Today the country goes to the polls and is voting for parliament, the Knesset, and to encourage voting, it is a public holiday.
There is a Dutch website called Electoral Compass IL that allows the average Joe to place his own views with respect to those political parties running in the election here. I took it just for the heck of it — I know which party I'm voting for. But I wanted to see if my views tallied with those of the political party I chose.
It would be an interesting experience for anyone who does not live here who feels he has opinions as to how this country should run. Your views will sit in a circle (or oval) within a square compass with the left wing on the left, the right wing on the right, the hawkish view on the top and the dovish view on the bottom. I'm at the top, a hawk, with left-centrist views economically. At least so says this compass. I suspect that the majority of you, if you decide to take the survey attached to the Electoral Compass, will find yourselves near the bottom, probably near the center economically, with a lot of you towards the right.
In any event, the symbols for the political parties are all there with their own position on this compass. If you click on the parties, you'll get a description of their views lined up against the survey questions asked, and how they look at the survey question and, if you took the survey yourself, how you looked at it.
In Israel, when you vote for parliament, you vote only for a party. Each party has a Hebrew letter - or series of Hebrew letters - on a small sheet of paper, a pétek, that is deposited in an envelope which is then deposited in a box. The number of seats the party gets is determined by the percentage of the vote it receives in toto. A political party, in order to be seated in parliament, has to receive at least 2½% of the votes cast. I'm voting for ha'iHúd ha'leumí, the National Union Party, whose symbol is the Hebrew letter ט - "tet". For me, it is the least offensive of all the choices.
The National Union describes itself as being "strong on Zionism." Well, you've seen me write this here before. I believe that Zionism is a dead letter in Israel. But these guys are a bit behind the learning curve in terms of phraseology. That's okay. It is the substance of what they believe in that is getting my vote. They believe, as do I, in a single Jewish state stretching from the Jordan to the sea, including Gaza. They believe in a Jewish leadership for the nation, and that publicly the Sabbath and Jewish Law should be observed. For example, if someone wants to blast his TV during the Sabbath in his own home, for example, that's his own business — this is not a theocracy being advocated.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
"...and that publicly the Sabbath and Jewish Law should be observed. For example, if someone wants to blast his TV during the Sabbath in his own home, for example, that's his own business."
Except that he wouldn't be able to, because presumably public observance of the Sabbath would mean TV stations would be closed... n'est-ce pas?
2 - Roger Nowosielski
Yeah, do enlighten us, Ruvy, on that inconvenient little fact.
3 - Ruvy
Except that he wouldn't be able to, because presumably public observance of the Sabbath would mean TV stations would be closed... n'est-ce pas?
In Israel, you can pick up TV from around the world. Under Sabbath closing laws, Israel Broadcasting and other Israeli outlets would shut down (or run a silent station that would come to life in the case of war) - but the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Faux News, al-Jazeera and other foreign stations would still be broadcasting.
In essence, the foreigners with strong ties to outside of the country - or immigrants who understand foreign languages like English, Russian or French, could continue to blast their TV's away on G-d's Sabbath. Those who were primarily Hebrew speakers would acually have less choice in the matter.
4 - Dr Dreadful
Ah, I was forgetting about cable and satellite. But surely even there the cable companies would have to be closed? So unless you have your own decoder, you still wouldn't be able to view the satellite signal.
I guess I just thought you'd picked a bad example. Your point, I suppose, was that if someone wants to use the Sabbath to put up shelves and fit baseboards, the religious police isn't going to barge in and confiscate his Black & Decker...
5 - Roger Nowosielski
You know, of course, the line in the major Western papers (BBC et al) - that the result of these elections will prove detrimental to "the peace process."
6 - Dr Dreadful
It may not be Netanyahu after all. The BBC is picking up a vibe that the heavy rain today is helping Kadima. Not sure how they translate that into a victory for Livni - unless it's the grouchy, conservative, Likud-supporting pensioners who can't get out to vote because of the bad weather? Ah well, we'll know in a few hours if they're right.
7 - Roger Nowosielski
"the grouchy, conservative, Likud-supporting pensioners"
The equivalent of our AARP's illustrious membership?
8 - Roger Nowosielski
Don't you have absentee ballots for the old farts?
9 - Roger Nowosielski
Here is one, positive take on today's events, but you'll have to read it to the end:
Israel Election: Politics of Paralysis.
10 - Ruvy
DD,
Your point, I suppose, was that if someone wants to use the Sabbath to put up shelves and fit baseboards, the religious police isn't going to barge in and confiscate his Black & Decker...
