantz & Sa’ar) 12 (-)
Shas (Sephardic Ultra Orthodox) 8 (-)
United Torah Judaism (Ashkenazi UO) 7 (-)
Joint List (most Arab parties) 6 (-)
Israel Beiteinu (Finance Minister and crook and possible Russian spy Avigdor Liberman) 5 (-)
Labor 5 (-1)
Meretz 4 (-1)
United Arab List (Islamists, were in the last coalition) 4 (-)
Zionist Spirit: Does not make it in 2/3 polls.
Blocs: Bibi Yay 59, Bibi Nay 51, Arabs in the Middle 10
So much for this long-delayed installment, which all you good patrons of this fine and friendly family feature have been patiently awaiting. Don’t forget to tip (be it in the form of dineros or comments, or a share on your preferred public media) on the way out. Till the next time.
[2] Mathematically possible but practically not really
- In: Israel | Israeli politics
- Comments Off on Weekend Holyland Update – How to Win By Not Playing
Welcome to installment number 1 of your ongoing GangstaYid Guide [TM] to Israelex number five, brough to you live with a modicum of jive from the tenements of south-east Tel Aviv.
A week after elections were announced, Israel’s political deadlock remains supposedly intact. Why supposedly? Because according to the latest polls, Netanyahu’s bloc has 57 seats (out of 120) – without outgoing PM Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party, which has 4.
We have to recall that Yamina was never in the “Never Bibi” camp. Throughout the 4 election campaigns over a year and a half, Yamina was considered part of Netanyahu’s bloc, and naturally so. Only when, after the fourth round of elections, Bibi had no coalition even with Yamina on his side, did Bennett shrug and say “Yeah, I figure even me with six (shaky-ass) seats behind me as PM is better than indefinite elections.” Now that Yamina’s projected 5 votes push the right-wing bloc over the top, Bennett won’t be able to justify not going with it, even if he were so inclined – which he really isn’t. or didn’t use to be.
At stake in these elections is nothing less than the continued existence of a semblance of democracy – if only for Jews – in the State of Israel. Should Netanyahu prevail, and manage to put together a stable coalition, the campaign to dismantle what’s left of Israel’s rule of law will return with a vengeance, as will all manner of fascist – or, ironically, Bolshevik/Zhdanovist – persecution of opponents. This is no longer just inborn inclination and the nature of the populist/fascist beast. This is about his personal survival outside a prison cell.
Then again, the only hope for the defendant NOT prevailing, is a continuation of an unnatural hybrid coalition, consisting of parties who agree on precious little save the need to keep Netanyahu out of power, paralyzed insofar as meaningful reforms of the country’s ills are concerned.
At the heart of this paralysis, of course, is the problem of the occupation, which relegates any and all civilian issues to secondary importance. The “Zionist Left” is Zionist first and Left second, and doesn’t dare truly rock the boat on core issues pertaining to the occupation. For proof, look no further than the vote on extending the West Bank regulations and the general state of emergency regulations (which have been in effect continuously since the state’s founding in 1948.) Any true left would naturally vote against both of these fascist, apartheid laws. And yes, yes, of course, Meretz and Labor only voted in favor due to coalitionary obligations. They were dying to vote against. Sure. We could tell.
Anyway, the political horse race goes on regardless of this fundamental inability to shit or get off the pot, and Bennett has a novel way at his disposal to impact the race – by not running. See, if Bennett was banking on his gamble to become Prime Minister with such a coalition of opposites resulting, after the anticipated furor (he just didn’t expect all the intensity thereof) – that after that his majestic leadership would shine through, taking him back to electoral significance – that ain’t happen. His party, Yamina, is clinging to dear life in the polls with five seats and under, with the threshold at four. I’m trying hard to figure out who, precisely, those five seats-worth of voters are, who still wanna vote for this shit-show called Yamina. Maybe those are Bennett’s reward. See, Bennett, looking at the map, having already run and finished out of Knesset once before a year and a half ago – is not terribly eager to run and bear the slings and arrows of outrageous and deranged foes, whose foaming at the mouth and unhinged incitement has already put his family in real jeopardy, all just to find himself with more or less the same fools. So his best play just might be to sit this one out, deprive Bibi of the easy “Bennett the traitor” target to run against, and more importantly – more than likely ensure that Yamina won’t cross the threshold, leaving Bibi’s projected coalitionary bloc at 60 or under – just like at the start of this whole mess.
Recent polls, if you like ‘em (current number of seats in parentheses):
Likud (Bibi Netanyahu) 34 (30)
Yesh Atid (Yair Lapid, centrist, anti Bibi): 21 (17)
Religious Zionism (Jewish Nazis): 9 (6)
Kahol-Lavan (“Blue and White”. Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz. Center-right): 8 (8)
Shas (Ultra-Orthodox Sephardic1, pro-Bibi): 7 (9)
Torah Judaism (Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi2, pro-Bibi): 7 (7)
Labor (Center-left, the sad remnants of the founders of the country): 7 (7)
Joint List (most Arab parties, running together, with the communists holding the internal majority): 6 (6)
Israel Beiteinu (Former bar bouncer and dirty as hell, lacky of Putin Avigdor Liberman, representing mostly older immigrants from the former USSR, outgoing Finance Minister but not at all as sure a bet in the Block-Bibi-bloc as some seem to think): 5 (7)
Yamina (Bennett’s party, Right-wing. More’n half religious, less than half not. Began falling apart at the seams immediately upon formation of the “change government,” and is solely responsible – forget what they tell you about the Arab lady from Meretz or the ones from the United Arab List – for the collapse thereof. Will go with Bibi if he has 61 with their votes): 4 (6)
Meretz (Leftish. Zionist over left, can be relied upon not to go with Bibi): 4 (6)
Tikva Hadasha (“New Hope” – led by Gideon Sa’ar, outgoing Minister of Justice who failed to deliver his promised “Defendant’s Law” [prohibiting anyone indicted for a felony from forming a government]. Former Likud bigwig. Left after a failed leadership bid. Fairly dependable to not go with Bibi): 4 (6)
United Arab List (“Raam” or UAL hereinafter – the Muslim Arab party, headed by Mansour Abbas, the first person to lead a real Arab party into a coalition): 4 (4)
That’s 57-57 between current coalition and opposition parties, with (current opposition but won’t sit with Bibi) the Joint List holding the balance with 6. But Yamina, despite being counted in the anti-Bibi column, will not – as I’ve already said – deny him a majority if he has one with their votes. So the truth is that Bibi currently holds a razor-slim 61-59 majority… but that’s before the shake-out if Bennett, as is seeming increasingly likely, sits this one out. Let’s see where the polls point then.
Until then, thank you for flying GangstaYid. Kindly comment below, and if you really liked it – kindly share! Thank ye, thank ye.
