At the Time of NO Alternative.
by Steven Shamrak
Many observers were surprised by the high
voter turnout during the last election in Israel, 65.2 percent. After decades
of hopeless political games played by both major political players, corruption
and absence of choice (in spite of enormous number of parties for a small
country like Israel), Israelis have become disillusioned and developed a strong
political apathy toward the election process in Israel.
Who would ever believe that Jews would
become politically indifferent? Turnout since 1949 had generally been above 75
percent until there was a sharp drop in 1999 to 62.3 percent. It seems the Oslo
agreement destroyed the confidence of Israelis in the viability of Israel’s
political system and self-serving politicians of all political spectrum.
The results of the election are
interesting, disturbing and quite common for Israel. Kadima narrowly won with
28 seats but is not able to form a majority government with its natural
partners of the left-wing parties. Therefore, Tzipi Livni started courting
Likud and a fake extremist, Liberman of the Israel Beiteinu party, to fake
another unity government.
On the other hand, Likud received 27
seats in the Knesset and in good position to form a majority Jewish national
coalition. Although it was predicted before the election that Likud may win up
to 30 seats, but Likud’s position became weaker after Netanyahu’s political
games backfired when he marginalised Moshe Feiglin, leader of the
Manhigut Yehudit faction, by moving him to an unwinnable 36th position on the
Likud election list, and when a few days before the election he suggested the
possibility of a coalition with the Kadima and Labor parties.
People were looking for a new direction
but realised that Likud under the leadership of Netanyahu will change nothing!
Votes for the Israel Beiteinu party, which received 15 seats, were mainly
protest votes, not support for Liberman’s ideas of swapping land in Israel for
Jewish land in Judea to accommodate the creation of another Muslim terrorist
state, or easing the conversion process for those non-Jews who came to Israel
in violation of the Law of Return!
The only winner from this bogus election
is the current ‘lame duck’ Prime Minister of Israel, Olmert, who will be able
to stay in power and avoid corruption charges for a bit longer while this
charade of forming a new Israeli government progresses.
Israel desperately needs to change the
political process, starting with rationalising the number of political parties
and making sure that they are based on clearly defined political and national
platform, not on the origins or religious affiliations of the voters. Then
people will have a clear-cut picture of what each party is about and whom they
want to be represented by. Otherwise there will be endless elections that will
only bring Israel closer to an existential abyss!