What religious police? This is not Iran or Saudi Arabia. I said public observance of Jewish law, not private observance. Public observance of the Sabbath means no restaurants (or bars), cinemas or theaters open on the Sabbath, no soccer matches, no public entertainment that requires the exchange of money. Enforcing all that would be quite enough. There is no need to go bursting into an apartment to fine someone for what he does privately.
11 - Ruvy
the result of these elections will prove detrimental to "the peace process."
What "peace process"? They "process" peace around here the way Armour Foods processes pork into Spam (thanks, Uncle Jay).
In under an hour, the news stations here will start to release the results of exit polls. Then we'll see what the numbers show. In the mean time, I can wait.
Just for the record, the Likúd is as much a right-wing political party as Madonna is a virgin and a lot of the pensioners that I know will be voting National Union.
In fact, if you go to that compass thingy I referred you all to in the article and fill in the survey, you'll see that Kadíma is more right-wing socioeconomically than Likúd is.
12 - Roger Nowosielski
It wasn't so when I was there in the sixties. Likud, if I remember correctly, was being compared to a Fascist party.
13 - Ruvy
Golda Meir scored an incalculable strategic victory by defeating Arab armies and occupying Arab territories in the 1967 war.
The idiots at TIME Magazine were always somewhat anti-Israel in their coverage and with this fuzzy knowledge of history - it was Levi Eshkol at the head of the regime in 1967, not Golda Meir - I'd be hesitant to rely on anything they predict.
14 - Roger Nowosielski
They even had a Communist party back then.
15 - Roger Nowosielski
Ben Gurion was at the helm then; forgot the name of the one who headed Likud.
16 - Roger Nowosielski
Did they forget Moshe Dayan?
17 - Baronius
I took the survey, as best as I understood it. Translating the subtleties of politics can be a nightmare, even when political parties do what they claim to stand for, and don't shift over time. On the economic and defense graph, I'm a match for Likud. With the graphs representing religion, I was at the midpoint between Likud and National Unity.
Considering that Ruvy and I don't agree on anything economic, it's telling that we would maybe have voted the same if I were an Israeli. Whatever happens, Ruvy, I hope you end up with enough hawks.
18 - Ruvy
It wasn't so when I was there in the sixties. Likud, if I remember correctly, was being compared to a Fascist party.
Roger, there was no Likud in the 1960's. What there was was called Ma'arákh Herút v'Liberalím a coalition of the Herút and Liberal Parties in Israel. At the time, this coalition was far to the right of the various Labor parties, all of which followed one variety of socialism or another.
But a lot of this has changed in the last forty years. The Likúd attempts to be a centrist party and was responsible for the expulsion of Jews from Gush Qatif - an act which led to the recent military campaign in Gaza, as well as the daily Qassam bombardment which we are forced to bear up under. There is only one Labor party now - and it has rejected socialism and syndicalism entirely. Israel is a wild-west capitalist state with a heavy overlay of socialist-minded bureaucracy - and none of the benefits.
And for the record, no political party in Israel ever espoused anything like Fascism, Roger.
19 - Roger Nowosielski
Right, it was Herut. But it was being compared in the popular mind (by some) to it. Forgot the name of the figurehead of that party, Major something.
20 - Ruvy
Baronius,
I'm glad you took the survey. It gives you a taste of the kinds of questions Israelis face. They are very different from the ones that Americans do. If you were magically transmuted into an Israeli context, you probably would be more conservative than I in terms of economics, and just as hawkish.
There is a nasty electrical storm going on right now. I suspect that Kadíma has done well and we are getting a Divine Opinion on the matter. But in either event, I need to disconnect my modem for a bit to make sure that none of the lighting kills this computer. So it's ta-ta for now.
21 - Baronius
Yeah, Ruvy, context is important. My views on the U.S. Supreme Court don't really guide me to a specific answer about the Israeli court system. It's like when one of our British BC writers talks about the welfare state, I can only speculate about what he means. (Not to complain about overseas articles. I love'em. I love women too, and I don't really understand them either.)
22 - Dr Dreadful
Ruvy @ #10: I got your point, and I was speaking hypothetically.
Nice pun in the title, BTW. No-one else seems to have picked up on it so far.
23 - Roger Nowosielski
Here's my position, Ruvy, but I admit I don't know some issues, in particular - the strategic importance of some of the areas/neighborhoods included in the survey. A very neat thing, by the way, not the profile of those running for office, except Mr. Hawk himself:
survey.
24 - Cannonshop
Really sick thing, Ruvy, I took your survey. I'm not AS far to the right as I thought I'd be.
25 - Dr Dreadful
I tried to take the survey, but it keeps crashing my browser. I'll have another go tonight when I get home.