Haaretz has exit poll results from the elections in Israel. They provide some hope that Netanyahu might not have won. However, it is downright frightening how weak the labor party is.
Exit polls by Israel’s three main television stations on Tuesday night showed Kadima as the clear winner in the 2009 general elections, with Likud coming a narrow second.
Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 10 polling of voters as they left the ballot box all showed victory for Kadima, headed by Tzipi Livni.
The Channel 1 poll gave Kadima 30 seats, Likud 28 seats, and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu is predicted to win `14 seats, according to the poll.
According to the Channel 2 poll, Likud will take 27 seats, Kadima will hold 29 seats and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu will have 15 seats in the new Knesset.
Consider the fact that the left is so discredited in Israel that teachers are increasingly afraid to teach democratic principles in civics classes, and that the fascist Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman is now very popular with young Israelis. The Labor Party is now smaller than the fascist party? I can’t really express how troublesome I find that development.
Prof. Ilan Gur-Ze’ev, whose specialty is the philosophy of education, argues that the political positions of Israeli youths derive in part from historical ignorance:
“It’s not that they don’t know what Lieberman says. It’s that they don’t understand the implications of what Lieberman says. They may know how to quote phrases like ‘What we need is an iron fist in a silk glove.’ If you think about such a metaphor – are they able to really appreciate what such a phrase means, are they aware of its connection to the fascist tradition? Are they capable of linking this phrase to the tradition in which it was originally used? They know slogans. They don’t know history.”
Gur-Ze’ev also offers an original explanation for young people’s tendency to support Lieberman:
“The Israeli reality can no longer hide what it has kept hidden up to now – that today no sentient mother can honestly say to her child: ‘Next year things will be better here.’ The young people are replacing hope for a better future with a myth of a heroic end. For a heroic end, Lieberman fits the bill.
“Outwardly they may say that Lieberman will bring about a better future,” the professor adds, “but have them talk with a psychologist or with a philosopher and these mantras will implode. In a reality in which you can’t honestly tell your children, ‘Tomorrow will be better,’ in which the realization has finally sunk in that no deal or accord is about to happen, not now or 10 years from now – they react in a hysterical, survivalist fashion. In such a situation, the commitment to humanist values can be viewed as a luxury that we as a society cannot afford.”
Something has shifted fundamentally in Israeli society. And I don’t think it is a good or healthy development. However, given a choice between Netanyahu, Livni, Lieberman, and an irrelevant Ehud Barak, I guess Livni would be the best outcome for the U.S. in terms of making some progress.
I may be misremembering the origin of the Kadima party, but didn’t it pull a lot of support out of the Labour party? I seem to recall it being some kind of merger of folks who were dissatisfied with Likud with another group of folks who were dissatisfied with Labour. (The wikipedia entry isn’t really helpful on this, so I may be misremembering).
If that’s the case, then the “shift” may mostly be a case of political party realignment, rather than an actual shift of opinion within the country itself. As in any democratic system, the leadership at the top of the party really gets to define what the “acceptable” boundaries are, and when that changes due to a shift in who the leadership is, it takes a motivated grassroots movement to shift it around. (See the US Democratic Party for the last 30 years, the US Republican Party in the 60’s up to Reagan, the Canadian Conservative Party pre-Harper, the British Conservative Party pre-Thatcher, the British Labour Party pre-Blair. Those are just off the top of my head – I’m sure there are many others). So Labour may be in need of some new leadership, but from what I’ve seen polling wise, the Israeli population hasn’t really shifted nearly as much as their political leadership seems to have.
Actually, I think Bibi will probably win the prime ministership even if Likud narrowly loses the election.
Since Shimon Peres makes that decision, you are probably correct. Whatever the final result, the new Israeli administration will be on a collision course with Washington, the Mitchell effort, and the redeclaration of the two state solution as Obama’s key policy to change the Middle East.
This plan to change the Middle East rises or falls with the achievement of two states.
It’s not going to happen.
gotta say, that is a royally fucked up state of affairs.
not really liking that first comment either.
What don’t you like about my comment?
Israel has long lost it’s chance at a national identity compatible with the real world (well, more accurately couldn’t decide on one until it was too late).
Without a vision of where to go or what to return to, anything is possible, evidence of which the Professor is pointing out. Gur-Ze’ev’s thoughts could rightfully be extended to beg the question:
“What is the best way to act as you circle the drain if there’s no way to pull yourself out of the stinking crapper you’ve flushed yourself down?”
A pretty good question for us all right now.
Recent disappointments aside, I can’t express how strongly I feel that Obama is the right guy to head into the sewers with. Maybe some form of economic recovery is eventually possible, but not without the US President being presented with all sorts of plans and opportunities to occupy this, steal that, impinge that right, coerce this, etc.
It’s the whole value of long term thinking and human life thing that is occasionally and stunningly part of Obama’s character that gives me comfort knowing the coming years would be much worse for everyone under McCain.
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“Death to the Arabs”
The Kadima party was split from Likud by Ariel Sharon and gained a prominent place in Israeli politics. Many Labour members joined Sharon, such as archrival Shimon Peres who was later honoured as President of the state of Israel. Similar to American politics, the differences between Republicans and Democrats has been marginal, hoping Obama does a better job.
Ariel Sharon formally resigned from the Likud Party in 2005From the exit polls, it appears the right wing parties will have a majority with 63 seats, however a number of extreme right religious parties will not be able to be part of the cabinet coalition, but will support Netanyahu as PM in the Knesset vote.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Rabbi Meir Kahane can rest in peace: His doctrine has won. Twenty years after his Knesset list was disqualified and 18 years after he was murdered, Kahanism has become legitimate in public discourse. If there is something that typifies Israel’s current murky, hollow election campaign, which ends the day after tomorrow, it is the transformation of racism and nationalism into accepted values.
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Thanks!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."It took Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times’s resident philosopher-in-chief, to speak the unspeakable. “When does the mandate of victimhood expire?” he asked. “At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?”
Voice in the wilderness was Jeff Halper’s summation of decades of peace activism within Israel. The Left is dead. Even Meretz, the real left wing party, praised the devastation of Gaza.
These few courageous kids is all that is symbolically left in Israel to challenge the right wing racists and Zionist nationalists. While there is every reason we should be pessimistic about peace happening soon if ever, these few give hope.