The real change in change.gov

Not so long ago, i draw a short comparison between change.gov and kremlin.ru.  I think my main observation was that both websites are more of propaganda machines that allow no feedback mechanisms.  It looks like I was wrong and I am happy to admit that.

As i noticed in the last digest, change.gov is now offering a mechanism for interaction and is trying to build an active community on their website.  First there was a discussion about health care and now there is a discussion about economy.  They keep those discussions limited in time, which is understandable, and it will be interesting to see how these discussions will be implemented in actual policy making.

In a number of face to face conversations I had with people following my post criticizing change.gov for lack of a feedback mechanism, was the trickiness of having an open platform when it comes to an official website.  While it is natural and expected that on an election website there would be heated, and not always politically correct debates, it is not necessarily appropriate for an official government website.  Moreover, while it can be understandable if messages viewed as inappropriate by the campaign are removed from the website, it is again much more complicated when it comes to an official government website.  What does it say about free speech, when the government website starts making decision about appropriate and inappropriate content produced by it users.  Where is the line between censorship, or even more so, appearance of censorship?

Back then, I argued that clear and up-front community rules, may be a solution for this sensitive situation.  Interestingly, this is was the strategy taken by change.gov.  They just published a guide to comments, which is also linked to the comments policy.  They implement a set of community principles and technical tools to foster a community.  For example, while you can comment each time by a different name, they encourage you to register and maintain an online identity as a means for community-building.  They also have a rating system for comments, which seems like a useful tool.  The comment policy is also very simple, yet it leaves an ample room for the website managers to remove content and block users.

All in all, the first steps look very promising and the snippets of discussion that I saw seem rather thoughtful and constructive.  It will be interesting to see how the website managers will deal with removing content and blocking users, something that will have eventually happen.

A couple of side thoughts, though…

First, I wonder if what allows such an open policy is the fact that change.gov is not really a government website.  I remember reading that the website is run by an NGO registered to support the transition team (even though I could not find a reference to that on the website now).  So, formally, even though the website carries a .gov domain, it is not a government website, thus there are less strings attached to what can be done there.  I wonder, whether after the inauguration, they will maintain a similar approach.

Second, I think that if this approach of using online tools for an open public discussion will take off, we will probably witness a renewed debate about the digital divide.  The kind of discussion hosted at change.gov is absolutely unprecedented in its scope and it is open to many more people than any other government discussion so far.  However, it clearly leaves out those who do not have the technology, or who are not technologically savvy enough to engage in an online discussion.

The MICT-related innovation of Obama administration is definitely impressive and I feel I am really lucky to being in the US to witness this.

Compromising on leadership

In the beginning of November, when millions of US citizens were electing their leadership, Israelis were remembering the murder of one of its leaders, Itzhak Rabin, 13 years ago.  In one of the official events commemorating that day, Rabin’s grandson was quoted saying that Israel should “stop compromising on the quality of its leaders”.  I have no idea what else he was saying, as it was not reported in the media, but that was one powerful quote, which I tend to agree with.  Unfortunately, none of the potential Prime Ministers (PMs) in the current race has the star-quality image of a leader (HE).  Yet they all are going to try prove me (and the Israeli voters) wrong, at least rhetorically.

On the right.

In the meantime, the “business is as usual”, as suggested by an old Hebrew saying.  It seems that Likud, is continuing gaining momentum as more an more “stars” are coming back to the party or are joining it for the first time.  In a somewhat self-fulfilling prophecy, it looks as if they smell that Likud is going to reign and everybody now wants a piece of that power.  Perhaps this movement becomes more obvious as it starts attracting criticism from the media (HE) and also from within the party (HE).

Michael Eitan, one of the current Likud MKs (who has been pretty good about maintaining online presence already for a while and is very much involved in technology related issues) had a very sarcastic post on his blog (HE) complaining about lack of media attention to devoted Likudniks, while the newcomers and returners are getting all the air time (so needed in the primaries). Same sentiment was heard prior to the assembly of the party (HE1, HE2) to approve changes in its constitution to accommodate the newcomers and set the deadline for primaries (HE).  The internally-generated criticism in Likud is particularly interesting, because it helps illustrating how unnatural the migration to the party seems even to its members and to what extend it is all about power grab.  For those who paid attention, this may remind what happened to Kadima when it was established and it was clear that it is heading towards a swiping victory.  Everybody likes being on the winning side.

