Talk Elections

      On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states (one Jewish, one Arab), as well as the placement of the Holy City of Jerusalem under international administration.  The Jewish leadership in Palestine, headed by David Ben Gurion, accepted this as a “bare minimum.”  The Arab leadership, however, opposed the partition, some on the basis that it gave a disproportionately large amount of land to the Jews (in relation to their population there at the time), and many others out of principled opposition to any partition of what they considered to be Arab land.
Fighting and skirmishes immediately broke out between the Jewish and Arab communities in Palestine at the time, with militias on both sides carrying out terrorist attacks against civilians.  On the 14 of May, 1948, David Ben Gurion, the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, proclaimed the state of Israel.  The Zionist dream had been realized.  The Jewish people now had a state in their ancient homeland.
      Within the next few days, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon (briefly) mobilized their forces against the new Jewish state.  Many believed that the nascent state would only last for but a few days.  However, with Ben Gurion (serving essentially as acting Prime Minister) backing the Haganah as the defense forces of the country, all adult citizens were conscripted.  Through an amazing feat, Israel held its ground.  A truce began on June 11, but was broken on July 8 when fighting resumed.  10 days later, another truce took effect.  In the middle of October, that truce was broken.  Against the backdrop of this continuing war, Israel is holding its first general election.
One subject of controversy throughout the war has been the expulsion of many Arabs from their villages, particularly along the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Among most Jews in the new state, there appears to be little remorse for those who either left out of fear or who were directly forced from their homes at gunpoint. 

      Mapai, led by David Ben Gurion, the incumbent Prime Minister of the young State of Israel, is widely viewed as the frontrunner.  The party is socialist, democratic, and Zionist (Labor Zionist, specifically).  Ben Gurion backed the partition of the Mandate of Palestine into two states; one Jewish, one Arab.  In the economic sphere, the party supports a centralized socialist command economy based on a combination of the already-established Kibbutzim and some state-based nationalization.  The party also advocates a wide array of social welfare schemes, pension programs for the elderly and Holocaust survivors, maternity insurance, workers’ compensation programs, a compulsory universal health care system, and universal education.  In the social sphere, the party is secular and in favor of the protection of women’s rights.  However, it is willing to make compromises with Haredi forces for the sake of the cohesion of the state.  Regarding defense and foreign policy, the party makes no apologies for the expulsion of Arabs from many of their villages during the War of Independence.  While supporting cooperation with leaders of the Arab community within Israel (having set up Arab satellite parties), the party is widely seen as supporting many discriminatory measures towards Arabs (such as martial law, travel permits, administrative detentions, etc.).  The party backs a pro-U.S. foreign policy as well.  Central to the platform is support for efforts to secure a ceasefire with the Arab states, as well as rationing and other economic austerity measures.

      Mapam is also socialist and Zionist.  Unlike Mapai, however, the party backs a pro-Soviet foreign policy, in spite of not identifying as communist.  Lead by Meir Ya’ari, it attributes the Soviet Union’s anti-Zionism simply to a misunderstanding on the part of Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin.  Its economic policies are relatively similar to those of Mapai, though it generally goes further on nationalization.  The party is more vehemently secular and feminist than Mapai.  Perhaps the most important difference is that the party opposed the ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Israel during the War of Independence, and wants to allow them to return, unlike Mapai.  Mapam also supports efforts to reach a ceasefire with Israel’s Arab neighbors.

      United Religious Front is an alliance of Israel’s four Religious Zionist/Orthodox political parties: HaPoel HaMizrahi, Agudat Yisrael, Poalei Agudat Yisrael, and Mizrahi.  The party seeks to make Israel a religious state obedient to the laws of the Torah, though much diversity exists within the movement regarding the extent of the laws.  The party is also considered to be vaguely economically left-of-center, due to the working-class status of most members of the Orthodox and Haredi communities in Israel.  The party opposed partition, but is not making it a huge issue in this campaign.  Central to the party’s platform is its vow to get whatever government it sits in to provide funding to Orthodox yeshivas, as well as extra subsidies to the ultra-Orthodox, whose religious obligations prevent them from seeking employment.  The party is led by Yehuda Leib Maimon.

      Herut is the main representative of Revisionist Zionism in this election.  Led by Menachem Begin, the party is running on its vehement opposition to any cease fire with the Arab states.  Furthermore, it refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and uses the slogan “to the banks of the Jordan River.” On the economic front, the party backs private initiative and enterprise, while still supporting legislation that prevents trusts from exploiting workers and the formation of monopolies. The party is linked to the Irgun militia. 

      The General Zionists are considered to be the political arm of the centrist faction in the Zionist movement led by President Chaim Weizmann.  Generally considered to be representative of middle class Jewish community of central Europe.  The party is seen as center-right, liberal, and secular.  The platform supports private property, a capitalist economy, and a free market.  The party is led by Pinchas Rosen.