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1 – Mostly Brown to Black Jews from (mostly) brown to black countries
2 Paler Jews from mostly white countries
The Great Speech Drinking Game
Posted on: March 3, 2015
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Israeli Elections, Pt. 5
Welcome back to this fine educational family feature. I apologize for the long time since the last post, but there were people shoving money at me and the bills don’t pay themselves.
As can be expected from the first half of the last month of the campaign, there has been much going on, from Bibi’s personal housing troubles to a scathing report by the State Comptroller about the performance of Bibi, and the administration before him, in handling Israel’s oppressive housing price bubble. Housing prices have doubled over the last decade while wages, of course, have come nowhere near that level of growth, leaving people to spend ever more of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. Bibi’s initial reaction, via Twitter, was priceless: “While we talk about the cost of living, I do not for one moment forget life itself. The greatest challenge to our very lives is a nuclear Iran.” And surely, comrades, you don’t want Jones to get the bomb!
All this (and the hilarious 20 minute video in which Bibi’s wife shows a celebrity designer how shabby and not at all extravagant and out of touch the official residence supposedly is [she showed him mostly the work and staff spaces, not the plusher upstairs living quarters]) deserves a post of its own. But as tomorrow is the Bibull in the China Shop show, it is more urgent to say a few words about the speech, Iran and the dread Ayatollah Nuke.
The Great Speech Theory of History
As for the speech, there is a simple point which I feel is overlooked: The line pushed by those who support the speech is currently: Whatever you feel about how the speech was handled, the issue is too important to let that get in the way. But the reality is that the whole point of this speech is to convince Congress to go against White House policy on the issue, and so the how becomes crucial. Netanyahu is far from ignorant of American politics, even if his conceptions of it belong somewhere in the early 90s at the latest. He knows that Republicans alone cannot win it for him.
Sure, theoretically they have majorities in both chambers and can push through a bill rejecting the as-yet undeclared Iran deal (ignoring for the sake of argument that the Democrats in the Senate can stall anything they want to enough). President Obama has promised to veto such a bill. So you need two thirds in each chamber to overcome that. That means a lot of Democrats. By conniving with Speaker John Boehner to engineer the invitation to speak before Congress as a dis of the White House, timed to steal Obama’s positive domestic momentum, and later by dissing an invitation from Democratic lawmakers to explain himself to them, Netnayahu has made it absolutely impossible to find enough Democrats to agree to overturn a Democratic President’s veto on on issue that has been purposely turned into a partisan pissing contest.
There are two main ways to explain Netanyahu’s insistence in the face of all this:
1) He has a romantic, not to say magical, belief in the power of a speech (not just any speech, but one by his own Winston-Reincarnated self) to overcome the stark political considerations laid above. It’s not the information he has to offer – that can and is disseminated to lawmakers on an individual basis with no need for a public showdown with the administration. Rather, he expects that the impact of the spectacle will be such that Democratic lawmakers will be left with no choice but to ride the overwhelming popular sentiment created by The Speech.
2) He knows that the actual effort will fail. Bibi (as well as many others, of course) has been talking about the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran for over a decade now. Each year has been the crucial, fateful, make-or-break year on the issue, coming and going without making or breaking, only for the following year to be declared the one over and over again. Now, personally I believe that while it’s necessary to take steps against such a development, ultimately it’s useless to try to prevent a country like Iran from getting nuclear weapons if it really wants them. Iran is too populous, educated and rich a country for that. I know all about their economic problems but the regime has and always will have enough cash at its disposal. If dirt-poor, less advanced Pakistan can get a bomb, you’re not stopping the #2 petrol giant in the world from getting one. Not forever anyway.
The Cassandra Gambit
So, to return to the mighty orator, he knows that either a deal with Iran or Iran finally crossing the whatever technical threshold is now inevitable. He does not expect his speech to move enough Democrats to block the deal. He will ignore the fact that it was inevitable anyway, and position himself as the unheeded prophet of doom (glossing over the fact that he failed in six years at the helm in preventing said inevitability, despite selling himself in both elections as the only man for this specific job). Finally, He will ignore that, Iran’s breakthrough having been inevitable with or without the deal, the deal will mean the difference between the same danger with and without an inspection and early-warning regime. What’s important is that someday Iran will have the bomb, be it officially acknowledged or like Israel, on an everyone knows “obscurity” basis, and Bibi will be able to run around, his few remaining hairs blowing Cassandra-like in the breeze, and bray: TOLDJA!
And domestically? There’s a narrow plurality, within the margin of error, for those in favor of the speech here in Israel over those who oppose it (47%-42% I think). Problem is the issue itself ranks low on the “give-a-shit-meter” for most Israeli voters. So any expectation that this will deliver an extra seat or two that will seal a win seems farfetched to this humble observer.
That leads us, finally, to Netanyahu’s belated and panicking reaction to the fact that the America of 2015 is not the one he’s always prided himself on knowing so intimately, the one that is “very easy to move,” as he once bragged. Netanyahu apparently agrees with the more triumphalist demographic projections on the left, foreseeing a growing Democratic majority and a diminishing commitment to supporting Israel at all costs among young Americans – both the Jewish minority and the population in general. There have been reports that Bibi has “written off’ Obama. The way this speech has been handled, if we insist on ascribing it to more than a clusterfuck that got out of hand, implies that it’s not just Obama the PM has written off, but also the half or so of America that he represents. That’s a thought to drive many people to drink.
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I hope to write a separate campaign update, but while you devise a drinking game for for PM Oratoryahu’s great speech*, keep the above in mind. Thank you for hitching and please comment or donate before you leave.
* (Yeah, I clikbaited. Make up your own. Key words: Holocaust (+ any reference by date or euphemism), Jewish, Right to defend)
- In: Israel | Israeli politics
- 3 Comments
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the #IsraElex, Pt. 4
It’s been a week, but it seems like much more. The #IsraElex campaign has switched into high gear with a number of plot changes and issues big and small. Welcome back to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Israeli Elections.
The contender to replace Bibi’s Likud as the ruling party, Zionist Camp, has fired its campaign team and rolled out a new, much more aggressive line of ads, finally attacking Bibi’s record and not just saying “It’s Him or Us” and promising absurd nonsense like “Zero Poor Elderly Within A Year.”
The new billboard banner (rolled out for trial under the name of the party’s youth staff) reads: “Only a sucker votes for Bibi.” The determination not to be a sucker – a “Fry-yer” in Hebrew, – is considered to be the quintessential Israeli trait. Kinda ironic, if ya think about it…
Zionist Camp’s new svengali is ad man Reuven Adler, who last thumped Likud for Kadima and Olmert in 2006 and surprisingly outscored them for Kadima and Livni in 2009. (Livni then failed to form a coalition, so Bibi became PM, but Adler delivered in terms of electoral results, narrowly outdoing Likud by a seat.)