Yet, the “noise” does not seem to bother Netanyahu, who continues his efforts to assemble “stars” and recently was even spotted trying to recruit people from the traditionally-liberal celebrity scene of Tel-Aviv (HE).  This happens at the same time as he is trying to recruit a former Chief of General Staff, Moshe Ya’alon, who was also offered to head the new right wing party (HE1, HE2).  On the flip side, Uzi Landau, another prominent figure in the Israeli right shifted even more to the right and moved from Likud to Yisrael Beiteinu (HE) thus further blurring the distinction between the two parties.

On the left.

While the carnival of new-old faces in Likud continues, Avoda seems to slowly sink into a chasm (HE1, HE2, HE3).  On the one hand, people who could potentially uplift the public face of the party and signal the so needed change, are leaving.  Ami Ayalon, has recently announced that he is leaving Avoda and is looking for an alternative on the left side of political map (HE1, HE2, HE3).  On the other hand, the party demonstrates that it is true to the “good old” rules of “political kitchen” where deals are being “cooked” and places on the ballot are being saved for the veteran politicians based on really unclear and not transparent criteria.  The latest stunning example was reserving a spot on the ballot for Fouad Ben Eliezer who is a veteran politician, but does not have an outstanding record of parliamentary activity or an electoral appeal, which would somehow justify such a decision (HE).  The only concern though, is for Avoda to receive enough votes that Ben Eliezer would make it to Knesset even with the reserved spot on the ballot. The party is being criticized on any possible grounds starting from loosing its ideological grounds (HE) to the way its internal politics is done (HE).  Avoda may currently be the best example to why it is so difficult to initiate change in Israel through the traditional political system.  The apparatus is so convoluted and is dense, that people with their best intentions at the beginning of their way are getting lost as they fight to climb the party ladder.  It is hard to see the next leader coming from Avoda at this point.

Identifying the vacuum on the left side of the political map (HE), a new left movement has been recently launched (HE).  It is based on a series of famous names in the Israeli cultural spheres (such as Amos Oz) and former politicians, and as of now it backs Meretz, which is trying really hard to reinvent itself (HE).  They lost a lot of their leading role as a social-democratic party in the last decade, and decline of Avoda seems like a good opportunity for their comeback.  Unfortunately, Meretz has a label of being too far to the left to actually lead political processes in Israel.  I remember in the past reading somebody calling them an eternal opposition party, which cannot shad off the opposition mentality, even when they are in the coalition.  Even if currently Meretz is on the rise, it is going to be too busy rebuilding and reinventing itself, to take a leadership role in this election cycle.

Elsewhere

Other parties do not seem to make any outstanding steps either.  Shas has declared about the beginning of their campaign aiming for 18 seats in the Knesset and the Ministry of Education (HE).  With all the tolerance in the world, I don’t think the latter is a good idea for Israel regardless of ones political affiliation or worldview.  Besides, all this happens when in the background more of people affiliated with Shas are going to jail for corruption allegations (HE).

And there is of course Kadima, which still seems to struggle for its identity, which to a degree reflects kind of identity crisis within the Israeli society itself (HE).  For some reason, Olmert, facing with corruption allegations, decided that in his last days he can say things he could not as long as he hoped to continue in politics.  It reminds the last days of Bush before the electio in the US, when he was eager to leave a positive historical mark (such as pushing for whatever results in the talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as long as those could be presented as results).  This definitely hurts Livni, who is being aggressively portrayed by Likud as ultra-leftist.

As if adding to Livni’s “leftist” trouble, one of Kadima MKs announced on leaving the party declaring that Livni is too far to the left (HE).  Frankly, I have not heard about this MK before, neither have people who commented on the news item about his announcement.  Nevertheless, he did manage to further harm the centrist image of Kadima.

And if that was not enough, the gender issue starts coming out more aggressively.  In Jerusalem, Kadima ads with Livni’s portrait were removed in order “not to harm the feelings of the religious community” by showing a female face in public (HE).  I am not sure I have colloquial vocabulary to react to this.  Even if Livni is the only new leadership-face in the Israeli politics in this election, this environment isn’t really welcoming her.

