Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[danny]

As I said, from place 12 there will be rotations, so it isn't exactly a full spot.

12) TAAL/RAAM
13) Hadash/Balad
14) Hadash/Balad

[danny]

So, who is 16/19?

I checked and I think I understand what they did now.

12 will be TAAL, if they don't get 15, then he will resign after 2 years and number 15 from RAAM will be there. the names don't seem to be known yet.

Same thing between 13-14 with abu Maaruf in 13 from Hadash and Azberga in 14 from Balad.

[danny]

15 is al Horomi and Azberga is from Balad.

Yeah, writing Hadash twice was a mistake, fixed

[danny]

Reserved spots in the Zionist camp:
2: Livni
8: Peretz
11: Trachtenberg
16: Yoel Hasson
21: Ksenia Svetalova
24: Yael Cohen
25: Shlomo Mula

Yoel Hasson is a horrible person, can't stand that guy and not looking forward to his return.
Yael cohen used to be in the green movement, which didn't pass the threshold. Also was active in the anti road 6 movement, the road itself turned out to be very useful, so I'm glad that she lost on that subject.

[danny]

Why don't you like Yoel Hasson?

He's someone who doesn't seem to have any real principles, he just goes to wherever it's most convenient for him. His idea of winning debates is to spout a lot of demagoguery, and try to do it while shouting the loudest over his opponent, and appear to be really outraged over everything. I strongly dislike hollow party hacks in general, but Hasson makes it worse by being obnoxious about it and constantly changing the party he is being hackish for.

[danny]

Apparently when Trachtenberg was introduced in a campaign rally today, he was met with a chorus of boos. The 2011 protest people aren't forgetting things quickly.

[danny]

Apparently when Trachtenberg was introduced in a campaign rally today, he was met with a chorus of boos. The 2011 protest people aren't forgetting things quickly.

more accurate: Shelly's people didn't like Herzog's pledge to make him treasury sec.

Yes but there is a reason not to want him as treasury minister.
Anyway, Herzog can't keep all of his promises even if he were to become PM unless he gets 40 seats at least, he promised defence to Yadlin, Treasury to Trachtenberg, he would have to give people seats from his party that actually went through a primary to keep them in line. for a party with less than 30 seats, that wouldn't leave enough offices for coalition partners to get over 60. Herzog's promises when it comes to ministers don't really mean much right now.

[danny]

Kulanu doesn't need big names, Kachlon is a big enough name by himself. unfortunately for him, he isn't charismatic, and isn't a good campaigner. He also doesn't have opinions on a lot of issues, and doesn't do a good job masking that like other politicians. They also don't seem to prepare the candidates for dealing with the media. I just saw an interview with Gallant where he was asked what Kachlon did as minister of welfare, and he answered that he doesn't know the details. That is just bad preparation.

Having said that, Kachlon himself is still popular and so is Cellular reform that he did. So there is always the potential to grow if the party will get its sh**t together.

[danny]

former Beitar Jerusalem football star Eli Ohana will join the Jewish Home in one of the reserved spots. Significant because Beitar has a very right wing fan base, traditionally connected with the Likud Which Bennet is now going for.

[danny]

And the Dichter-Hotovely saga is still ongoing.

[danny]

Bennet getting fire from the base for adding Ohana (who supported the disengagement).

Eyal Ben Reuven in a sharp move after his candidancy in Meretz did not materialized had been granted the 24th spot in Labour by Livni.

Kalfa has already defected to Yishai's party.

[danny]

The Likud sagas are coming to an end. Bibi found two people to bring in number 11 will be Anat Berko, and number 23 will Limor Darash Samamian.

Hotovely beat Dichter by 110 vores in the recount and will be number 20, Dichter will be at 26.

[danny]

There will be 5,881,696 people with the right to vote, up from 5,656,705 in the 2013 elections. That means a rise of 3.977%.

[danny]

And Ohana has announced he'll be resigning his spot on the list. A major embarrassment for Bennett, this is.

Basically the entire party other than Bennet was against him.

[danny]

Kalfa already cancelled his resignation and will return to number 18.