“One in three children are hungry – and he buys breakfast for 20,000 shekels. Only a sucker votes Netanyahu”
Stick It To The Eggheads
But this (Zionist Camp’s reboot) failed to grab top headlines in light of the beside-the-point stupid uproar du jour, or de la semaine as the case may be. The reigning Levy-weight champion of the world, Bibi Netanyahu. is anxious not to talk about his actual record OR plans for the future (the party has no platform for the upcoming elections and Bibi practically never takes questions from the press). So he masterfully created a lil tempest in a teapot that won’t lose him a single vote nor garner the opposition any.
The Israel Prize, the country’s highest civil award for accomplishments in arts and science/education, is awarded by a panel of judges, who are appointed by the Minister of Education. That portfolio is currently in the hands of the PM, as it was vacated by Shai Piron, a member of the centrist Yesh Atid party, when the coalition fell apart and early elections were called.
So Bibi, ignoring the supposed tradition that says that you don’t do drastic things in election time (a tradition often violated, as a glance at Israel’s military history can show), used his power as acting Minister of Education to dismiss two of the judges on the panel. His excuse was that the panel is a cabal of establishment academia, which of course means leftists, and he wishes to “open the process to other segments of society.”
Problem is that the Israel Prize isn’t provenly biased against right-wingers. Former Minister of Ed. Limor Livnat screeched that “Naomi Shemer [quintessential Israeli folk songwriter and composer), Moshe Shamir (intellectual novelist) and Ephraim Kishon (internationally beloved humorist) never got the prize cause they weren’t from the ‘correct’ side of the spectrum!!”.
You know how this ends, right? All three were awarded the Israel Prize, in 1983, 1988 and 2002 respectively. (No correction and apology issued from the venerable Ms. Livnat, who was taken to task by Shemer’s grandson on facebook). Now, the Israel Prize IS indeed severely biased – against women (only around 25 17%) and Mizrachim (Jews of Mideastern and North African descent, around 8% of all prize winners) and of course non-Jews (no Arabs ever save for one Druze). In other words it’s by and large a white male mutual admiration society. But that doesn’t get the base’s blood roiling as much as “damn secular lefty eggheads looking down on us patriotic folk,”
So Bibi got to pose a little to the base as taking care of the hated leftist conspiracy against good regular peeps (at the expense of Bennett, who is now averaging a disastrous no-gain), and got to spend another week away from anything that would really cause a groundswell against him.
Shrinking Left Hits Back
Meretz has decided to start fighting hard for the 1-2 seats that have left it for Zionist Camp. It began by hurling a nasty (but justified) one at Zcamp’s #2 Tzipi Livni for her many switched allegiances over the years (Left Likud for Kadima, left that after losing a leadership primary election, then to the “left” with Labor). A bit overdone with the alarmist AV, I thought, but the sentiment was right.
Flip Flop Blues
Finally Approaching touchdown, a hearing was held at the Knesset’s elections committee on motions to disqualify MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad/Joint Arab List) and Baruch Marzel (#42 on the Yachad list, heads the Judo-Nazi “Power to Israel” faction). The DQ passed by foregone conclusion. Now the Supreme Court decides). Zionist Camp, though, set records for flip-flopping on this issue. First they said they’d vote yes (contrary to their stance on the very same question two years ago), then the Arabs made it clear that this would have consequences the day after the elections so ZCamp said they were reconsidering. Then they voted yes anyway. Sad part? It’s utterly possible they garnered a vote or two by doing so. Blegh.
The Eternal Jew
This just in! And you gotta fuckin’ see it to believe it. People thought Bibi’s new “Zionist Camp will bring ISIS to your doorstep!!!!” video was offensive, but now the Samaria Settlers Council – the mainstream of Jewish Home’s base – have released this video. It’s subtitled in English so, um, enjoy, I guess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbyRb8fu44
The only thing that begs explanation is the name of the newspaper read by Mr Sturmer (Get it? Get it?). “Hasmol” means “The Left” in Hebrew. (In other news, a 75 year-old Jewish man in Paris was reportedly arrested for scribbling antisemitic graffiti. Dunno what brought that to mind.)
This is really what these elections are, or at least should be about – drifting closer to this insanity or making a serious course correction. The holocaust happened to all Jews on some level. The only difference is who has left the concentration camp behind and who’s still trapped in it.
Polls!
We gots lots and lots of new polls – 7 in the week since we last spoke – and the average numbers (rounded* to make exactly 120) are as follows:
Likud 25
Zionist Camp 24
Jewish Home 13
Joint Arab List 12
Yesh Atid 10
Kulanu 8
Shas 7
United Torah Jewry 7
Israel Beitenu 5
Meretz 5
Yachad (Shas’s ousted ex-boss and the Judo-nazis) 4
In terms of blocks: Right wing 42, left wing 41 (assuming the Arab List gets over the fact that Zionist Camp supported the motion to disqualify MK Hanin Zoabi from running this week…) with 37 left in play. Of these, Kulanu (8), Israel Beitenu (5), Shas (7) and UTJ (7) are considered more likely to cut a deal with Likud, giving Bibi enough for a coalition and a win. However, the religious parties have a huge grudge against Netanyahu, so they could be bought. Same for Kahlon, who left Likud to start his own party. Can’t see Liberman crowning a left-wing government. Maybe if Merertz is left out of it, which makes his contribution equal to his cost…
That was the update for this week, one month before the polls open. Keep visiting for more and thank you for flying the Hitchhiker skies**.
* Likud, Zionist Camp and Jewish Home are actually each polling one seat lower by just a bit. I rounded them up to make 120 seats.
** Your appreciation for the content can be shown by sharing, donating (top of the page to the right), or not least by commenting. Thanks.
Israel’s Left Loses Steam
Posted on: February 7, 2015
- In: Israel | Israeli politics
- 8 Comments
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Israeli Elections, Pt. 3
A good elections blog explains what you already know everyone’s talking about now. A great elections blog tells you what everyone will be talking about tomorrow, and explains that*. Judging by that standard, this fine educational feature did quite well with its last installment, edifying its readers about the V15 brouhahah a full news-cycle or so before Likud embarked on a major attack about it and made it headline news in virtually every website and blog discussing the elections.
So people are still talking about it, but there’s a new twist – only it too fails to rise to the level of real scandal. The right is claiming that V15 constitutes illegal campaign funding because the One Voice (“Kol Echad”) NGO that’s coordinating the PAC received donations from the American Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Now, this is true as far as it goes. However, the devil – or salvation, for the accused left – is in the details. Prior to the calling of new elections, One Voice wasn’t in the business of calling for a change of government. It was (and is) dedicated to mobilizing public opinion in favor of the two-state solution. Before elections were called, it wasn’t calling on people to replace Netanyahu. It was calling on people to petition him as the man in charge in favor of action towards of a certain policy – one that Netanyahu professes to endorse as well, mind.