Closing comment on leadership

So what is the bottom line for now?  I think it is rather gloomy.  The current picture is of the Israeli political scene being busy with its own survival (as usual) instead of thinking about the larger national and regional goals.  In this environment, which is on one hand caught in old-fashioned, bureaucratic party regimes and on the other is driven by a celebrity approach to individual politicians, it is really difficult for a new kind of leadership to emerge.  If you want to make it though you have to be both, a celebrity and a party go-getter, which leaves little to no space for vision or sincere conversation between the public and the political apparatus.  There are talks about need of changes in the government system (HE), and there were attempts to do that in the past, but none of the new ideas will be tried in the three months before the election and I am sceptical that this topic will even constitute a debate item for the running parties.

Maybe I am setting the the hopes/expectations too high, but right now it seems that the chances of change in this elections are small.  It looks like the Israeli public is going to compromise on leadership again.

“Obama Effect”

Here it comes.  Obama’s vicotry is already reflecting on election in other parts of the world.  In Israel, not only the fact of him being the next US president is now integral part of the election campaigns of all parties (HE), but his way of running campaigns is also making its debut.  I call it the “Obama Effect”.  It refers primarily to two components – the rhetoric of change and the use of information technology, particularly the web 2.0-ish aspects of it, in the campaign.

I may talk about the rhetoric of change on a different occasion.  Now I would like to make a short note about the second point about the use of technology.  I wrote earlier about the new Likud website and this news has actually made it to New York Times already (not from my blog of course :).  However, this is not all.  Obama Effect dribbles down to the primaries season, which the Israeli parties are going through now, before they depart onto the national battle.

Michael Eitan, a Likud MK, has launched an-Obama inspired campaign for his primaries.  The campaign is called “To prove that it can be done differently” (my unprofessional translation) (HE).  Eitan’s idea is to have a transparent, grassroots oriented primaries campaign, including collecting donations on his website.  You can see how it links to the rhetorical part of Obama Effect by emphasising the change, even if using a different vacabulary. I have not seen other politician doing this, except for the new Likud website, but that is in a different league.

Eitan’s example is particularly interesting, as the primaries are traditinoally viewed in Israel as rather dirty and internal to the parties processes.  By opening up the black box of primaries to the broader public, and by reaching out to people beyond the party lines, Eitan is already dong things differently.  It will be interesting to see how it eventually works out, particularly in light of his party-boss taking the Obama-style campaigning really seriously this time.  So, far Eitan received NIS 6,500 in donations (around US $1800) from 54 people (HE), but I don’t know if it is considered a lot (I guess not that much).  Nevertheless, I think it is more than any other politician in Israel collected online for his primaries.

I am sure there are more instances of Obama Effect to come and I wonder if people in other parts of the world observe its instances.

Election.co.il? Not yet, but getting there.

A lot has been said about the brilliant use of information technology by Obama campaign and the role it played on the election day.  I am not talking about microtargeting, which became a too common tool in both camps, but about the use of email, social networking, spreadable media, etc.  Obama’s campaign’s received a lot of kudos for its use of technology during this election (also see HE).  During the summer I also had a chance to be at a Google organized conference on the use of “new” media in politics, where the changes in the communication landscape were the focus of the discussion.  It will be virtually impossible to list all the discussion about the (potential) role of technology in the last presidential campaign in the US.  Hearing all that, i decided to take a look at how the Israeli parties and particularly candidates to the Prime Minister (PM) role do.  After all, Israel is a high-tech super power.

Prologue

Following are my not very systematic results.  This is a rather long, but quite clunked post.  I hope you will find it interesting though, because I found the “research” behind it quite intriguing.  All in all I looked at the search results for the main parties (Kadima, Likud, Avoda, Shas, Ysrael Beitenu) and the major candidates (Livni, Netanyahu, Barak), at their website, their presence in social networks, and in spreadable media.  Please let me know what you think.

To ease your reading, here are the links to different parts of this post.  Read just the one that interests you.