[danny]

Tali Pluskov, the mayor of Arad for Yisrael Beitenu, is joining Kulanu and will be number 6.

[danny]

It looks like the Kahanists and Yishai have come to an agreement and Baruch Marzel will be number 4, but Chetboun will leave in protest.

[danny]

UTJ submitted their list, which is basically the same as last time.

[danny]

Aren't Arab-Israelis actually something like 20% of the population of Israel? I realize that some of them vote for "Zionist parties" such as Meretz or Labour etc... but I think the vast majority of those who do vote vote for Arab parties meaning that if Arab-Israelis actually voted at the same rate as Jewish-Israelis - the Arab Alliance party would likely be getting something like 20 seats - which would have HUGE implications for government formation in Israel.

Any thoughts?

Arabs make up 20.7% of the population, and if a party got that many votes it would get about 27 seats, however:

1) 14% of those Arabs live in east Jerusalem, and almost none of them have citizenship so they can't vote.
2) 9% of those Arabs are Druze, a big majority of whom vote for Zionist parties.
3) A larger percent of Arabs are under the age of 18 and can't vote.
4) A minority of the rest of the Arabs vote for Zionist parties Labour, Meretz, Shas, Likud, in some Arab localities these parties get a significant number of votes.
5) The percent of Arabs who vote at all is lower, in the last elections it was 57% compared to 67% overall.

[danny]

The Last day for registration is very eventful:

Kalfa already cancelled his resignation and will return to number 18.

Update: Kalfa tried to return but was refused, and will be replace with the next place in Tkuma, Nachi Eyal.

It looks like the Kahanists and Yishai have come to an agreement and Baruch Marzel will be number 4, but Chetboun will leave in protest.

Update: Chetboun is back in number 2. Both him and Marzel are on the list.

Also, Nissim Zeev was kicked out of the Shas list, even though he was promised that he was in if he didn't join Yishai.

[danny]

Bad news for the joint list (Arab). Taleb Al Sana, a former MK for RAAM, will lead his own list that will compete with them for Arab votes. He won't pass the threshold but all the votes he gets will be instead of the joint list.

[danny]

Bennet moved Anat Rot up to number 15 on the JH list, Rot was formerly in the Labour party and Peace Now (and was an advisor to Mitzna) before changing her politics.

[danny]

He did this last time, ended up returning to Raam-Taal.

It seems that Bibi gave slot 11 to Benny Begin. A lot of people turned him down.

It's not the same, last time he threatened to split but ended up being in the fifth spot (they got 4). This time the lists have already been submitted, and The Joint list has given one in without him, and he has given in his own list. At most he could theoretically drop out, but he can't be put on the Joint List in any case, so he will probably continue his run.

[danny]

Could one of the Israelis expand on the Temple Mount issue?

It was the main stumbling block for an agreement between Yishai and the Kachists.

I know it's the moderate position not to let Jews pray at the Temple Mount and the extremist one to let them do so.

This is a case where the extremist side really makes sense though. It's a free country and everyone should be able to go to whatever historic site and do whatever they want as long as they don't damage it.

There are two groups that oppose going to the temple mount for different reasons.
The first is the "moderate" side that opposes going to the temple mount because they don't want to anger the Arabs and think going there will cause riots, or simply the fact that the kind of Jews who go to the temple mount are eople whom the moderate side is automatically against everything they do.

The second is a religious view that it is religiously prohibited for Jews to go to the temple mount. This is the problem in the negotiations, since Chetboun and and his Rabbi Tau are strongly supportive of this view.

I personally agree with the "extremist" side for the same reason you gave despite being secular and having no desire to pray anywhere, much less go to the temple mount to do it.

[danny]

That makes sense. I know Yishai is an establishment guy but I had a hard time believing he would oppose people going to the Temple Mount for the sake of the Arabs.

The problem was more with Chetboun than with Yishai though this seems to be because Yishai is more realistic and realised that he needed the votes, while Chetboun is probably delusional and thought that they are easily passing the threshold anyway and don't need the Kahanists