It was as such that One Voice received donations from the US government via its Tel Aviv embassy – which is fine since the two-state solution is openly a cornerstone of the US vision for the region. The last such donation was received 6 months ago – long before elections were called. Since One Voice has transformed into a partisan entity (Semi-. They don’t endorse a specific candidate, but rather call on the public to vote for any party left of Likud so that a more peace-process-oriented government can be elected), it has not received any donations from any foreign government, including the US.
All that notwithstanding, Likud has kept its slender lead in the polls, averaging precisely 25 in the 5 new polls since we last spoke. Zionist Camp, which flubbed its economic platform rollout this week (see more below), is averaging just a tad under 24. Full poll averages and calculations at the end of this dispatch.
Don’t Hide Your Stars
While Likud has been enjoying its resurgence in the polls and mostly avoiding any self-caused injuries, Zionist Camp had a pretty bad week which illustrated its embarrassing lack of an actual campaign. Early in the week it held a press conference to reveal its economic program, crafted by the party’s outsider candidate for Finance Minister, Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg.
Alongside the man himself – no big favorite among the base, not a significant draw to any part of the electorate – were the two leaders of the list, Labor’s Yitzhak Herzog and HaTnua’s Tzipi Livni. Conspicuously absent: All the hot social justice stars who placed 2-3-4 in the Labor’s primaries, long-term worker’s rights advocate (and former Labor Chairwoman) Shelly Yechimovich and two of the top 5 figures of the massive 2011 social protests, Stav Shaffir and Itzik Shmuli.
When asked as to their absence, Herzog glibly said that “they’re not here because they weren’t invited.” He totally didn’t seem to get that this does not speak well of whoever did the not-inviting.
Watch Stav Shaffir rip the right a new one in Knesset and tell me if you’d be hiding that on the campaign trail…
Don’t Join The Herd
The contender party further alienated its base by joining in the demands to disqualify MK Hanin Zoabi (of Arab-nationalist Balad and the Joint Arab List) from standing for election. Why? The usual. She’s a traitor etc, etc. Now, Zoabi does delight in seeing how close she can skirt the letter of the law without crossing it (and sometimes in bluntly ignoring it to do what’s right in her eyes, using her parliamentary immunity to get away with it).
However, painting her as a demon that simply must be exorcised from the body politic is an old obsession of the right. Just two years ago Herzog opposed the demand to bar her from running, saying “If you take out a brick, you dismantle the whole building. It’s a slippery slope.” What’s changed? Nothing significant. She’s made some very offensive statements, but nothing to compete with actually being on a ship trying to defy Israel’s blockade on Gaza – which wasn’t enough for the Supreme Court to accept her being DQ’ed by the Elections Committee last time.
What’s changed is that this time Herzog and Livni think they have to tack right to compete with Likud for the middle. I believe that is a wrong understanding of how electoral physics work. For a party in Zionist Camp’s position, what needs to be done is to clearly define itself as an alternative to the two secular centrist Parties, let alone to Likud. Joining in the rabble cries to disqualify someone whose constituency regularly reelects, just because she really pisses us off with her opinions and dares to speak them, is not the way to do that. You want the crown, you better lead and hope folks follow. Not follow the herd.
Shadow On The Right
What else? On the far edges of the Jewish right, where stated legislative goals become nigh-on impossible to distinguish from the Nazi Nuremberg laws, the former Chairman of Shas (the Sephardi-religious party) Eli Yishai, who was forced out a couple of months ago, has joined forces with the extreme right wing forces of “Power to Israel”. Together, they are finally polling above the threshold and winning 4 seats– which causes a commensurate ripple of seat losses at least halfway across the electoral map (since there are now only 116 for everyone else).
The Casino Scandal That Wasn’t
Before we go to the numbers, on Thursday Haaretz ran a blog post by veteran columnist and regular contributor Uri Misgav, saying a “very senior Japanese official” claims that Netanyahu asked the Japanese government to abolish its long-standing policy and grant his sugar-daddy, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a license to open one of his cash-suck factories on Japanese soil. If true, this would be textbook corruption on a vile scale.
However, within less than a day the item was taken down – but no apology was issued. It’s been reported by some that Haaretz has caved to an Adelson threat – but not one of a lawsuit. See, in addition to blowing $3 million a month on a free daily that functions as a Bibi cheering section, Adelson also holds the fate of Haaretz in his hands.
How? Well you know that print newspapers are a dying, money-losing enterprise, and an elitist paper in a small country like Haaretz doubly so. Haaretz is kept afloat by the fact that Adelson pays to print his rag at Haaretz’s printing press.
But whatever the excuse, you don’t run that shit if you’re not prepared to defy the threats you know will come from the relevant parties. That is just not professional conduct. I actually believe it happened, but that’s not the point.
Finally, just to remind everyone what kind of person is at Israel’s helm: Bibi has announced that in an unprecedented move for a major (ruling!) party, Likud will not present an actual platform (the document that states what the party intends to do with the voter’s mandate). Why? “Because the media will use it to attack us”. Trust me, I’ll take care of you – but I can’t tell you how or my opponents will have a field day. Democracy, everyone! Big hand!
OK, polls** (average of the 5 new ones):
Likud 25, Zionist Camp 23, Jewish Home (hard right) 13, Joint Arabs 12, Yesh Atid+Kulanu (Jewish secular centrist parties) 19, Shas (Sephardic religious) 7, Torah Jewry (Ashkenazi religious) 7, Meretz 5, Yachad (nazi-like right wing) 4, Israel Beiteinu (right wing pretending to be center, embroiled in huge corruption case) 5
In bloc math it stands thus: Right wing 42, left wing 40 (with the Arabs in a blocking formation against Bibi), 38 up for grabs strewn in between. 61 needed to form a coalition, and in reality you want it more stable than that. Upon a closer look the left is in worse shape because Kulanu (8 seats as things stand now) and Israel Beiteinu (5) are considered to be more likely to cut a deal with Bibi than with Herzog. Shas (7) has actually announced this week it won’t sit in a “left-wing government” but as they like to say on Game of Thrones – Words are wind.
But there are 5.5 weeks left and much can change. I will do my best to keep you updated as it unfolds. Until then, thank you for reading. Please share and comment.
* Yes, I hear you, a great elections blog would publish more than once or even twice a week, and the way to get me to do that is to comment below. If you really want me to feel obligated (and if you appreciate the content to that extent) there’s a “donate” button at the top of the page…Most obliged.