• Search for parties
• Search for candidates
• Party websites
• Personal websites
• Parties on social networks
• Candidates on social networks
• Candidates in spreadable media
• Parties in spreadable media
• Epilogue

Read more..

Figthing for the “Russian” vote

Sooner than in any other election cycle I remember, the Russian-speaking community came to the center of attention in the Israeli election campaign.  According to this article, 40% of Russian speakers in Israel are still indecisive, and indeed recent Livni’s comment is viewed as an important step for Kadima towards the “Russian street”.  Traditionally, the Russian-speaking community is leaning to the right with “Yisrael Beiteinu” as the most popular party.  Currently “Likud” and “Ysrael Beteinu” are sharing 50% of the “Russian” vote.  At the same time, the Russian-speaking community has traditionally had issues with the orthodox religious establishment (and vice versa), yet right wing in Israel is usually associated with religious conservatism.  So the parties are now in this complex situation where they have to navigate between picturing them as right enough to attract the “Russian” vote, but not too religious in order not to scare them.

Being part of a number of election cycles, I wonder what will be the role of Russian-speakers in the parties running for Knesset.  In the past, the major parties would have a “Russian placeholder” – almost artificially created politician, who speaks Russian and who would campaign on the “Russian street”.  The only different party in this grotescian show was “Yisrael Beitenu”, whose head, Avigdor Liberman, is in fact an Immigrant, whose family came to Israel in the 1970’s.  I wonder if this election will bring anything new in the role “Russians” will actually play in the election and beyond.  Despite its electoral weight, this community is usually neglected within the political system and is looked at only during the election.  I wonder if there will be an upcoming promising politician, who is an immigrant (from Russia, Ethiopia, or elsewhere), revealed in any of the parties.

P.S. If you do read the HE version of the article I site in this post, it starts with a really weird scetch of a supposedly very popoular on the “Russian” street numerologist and her supposedly influential role on the political opinion of this sector.  Lili Galili, is a rather veteran reporter covering the Russian-speaking community for Haaretz.  I am surprised to see her starting her item with such a grotesc and rediculous example, which paints the “Russians” as weird outsiders in the Israeli community.  It is really sad that after almost two decades since the beginning of the large immigration wave, even in supposedly the most progressive large newspaper in Israel, there is need for such useless, and again rediculous, framing in order to talk about this sector.

Marking the territory

Another brief observation on the Israeli election.

As I wrote before, in current polls Netanyahu has a lead on Livni as a potential Prime Minister.  However, I wonder if he is not missing the point by taking it party further to the right.  Recently, a number of prominent figures on the Israeli right, such as Benny Begin and Effi Eitam, announced that they are joining Likud (HE1, HE2, HE3).  Having these people on the ballot may help Likud (HE), but it also paints the party in more radical colors than a ruling party in Israel usually is.  This gets me thinking whether or not I am missing how far to the right the Israeli society has moved in the last few years, or these are advisers of Mr. Netanyahu who are missing the goal?  After all, allowing all the new people to compete in the primaries, requires an effort from Netanyahu to change some of the party regulations.

At the same time, other parties are also regrouping.  On the right, a number of religious-national parties has formed a new block in order to gain more weight in political decision making and perhaps influence the formation of the next Israeli government (HE1, HE2).  They don’t have a name for the new party yet, but it will focus on education and Jewish tradition, but not limited only to those “who wear yarmulkes”.  Interestingly, they have explicitly mentioned that there are going to be women in their list of candidates to the Knesset.

On the left, a number of prominent figures, such as Yossi Beilin and Ran Cohen, have left Meretz as well as politics (HE1, HE2, HE3, HE4) thus opening up an opportunity to redraw the public face of their party.  In the last decade or so, Meretz has been loosing its clear identity and as a result its voters.  Now it appears to be an opportunity for this party to re-invent itself (HE).  Also on the left, the Arab members of the Knesset have announced talks for formation of a united block for the upcoming election, also in an attempt to gain more wight in the next government (HE).  Not much is going on in Avoda with an exception of Yariv Oppenheimer, the GS of Shalom Ahshav movement, announcing that he will compete in party’s primaries (HE).  If Openhaimer actually makes it to a realistic place on the party’s ballot, this will move Avoda further to the left.

