Passing the election baton
It looks like a real political relay. As the US electoral battle is nearing its end, Israel (IL) is gearing up to start a new election campaign. As you probably know, the last Prime Minister (PM) of Israel was finally forced to resign as he is facing pretty serious corruption charges, and the newly elected head of Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, chose to dismiss the Knesset and go for an election. Some frame this move as a failure and an example of Livni’s lacking leadership skills. Others frame it as a refusal to follow a bitten path of PMs literally paying parties to stay in the coalition. Whatever the true reason is, the public opinion seems to be split, at least as it is reflected in online media and comments people leave on news websites.
For whatever reason, this particular election cycle really fascinates me, so I may now occasionally blog about it. On the one hand, it is going to be a tool for myself to organize some thoughts. On the other hand, I hope it will be interesting at least for those of you who are not in IL, but are interested in the region. I cannot promse how sustainable this will be between now and February, but l will try. Here is what the last few days look like to me.
Meet the players
Having Sharon as its head and pulling out of Gaza, Kadima was originally claiming the center of the political map. However, in a recent article in “Haaretz” (HE) Aluf Ben suggests that there is no longer “center” party in this election in Israel. He predicts that the battle will be between those who support talks with Palestinians (Avoda and Kadima) and those who oppose them (Likud and Shas).
It looks like we are back to square one, only with an additional player, Kadima, which sort of fits the old game, but is still less predictable than the others. Indeed, Netanyahu and Barak have both been in the PM chair and none of them did a great job in that position. Although each one has their own broadly agreed achievement in the past (Barak as the Chief of General Staff and Netanyahu as a minister of Finance), none of the proved himself as a good national leader. Livni at the same time, has less a colorful record (for better and for worth), but she is young, ambitious and is pushing the “different politics” agenda in her rhetoric. I can’t help, but think sometimes whether or not she can be the Barak Obama of Israel – young, supposedly idealistic, and supposedly different from the old and known crowd of politicians. I wonder, if she will be able to be as inspiring to so many people as Obama appears to be here.
The question of education
In the meantime, the electoral battle has began. For example, Livni proclaimed that she will suggest a law to legalize civil marriage before Knesset is disassembled towards the election in February (HE). Analysts suggest that she is trying to attract more non-religious voters as well as Russian-speaking community. While that may be true (with an emphasis on “may”), what certain is that by making that move she is annihilating the religious voters. To a degree it looks like she is trying to take over a niche left by Shinui – a party who was built on anti-religious agenda, but didn’t make it to Knesset in the last election.
On the right side of the map, which is more optimistic regarding their prospects of taking over the PM chair, parties started dividing the governemnt. Eli Ishai, the head of Shas, an orthodox, religious party, is openly stating that his party wants that office so they could push for a more conservative school curricula (HE). Even though the current Israeli Minister of Education is a Professor and is not doing a very good job, having a Minister of Education who has barely a high-school education, does not put me at ease. Netaniahu, who sees himself as the next PM (HE) “rebuffs Shas bid to control Education Ministry” (HE), while turning a memorial session of Knesset dedicated to Rehevam Zeevi into an election rally. I have not read about reactions from other parties/politicians to Shas’s aspirations. The only other responce I saw was from Yossi Sarid (HE), the former head of Meretz and fomrer Minister of Education. His social-democratic views and long-standing opposition to religious orthodoxy are known and he casts a loud worning against Shas’s aspirations (as well as implicitly showing support for Livni as the PM).