** As usual, polling data courtesy of Project61 by my twitter buddy, the nice guy with the abhorrent views Nehemia Gerhshuni
- In: Israel | Israeli politics
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Israeli Elections, Pt. 2
Welcome once again.
Since we last spoke there have been weekend polls. Remember that 2-3 seat lead challenger Zionist Camp was enjoying over incumbent Likud? Gone. Polls show the two either tied at 26 or Likud leading 27-26. It’s way early, but we report the heartbeat of the campaign as it happens. The slim sliver of light in the polls for the left side lies not in Meretz’s court, as the Jewish left-wing party now seems closer to 5 seats than to 6. However, Zionist Camp has not lost any strength, and is rather solidifying at 26 across all three weekend polls.
Likud’s gains come mostly at the expense of its own flanker, right-wing Bayit Yehudi (“Jewish Home”), and at the expense of the two secular right-wing parties, former Likudnik Moshe Kahlon’s “Kulanu” (“All of us”) and former TV pretty-boy Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (“There is a future”). BY is down to 15, 14, and 12 – bad news for what was supposed to be the juggernaut of this election cycle. (See more below.)
Both Likud and Bayit Yehudi are attacking “the left” (this btw seems to be the gist of both their campaigns in general – we hate the left! We hate ’em more! etc,) this time for the existence of a nefarious group of donors (mostly American) and receivers (in Israel) named “V15”, plotting to effect democratic regime change against Bibi. (“Foreign money to sway the elections!!!” is the charge).
This is particularly rich coming from Bibi, whose donor list is massively tilted outside the country he’s fighting to stay in charge of. His sugar daddy is US multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who burns $3 mil a month to run a free daily mass-circulation newspaper dedicated to support of one single politician. Bayit Yehudi also get tons of their money from rich American and French Jews.
Used to be the right would claim the problem was that, unlike the right’s private (mostly Jewish, with the odd antisemitic “Pro-Israel” evangelist) donors, the left’s civil society foundations took money to influence Israel’s business from foreign governments (such as arms of [or mainly supported by] the European Union that exist to support causes outside Europe).
This time that dog won’t hunt, so they’re trying to cry that some of the political machinery that works for President Obama’s campaigns is suddenly helping the dastardly dread Left here in Israel. This would fly a tad better if the Prime Minister crying foul hadn’t just recently been seen in the process of letting the Republican Speaker of the House use his magen-david-tattooed dick to piss on said Democratic President…
Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day... 
Besides, ain’t nothing new about the political help either. Clinton’s team of Stanley Greenberg and Jimmy Carville (I love Jimmy) worked for Ehud Barak against Bibi in 1999. Republican super-adviser Arthur Finkelstein worked for Bibi since 1996.
Another scandal currently rocking the so-called start-up nation is known as BOTTLEGATE. Bibi’s wife, Sarah Netanyahu, has a long history of allegations of unstable and abusive behavior. With this scandal, for the first time, the claim is surfacing that the problem is alcoholism (rather than, as was suspected before, a mental-health condition she was refusing to take medication for).
Now this is gonna sound bizarre, but it’s true: Apparently the Prime Minister’s house buys a shitload of alcohol (in addition to large amounts of soft drinks of course). That’s not the point, although the numbers (spent mostly on one type of $22/bottle red wine) are kinda staggering ($25K over two years, but a peak of $12.5K over a 3-month period with no unusual entertaining patterns). Now the vino was bought on the taxpayer’s dime and in principle that’s fine. Point though is she’d have the staff collect the bottles, take them to the recycling plant like a good citizen – and pocket the cash.
I mean, the bottle deposit refund should go back to the actual payer, right? Not like the public coffer, but the Official Residence budget. At least that’s the way I (and the law, apparently) figure.
I’m sure it’s nice, but that comes out to quite a bit of wine.
Bibi and Sarah are rich. Their declared net worth is slightly over $10 million. That’s more here than it is in the US. He’s not the richest politician, but he’s done well for himself for someone who for most of the past 30 years has been earning a government salary and enjoys the high life. The idea of his wife scheming to cheat on bottle refunds seems outlandish – but we know that she “voluntarily” returned about $1,000 (4,000 shekels) worth of back deposit money. A guy who used to work at the residence (and is currently suing her for treating him like crap) claims that the real figure is probably closer to six time that amount over a 4-year period. Some would call it petty cash but, you know, WTF?
The other big story was Bennett’s scoring into the wrong goal. Twice. Bayit Yehudi were getting rave reviews (professionally-speaking) from knowledgeable observers for their campaign until last week, and Chairman Naftali Bennett apparently decided he could pull stuff from his backside and people would call it a rose. He decided to wink to the low-class, low-income, low-brow electorate by using one of his reserved seats in his party’s list to guarantee a Knesset seat at the 11th spot for former local soccer god and shampoo model Eli Ohana. Ohana was one of Israel’s greatest on the field, but absolutely mediocre both as a coach (where he got jobs either through politics or because it was his old team Beitar Jerusalem) and as a TV analyst.
Eli Ohana
When it was first announced some would-be-shrewd observers praised the move, saying it would sway some of Likud’s die-hard electorate. We’ll never know cause the BY base was not having it. The base threw a shitfit, replete with gems like Knesset Member Ayelet Shaked trying to placate hundreds of irate activists over whatsapp with: “look, we needed someone who’s Mizrachi and grew up poor”. In US-speak, that’s “we needed a token ghetto candidate”. One prospective MK actually quit over it and another turned down an additional reserved seat (over a slightly different political blunder by Bennett).
Despite accepting and recording a campaign video (“I grew up poor, but I was proud of my country, when I wore its colors on the field and now…”) Ohana withdrew after a couple of days, saying “Hey, I didn’t know y’all would have such a conniption…” The party came out of the whole affair looking both inept politically and kinda racist (towards Mizrachi Jews and not just Arabs), as evidenced by the polls.
Lastly, there was some shooting up north as you may have heard, and that may have helped Likud in the polls in a “rally ’round the leader” kind of way. Israel had recently killed a senior Iranian officer scouting the border on the Syrian side with some Hizballah people. This week Hizballah killed two Israeli soldiers with an anti-tank missile at a patrol jeep. Bibi huffed and puffed but quickly reached a tense “neither of us wants blood right now” understanding with Hizballah. Zionist Camp Leaders Herzog and Livni didn’t cover themselves with any glory in the response, but rather went to pose near the border in leather jackets and shades along with their shadow-Minister of Defense. Meretz tried to mend fences with its hardcore base by taking a clear stand against any escalation, but got hit by a TV expose on its connections with the corrupt National Jewish Fund (controls 13% of the country’s land).