And supposedly in the center (maybe slightly left of it), Nachman Shai, another prominent figure in the Israeli “contemporary folklore” announced that he is joining Kadima (HE).  Shai’s claim to glory comes from his acting as the head of the army spokesman unit during the first Gulf War in 1990-1.  During that time he gained a title of the “national calmer” (my very bad translation) and looks like a strong addition to Kadima, which is trying to maintain an image of party that does politics differently.  Having Shai on the ballot will definitely strengthen Kadima and Livni, who are struggling with image problems resulting from Ehud Olmert being accused in a number of corruption cases and a fiasco of the last war in Lebanon.  At the same time, Israel Hason, who used to be number 2 in Yisrael Beitenu pary, has also announced that he joins Kadima (HE1, HE2).  I think this helps Kadima to paint itself as a more centrist party, as Zipi Livni’s opinions are being portraited as leftist in the media.  Having said that, I fail to understand Hason’s motives of leaving his home-party – I have not seen anything that signaled disagreements in Yisrael Beitenu.

The semi-bottom line is that it really looks like a battlefield in preparation.  Each party is marking its territory through the new people who are joining their lines.  This is true to all the major parties with the exception of maybe Avoda, which is not doing really well in this election and I wonder how much longer Ehud Barak will be mentioned in the same fashion as Netanyahu and Livni, who have much better chances to form the next government.  So, as the right parties are getting righter, the left parties are trying to re-shape themselves, and Kadima is trying to claim the center, the political map in Israel is getting more contrasted and dare i say even more polarised.  Interestingly, you can already start hearing voices in Israel comparing Livni to Obama, even if implicitly.  She is getting advice (she never asked for) to act as the leader (mening neglecting the offence of her opponents) and to focus on “new” media for her campaign (HE). I am still debating with myself whether or not she can be the Israeli Obama, but that is to another post.

I feel inspired

Slowly by slowly I start realizing that last night, watching the US election results coming in and then listening to the speeches I witnessed history in making.  Whether or not you agree with political view of Barak Obama, last night was a really good example of how democracy can work.  Until you live here for a some time, it is difficult to realize the depth of racial and cultural cleavages in the US society.  Being able to bridge over those with a lead in both electoral college and popular vote, is quite an achievement.  Last night was indeed another way of demonstrating the power of the American dream – a country where anything seems to be possible, not just in business, but also in politics. This election campaign is already being studied (for example for its use of information technology), but I believe there will be more of it making to the books of political campaigning.  If Barak Obama is going to govern the same way he ran his campaign, there may definitely be reasons for hope.

The US was like a computer running Windows for a very long time – it needed a reboot.  After eight years of Republican government, it seemed like the system became slower and buggier.  Spending the last summer in Washington DC, I have not met a single republican who would be happy with the President Bush’s government, not to mention a democrat.  And last night the people rebooted the system.  As with rebooting Windows, you can be sure that it will feel better at the beginning, but you can never know how it will behave in the long run.  It can work better, but it can also work worse with new bugs and glitches may come out as you go.  It will be now up to Barak Obama to demonstrate that “he can” and in his speech last night, you could also sense him being more cautious.

Regardless of how it will eventually work out, it seems like the USA is now in sort of an euphoria.  It is in an euphoria not only because if the election of the first black president, but also (and maybe mostly) because they see that the democratic system still works.  Following the election even closer in the last few days and talking to people around me, it is amazing to see how inspired and hopeful most of them are.  Being chronically skeptic, I do hope that there will be no hangover following this excitement, but right now it feels good for most people I meet.  In fact, watching the election results last night and listening to the speeches, I felt inspired.  If he and his team made it against the odds, many other things seem suddenly possible.

Inevitably I couldn’t help, but thinking about the upcoming Israeli election in February.  I wonder, if such a reboot is possible in Israel, which seems to run that Windows system for even longer than the US.  Even though in the last decade and a half, Israel had election practically every two years, there was no real change.  All the leaders who came and left, arrived from the same apparatus, held very similar views, and more so acted more in a reactionary way instead of taking active leadership positions (with an exception of a few stand-alone cases).  As a result, it is more like running on the same boot of Windows for a while and only keep on logging in with different users.  There is no real difference in performance, but the bugs keep on piling.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that even if a young politician starts in the Israeli political system with drive, energy, ideology, and leadership aspiration, by the time they get to a position where they can actually make a difference, they are too much socialized into that culture of impotent party-based politics.  In order to make it to any change-enabling position, they need to navigate party politics for such a long time, that they become part of these ideologically-corrupt systems. By the time they get to any role that can make a difference, they are alraedy not that young and are deeply indepted to their respective parties internal “acocunting” of favors, that they cannot do anything substantively bold.

One of potential reasons for that may lie in the Israeli electoral system.  In Israel we vote for parties, not for leaders.  The head of the largest party in Knesset is usually assigned with a task of assembling the coalition and forming the govenrment.  We do not directly elect the head of the state.  The result is what i described before – by the time you reach a position in your party that allows you to realistically run for Knesset or more so compete for the post of the Prime Minsiter, you are deeply embeded into the micro-party politics and is lacking the drive, the energy, the vision, the optimisim, and the ability to dare in order to make a substative change.

There was an attempt to try and directly elect the head of the state in the past, but that failed.  I think it failed because in the quickly changing Israeli realities, we didn’t have time to mentally adjust to that change.  Even more so, the political system didn’t have the time to adjust to that change.  People who ran for election during that trial period, were the same people whom we see running today through their parties.  So, although there was a nominal change, there was no really substantive change in the way people think or the way people function.  Hence the failure.

Watching the American people celebating their reboot and their democracy, makes me wonder what would it take to reboot the Israeli politics.  Some of their enthusiasm is definietly rubbing off, but I still wonder if “we also can”…?

Election parallels – gender issues

As the US voters are lining up to vote, I can’t help but think about some parallels between the dynamics of the US and the Israeli elections already.

Similarly to what happened in the US, the current Israeli election is also ‘historical’. Although Israel has a record of female Prime Minister (PM), Tzipi Livni’s candidacy is still quite unique.  Not only she is female, but she is also young and has limited military experience, which is traditionally important for the Israeli PMs.  She is also heading a really “young” and quite controversial party, which emerged in the center of political map and is lacking the long histories of both “Likud” and “Avoda”.  To a degree this is similar to Obama’s appearance as a young and relatively inexperienced candidate, who started basically with nothing and in about a year became one of the most popular politicians in the US and beyond.  If Livni is smart, she could capitalize on that experience.

Nevertheless, we can already see reactions in the Israeli political sphere.  Gender is suddenly really important.  Soon after Livni declared that she prefers the election blaming the failure to build a coalition on Shas’s excessive demands, the spiritual leader of Shas, Ovadia Yossef, issued a halakha ruling stating that it is Ok for women to govern.  Prior to that, one of the critiques of Shas was that they blew the colatition talks because it is against their tradition to have women in positions of power (indeed, there is and there was not a single woman among Shas’s mebers of Knesset).  It is difficult to interpret such a progressive ruling from an orthodox spiritual leader, other than a gesture towards female voters.

Later, Netanyahu has widely publicised the fact that former army spokeswoman, Miri Regev, has joined Likud.  During the press confernce he was quoted saying: “We are witenessing a wave of people who join or come back to Likud and I am glad that many women are joining our movement” (my translation of the original in HE).  Does it ring the McCain-Palin bell to anyone?

Let the polling begin!

As Israel (IL) is picking up the election baton, the polling industry in the country is also shifts its focus on the election.  Recently “Haaretz” published results of a national poll speculating about political options if the election would take place now (HE).  According to those results, Likud and Kadima would gain 31 mandates each out of total 120.  Next in line is Ysrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Liberman, with 11 mandates.  Avoda, traditionally a ruling party, is fighting with Shas, orthodox religious party, for the fourth place.  Based on that poll, Netanyahu would be in a better position to form the government.

The right wing block would account for 61 mandates and the left-center block would account only for 59.  Also, Netanyahu is viewed as more suitable for the role of Prime Minister (PM) compared to Barak and Livni, particularly when it comes to issues of security.

Of course this is just first one.  I assume there are more polls to come…

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).

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