Speaking of the polls, we’ll wrap up with a quick breakdown of what they (average of last 3) mean in the big picture:
Right-wing bloc: 40
Left-wing bloc: 31
Center secular: 21
Ultra-religious: 15
Joint Arabs: 12
While both blocs could conceivably persuade all of the secular center and both the religious parties to form a coalition with them, the 12 seats of the Joint Arab List will only be used against Bibi. They don’t want to sit in the coalition (that’s too much complicity in Israel’s actions for all of them and in its very existence as Israel for some), but they will join a blocking formation against the right and generally support a left-wing government against a vote of no-confidence. So in some ways it’s Left bloc 43, Right bloc 40, 37 in play for both sides. The whole Arab vote issue deserves a post of its own, which I know I promised. Coming up real soon. Until then, thanks for hitching and hitch me up with a comment so I know you made it this far. Most obliged.
* Polling data courtesy of the excellent polling collation and analysis “Project 61“, by my right-wing, religious* twitter buddy Nehemia (The Wunderkind) Gershuni.
* Abhorrent views, but hell of a nice guy other than that…
- In: Israel | Israeli politics
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Friends, Americans*, Countrymen, lend me your ears (eyes, minds, work with me here). I come not to confuse y’all but to break it down. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even feeling terribly inspired to tell you folks all the ins and outs of the Israeli election, but ole @johnboehner decided to force our PM on your politics and himself and y’alls domestic strife on our politics, so I guess y’all interested parties now and deserve an explanation on what in tarnation all the ruckus be about. Settle in, grab a sip and a bite, this’ll take a few.
* I'm American by birth. I get to say that. Non-Americans welcome along for the ride, of course. Apologies in advance for the yankee-centric imagery
Israel, which in the spirit of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy can be termed “mostly a democracy**, is having general elections.
** (that it to say, it is a democracy to most - not all - of those it controls)
Q: When?
A: March 17
Q: Who’s up for election and re-election?
A: Everyone. The entire legislature (Knesset), the majority of which appoints the government and the Prime Minister (so that job’s up for grabs as well).
Q: Who’s running?
A: Lots of folks. A dizzying, GameofThrones-like array of characters and allegiances, but I’mma break it down for y’all. (let it be broke, mofo!***).
*** (This is an invitation to play "place that quote")
The two main, and practically sole contenders for Prime Minister are the incumbent, Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu (you can call him that), and the challenger, Labor Party Chairman Yithak “Boujie” Herzog (but don’t call him Boujie! He’s trying to brand as serious and PM-worthy, and that’s too cutesy and soft a nickname his momma tagged him with).
Who are they? Well, if you don’t know (and have some opinions about) Bibi chances are slim you’re reading this, but see here (reference link under construction) for a summary of him (and others) as candidate and PM.
Quick bio recap:
Netanyahu (65) is the son of a world-famous expert on Medieval Jews in Muslim and Christian Spain. Eternally Bereaved Brother of mythological ground commander of the legendary Entebbe hostage rescue, Yoni Netanyahu.
Bibi (who also served in the fabled Matkal commando unit, but at lower rank) was living at the time in the US, under an American name, with a non-Jewish wife. The death of his brother, whom their father had always groomed for public greatness, summoned Bibi back to the fold to take the mantle upon himself, which required among other things getting rid of the shiksa spouse. Bibi, with polished English uncommonly good in Israel (especially back then) and fine debating skills, climbed quickly in Likud, rising from UN Ambassador, through Deputy Foreign Minister, to win control of the party in 1992, first becoming PM in 1996 (till ’99, then again from 2009 to now).
Herzog (54) is the son of Israel’s sixth President, Chaim Herzog, who had also been a military general and Ambassador to the UN, where he won undying fame for contemptuously ripping the Assembly General’s 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism on the UN podium. His son Boujie served in the military as well, rising to Major, and then became a lawyer, inheriting a partner’s position in one of Israel’s most powerful law firms.
His first national political exposure came in 1999, as campaign manager to a victorious Ehud Barak and Labor campaign, and immediately thereafter as Secretary of the Cabinet under Barak. He came into the spotlight in unflattering circumstances, when he refused to cooperate (basically taking the fifth, in US terms) with a police investigation regarding campaign violations. He has since served in four consecutive Knessets (since 2003) and served as Minister of various departments on behalf of Labor as a junior coalition partner (including in Bibi’s 2009-2013 administration.) He has been Housing, Tourism, and Welfare Minister, as well as holding lesser portfolios.
Early elections were called in early December after Bibi and his main coalition partner, centrist Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party (19/120 Knesset seats), each lost the ability to work with the other at all. Lapid was joined by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni with her 6-seat party in leaving the coalition (well, technically being fired by Bibi, but deliberately bringing things to that pass). Since then the twists and turns have been thick and heavy, but I’ll try to pick a minimum of crucial ones to the big picture.
Remember Tzipi Livni? Leaving the coalition with her 6-seat party? Well, after polling at the edge of survival**** for a week or two, she made the first splash of the election by negotiating a very favorable (for her) deal to unify with Labor (15 seats/120 in the outgoing, polling a tad better at this point). Usually when a party A unites into a single list (that is, not merging parties, but running as a single unit in a given election) with party B, and party A is 2.5 times bigger, the head of party B gets the number 2 spot and a few reserved seats in the unified list for their people, and consider themselves to have done pretty well. Livni not only got the number 2 spot in the unified list (and guaranteed spots for 5 more people under the 25th spot), but an agreement that should Herzog form the next coalition, he would rotate with her after two years. If Herzog did not prove terribly sharp bargaining skills (always a must for leadership in the land of bazaars) he did prove he was fully willing to put ego aside in order to maximize any possibility of actually winning the elections and switching the course of the country after 6 years of Likud and right-wing policies.
**** (there's an electoral threshold, currently set at 3.25% of all votes, which translates to 4/120 Knesset seats)
However, a deeper reading of this deal will show that while Livni drove a fantastic bargain, it’s mostly a prestige paper achievement. Sort of similar to a pro athlete’s bombastic new contract: “100 million for 6 years!!! – of which 2 years and 25 million are guaranteed.” The athletes are not that dumb. They know this, but there is symbolic capital in signing a 100 million dollar contract, even if you won’t actually get most of that. Livni is not likely to get to be PM even if Herzog gets to be PM for two reasons:
a) After two years he can refuse and dare her to take her 6 seats and leave the coalition. Chances are he’ll still have a slim majority in Knesset if he managed to form a coalition in the first place.
b) Now that Livni got such a deal, any prospective coalition partner with the most seats behind him (a number bound to be greater than 6) will settle for no less. So even if there is a rotation, it won’t be with Livni. But hey, props on your 100 mil contract, playa.
The practical upshot of all this is that as of this writing, the gamble Herzog and Livni took has paid off pretty resoundingly. They Labor and livni’s “Hatnua”party held 21 combined seats in the outgoing Knesset and never polled higher between the calling of the election and the deal. They immediately polled at around 22 following the deal and have been averaging 25 over the past few weeks – maintaining a slim 2-3 seat lead over Likud.
So, why are the headlines not screaming “upset!” yet? Glad you asked. In the Israeli system (a parliamentary one as opposed to a presidential one like in the US), there is no separation in elections between the legislative and executive branches. You don’t vote once for the guy in charge and once for you personal rep to look after your share of the pie. You vote for your favorite party. If it’s the largest one it normally (but not always) gets to be at the head of an alliance of parties called a coalition, that form a majority in Knesset (i.e 61 or more/120). If you voted for the second smallest party you normally (again, not always) get to spend the term rooting for the team on defense that’s trying to cause a turnover and regain possession of the ball.
This leads us to the second crucial difference between the systems: In the US, short of praying for a President from the other party to die or trying to cook up grounds for impeachment, there’s nothing for the party out of power to do but wait 4 years for the next round (it can form a majority in the legislature and use that to impede the President, but it can’t seize the executive branch). In a parliamentary system where power depends (always has here) on coalitions, the party out of power can spend its time trying (as Sun Tzu recommended) to break up its opponent’s alliances. Once you convince enough coalition members to defect, the government no longer has a majority in Knesset. When that happens a “vote of no confidence” is called. If such a vote passes by absolute majority, new elections must be held. The shortest-lived coalition in Israel’s history was Ehud Barak’s Labor-led administration from 1999-2001 (lasted 20 months). Several lasted the full four years or close enough to it. Sometimes the main party in power will engineer a fight with its coalition partners in order to call for early elections when it believes it will gain more seats in a new election than it has without them. Sometimes it’s the junior ally who makes that calculation and picks an issue to split over.
Why am I explaining all this? Because even if the election results match the current polling, Bibi will have a better chance at a stable coalition (one with as few partners as possible, to minimize the different vectors pulling it apart with their different demands and interests). Bibi and Herzog each have one natural ally to the radical end of them – Bibi a right-wing ally (the mostly religious Bayit Yehudi party, under high-tec rich guy Naftali Bennet) and Herzog a left-wing ally (the mostly-white-bread liberal Meretz party, under career politician and activist Zehava Galon). Even if Bibi finishes with three seats or so fewer than Herzog, he has the stronger basic building block for a coalition with Bayit Yehudi, which is polling at 15-16/120 seats, compared to 5-6 for Meretz.
Is all lost for those hoping for a change in government? No, but at current results, it will be an uphill battle for Herzog to be the first to complete a puzzle with 61 pieces or more. Here’s how it works:
The President chooses who will be the first to “get the ball” so to speak and receive two weeks to attempt to score by putting together a coalition that will pass a vote of confidence in Knesset. (President is a mostly ceremonial position. This is his most influential role.) The process is that after the votes are counted and the seats in the new Knesset are assigned, the President calls the heads of the parties and asks for their recommendation as to who should be chosen to form a coalition. If a clear majority of the Knesset recommends one guy, it’s over and that person will, barring bizarre developments, quickly conclude coalition deals with enough partners and be PM. If there is no clear majority it’s completely at the discretion of the President, who still has to take into consideration who has the more realistic shot to get it done so as not to waste the nation’s time.
Now, if a candidate gets the first shot but doesn’t have a majority already agreeing to form a government with him, he has to negotiate with each partner he can possibly work with and give them a piece of the pie. This is where the other party can play active defense: It can also negotiate with all the other (or any of) the other parties and try to persuade them NOT to sit with the party that got the first crack. If they succeed in putting together a majority in Knesset that refuses to sit with the other guy, they have created what’s known as a “blocking bloc” (sounds bad in English, I know. Call it a blocking alliance or whatever). Having managed to cooperate on denying the leading candidate the job, such a blocking coalition will usually manage to form an actual ruling coalition together and enter into power. This is Herzog’s most realistic path to the crown. Bibi will get the first nod because he has a solid 38-40 seats (at current poll numbers) whereas Herzog will only have 30-32 (again, at current numbers. Lotta football to be played here yet). The rest of the parties mostly lie generally in the middle between the two, be they center-secular or religious parties.
The one exception to the above is the secret ace up Hetzog’s sleeve – the Joint Arab List. This list, a new election-specific union of the three Arab (or Arab-majority) parties is a huge story in itself, and one which will wait till the next chapter in this series*****.
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- In: Israeli politics
- Comments Off on Vote2013IL – The Rise of the Empty Suit
The first, and most important thing to understand about the Israeli elections just concluded this week is that, big picture-wise, they simply do not matter. Israel has consciously or subconsciously decided to miss the window of opportunity for the so-called two-state solution. Anyone who believes that Yair Lapid will truly insist on meaningful negotiations with the emasculated Mahmoud Abbas, beleaguered head of the Palestinian Authority, is suffering from a severe case of the wishful thinkies and lack of familiarity with the subject matter.
Lapid is a man who, by his own admission, puts blind trust in the judgment of the security establishment. Unlike the “Attack Iran” issue, where the security establishment presented a principled and determined opposition to the delusions of grandeur entertained by the PM and Minister of Defense, in the case of the occupation there is little to compare. The decided majority of the vectors that make up the position of the IDF and other security forces do not want to end the occupation (neither the obvious one in the West Bank or the aggressive-”passive” one in the Gaza Strip), since by now almost all of Israel’s security apparatus lives for and is geared around the maintenance of this situation. While stopping the Gaza blockade wouldn’t be a serious momentum change, withdrawing ALL troops west of the Green Line (or at least west of the security fence) would force the IDF and Border Patrol to change everything about the way they operate, from the location of bases and installations to most operating procedures. No organization is eager for such change, least of all one built on the application of force as a sole solution to any challenge.
So whether the government will be built on the triple axis of Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennet (with some table crumbs given to another party or two just to make it look more stable and inclusive) or whether Lapid insists on something Bibi refuses to give him, forcing the PM to stick with a narrow government made up solely of his “natural allies” – the orthodox of both stripes and the national religious, or in short the forces of occupation and reactionary thought – little in actual policy is expected to change. Bibi himself would have little problem taking this option and leaving the rising newcomer in the cold, but he has made himself so disagreeable to the vast majority of major international players (with all due respect to Micronesia and even the ever-cool Czech Republic) that he will not be able to survive his usual squirm routine on the international stage while beholden to such a coalition. Lapid, the man in the empty suit, becomes the invaluable camouflage for Mr. Netanyahu’s plan for the new term: More of the same.
Unlike the case of the “peace process” facade, Economically, of course, there won’t even be much need to throw sand in Lapid’s eyes. All three members of the axis are what we in Israel call “porcine capitalists”. On the one hand, Lapid’s victory does represent a showing of force by the politically amorphous tens and hundreds of thousands that made J14 the earthquake it briefly was. However, being politically amorphous, most of these didn’t empower political forces that will truly work for the stated goals of that civic uprising. Inasmuch as Lapid himself is concerned, as well as part of his top Knesset Members (such as former Shin-Bet chief and well-compensated CEO Ya’acov Perry), nothing could be further from their own economic inclinations than the radical re-distribution of publicly-held assets demanded by the protesters. When push came to shove, right at the start of the campaign, to support or resist the blatant giveaway of ILS 27b (yeah, billion), back to corporations in the form of accrued tax breaks for re-investment in Israel despite the fact that they didn’t in fact re-invest – Lapid took the (wrong) position that this (simply enforcing a very straightforward quid-pro-quo) would constitute retro-active punitive legislation. Somehow Lapid’s principles and the short-term interests of the “haves” always seem to coincide.
A word on Lapid: even the infinite space of the Internet might not suffice to compile all the evidence that Lapid is an empty suit. He regularly uses phrases and quotes in ways that illustrate that he does not understand them. Just one example for kicks – he once tried to school his readers on the Gettysburg Address, and had Lincoln talking about the “four fathers” of the United States (four-score and seven years ago, our…yup. Four fathers). And this is a man who passes in Israeli media as an expert on Americana…
His logical absurdities are a matter of legend, and his sticky, saccharine-laden life-long quest to define the essence of “What is Israeli” is a fascinating study in unselfconscious white privilege. His insistence on denying the benefit of being his father’s son to getting where he got is comical, and for all his pretense of being a straight-shooter, his campaign spent an inordinate amount of time deleting and blocking the questions of anyone who threatened to stump the new messiah. The fact that such a man controls such a large portion of the legislature (with a very empowering party rulebook he wrote himself, which basically guarantees him the top spot till 2020), is disconcerting to say the least, but is expected to provide ample hilarity nonetheless.
It is hard sometimes to explain to outsiders the degree in which the doublespeak necessary for maintaining a dual existence (pseudo-democracy west of an imaginary line, outright apartheid occupation east of it) has corrupted political discourse in Israel. This corrupting effect manifests even far away from the topic of occupation. For instance: These elections were called, several months before the end of the Knesset’s term, because Bibi couldn’t get his own cabinet and coalition to sign off on his proposed bi-annual budget. The reason for this failure by the coalition partners may seem technical at first: They couldn’t in good faith sign off on the budget because they weren’t allowed to actually see it.
So, the PM, previously thought to be coasting safely to re-election on his own terms, with a very stable coalition, suddenly has to call early elections because he wants to pass a budget so bad, he wants his partners to accept it sight-unseen, before they get to say “Um, dude, we DO have to get re-elected too.”
Happens, right? Budgets are a main source of political contention and it is only natural that they play a prominent part in the demise of ruling coalitions. Budgets are what politics is all about – the means by which the various dog packs arrange the tearing of the carcass of public resources.
What is unnatural is that this played very little part in the campaign. There was talk about the cost of living, and big election loser Shelly Yechimovich’s vage “It Can Be Better Here” campaign, but the fact that the PM tried to force through a set of god-only-knows-what cuts on essential services, is going to elections for it and still won’t tell anybody what’s in it – that was not mentioned. (Added: Nor did the revelation of the huge national deficit – a full percent more of the GDP, and close to 50 billion shekels – rock the campaign as it should have. Then again, maybe that accounts for Lapid’s last-week surge. He did, after all, run on a “where’s the money” slogan.)
Then again, it was a very odd campaign. There was very little buzz in the streets, very few support signs hanging from porches and windows. Only in the last week was there a sense of action on the street. Israelis, although always cynical about politics, have always been equally fervent about it. Even though the voting rate has been declining for a couple of decades now, in every previous elections there was a sense of to-do throughout the campaign. Not so this time. Many will say the action was simply contained within the virtual sphere where candidates and parties spent most of their efforts. I will make so bold as to paraphrase the great Neil Gaiman and say that for all the wonders of our zeroes and ones, we are still of this world, and victories that don’t take place in the real world aren’t as real. Then again, the polling box is very real, and it has spoken for now.
So expect cosmetic change in Israel’s conduct in its occupied territories and vis-a-vis the world, and tyranny-of-the-majority application of porcine capitalism, shrouded by vast-seeming but empty project launches. Lapid and his Knesset Members and his voters all realize the dangers of becoming a true international pariah. However, Lapid is too beholden to a tough-guy style of Israeli posture to insist on, or even demand true changes in the way we approach the rest of the world. Lapid believes that all Israel needs to do is insist, and the Palestinians will relinquish their demands for East Jerusalem – just as they have accepted that there will be no significant realization of the “right of return”. The arrogance of this notion is of course telling in many ways, but it also leads us to the question “what IS Jerusalem, or East Jerusalem for that matter?”
That’s a whole ‘nother ball o’wax, but we’ll do Lapid the justice of providing his own answer to the matter: The Tower of David. Shrewd way of saying “The Old City within the walls” without being overly religious about it. It’s about the history, ya see. Twenty years ago, even 15, Israel could have kept sovereignty of the old city (with special arrangements) and every single neighborhood east of the Green Line already built at that time, had it put a willingness to relinquish all other Palestinian neighborhoods and villages in the huge area designated by Israel as “Jerusalem” on the table (and solved the other issues and finalized a deal).
Now? Not so fast. However, if Lapid is willing to say that, and say that in return for insisting on what’s within the walls he’s willing to give up places like Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Issawiya and others (which are also of immense historical and “heritage” value, and where settlers are forcing out residents of many years in an attempt to create a Jewish-majority circle around the walls) – that would be progress. Stopping the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley would be nice, too. I still think it would be like performing CPR on a corpse, but if one is really committed to the two-state solution that would be the way to go about it. And of course, those injustices need to stop no matter which jackoff holds which very impressive title.
But they won’t. The truly decisive factor in this next Knesset is how Chief Big Torch’s 18 new Indians will behave. Some of them are excellent people, like sports and military analyst Ofer Shelach, activist Karin Elharar, Prof. Ruth Calderon and others. A few are known douchebags like the aforementioned Perry and former Student Council head Boaz Toporovsky. Most are rather unknown and the big question is how many of them will sit back and bask in the importance and benefits of a one-and-done turn on the national stage whole Bibi and Yair smoke cigars and drink whiskey as they continue to enrich the rich and drag on the farce of a peace process. Other questions to watch: How loud will the unhinged fringes of both Likud and Jewish Home be, and how vindictive will the 14 Labor MK’s be towards their failed general Shelly. Your guess is as good as mine, but when I find out I’ll let ya know.
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