      The Progressive Party is attempting to fill in the gap between Mapai and the General Zionists.  Led by Pinchas Rosen, the PP seeks social welfare programs and regulations in tandem with a market economy. (i.e. Social liberalism) In addition, the party is adamant about its secularism.  Like most parties, the Progressives support attaining a cease fire with the Arab states.  The PP and the General Zionists both hail from the centrist ideological camp of General Zionism, and are both considered to be competing for the same vote. 

      The National Unity List of Sephardim and Oriental Communities is a list seeking to represent the non-Ashkenazi Jewish community in Israel (which, at this point in time, is still relatively small).  Led by Bechor Shalom-Sheetrit.

      Maki is the Communist Party competing in the election.  It is unique in that it has both Jewish and Arab members.  The party backs the full state-collectivization of agriculture and a dictatorship of the proletariat, in addition to Jewish-Arab solidarity, a pro-Soviet foreign policy, and all that that entails.  The group is led by Shmuel Mikunis.  Predictably, the party is the only one besides Mapam that wants to allow Arab refugees from villages within the new Jewish state to return. 

      The Democratic List of Nazareth is a Mapai satellite seeking the votes of the Arab community in Israel.  It backs Mapai's policies and leadership of the country.  Ben Gurion sought to create the list and include it in his government in order to prove that Jews and Arabs could work together.  However, few Arabs see it as representative of them.  Many allege that the group's leader, Seif el-Din el-Zoubi,was "upgraded" by Ben Gurion (through being given the task of leading the list) in order to compensate for his dwindling power within Zubia clan, in addition to Ben Gurion's own aims.  That being said, since many Arabs see a Mapai government as inevitable, some see voting for a list that will advocate for their interests within the government as their best bet.

      The Fighters' List is considered to be the most fringe-right party in the running.  A militant Revisionist group, the FL emerged from the extremist paramilitary group Lehi.  The group's platform demands the continuation of the war against Iraq and Transjordan, and wants to establish Jewish sovereignty on both sides of the Jordan River.  At the same time, the party has a strangely socialistic economic platform, and has, at some points, backed a pro-Soviet foreign policy.  It is led by Natan Yellin-Mor.

      The Women's International Zionist Organization has formed a list for the election.  Led by Rachel Cohen-Kagan, the group is dedicated to the advancement of women in Israeli society, and is vaguely center-left on other matters.

      The Yemenite Association is seeking to represent the interests of the Yemenite Jewish community in Israel.  Has multiple leaders.

I probably would have supported Maki at the time.

Mapam for me, despite agreeing more with Mapai on economic and foreign policy far more.  There is no excuse for ethnic cleansing.

General Zionists

Maki

Progressive Party. This promises to be an interesting election series!

My God these results are...interesting.

Mapai

Conflicted between General Zionists and Herut -- ended up voting for Herut to make sure they got in. I prefer the policies of the General Zionists but the personalities of Herut (if that makes sense).

Wow, this forum definitely seems to have shifted rightward since I stopped posting here.

Women's International Zionist Organization, duh

Mapai easily.

Right-wing parties always do weirdly well in these election series polls for some reason.

Mapai. The other leftists are naive when it comes to the USSR

To make it truly Israeli all parties should get in, so someone ought to vote for the last three parties without votes.

So you like personalities who are mass murdering terrorists?

Maki as the only party opposed to Zionism.

National Unity List of Sephardim and Oriental Communities should at least get a vote, it will be relevant later on. The Yemenites and the Arab list would be good to get in, but we can do without them.

Wow Mapam is doing a lot worse than I thought

They occupy a bad position-most centre-left types are going to vote Mapai while the anti-Zionists/True Leftists will vote for the Reds.

Israel's love of identity based politics makes this quite a hard timeline.

Yes, we need a bit of role play to pull it off, where some people take on the part as Orthodox, Sephardi, Palestinians etc.

Well i am personally role playing as 'evil nutcase' and have cast the lone vote for the fascists.

Once there are real Arab parties to vote for, I will vote for those. But Democratic List of Nazareth doesn't count.

Mapam (easiest choice ever)

Protip: unless you want to vote for Arab right wing (Balad) or the Islamists, Maki/Rakkah/Hadash will be your only option.

Things would have been so much worse with a Soviet-allied Israel. Most of the neighboring Arab states were Baghdad Pact signatories or otherwise US-allied, so that would have just taken a preexisting conflict and added a layer of Cold War animosity to it. I'd expect to have seen the Arab-Israeli conflict turn into a US-Soviet proxy war. I assume the Palestinian independence movement wouldn't have been pro-Soviet and Marxist like IRL. (Maybe they would have been right-wing and fascist?)

What about a non-aligned Israel?

Herut. I'd likely be very nationalistic after the experience of the Jews in Europe.

National Unity List (token Sephradic/Oriental/etc)

So after being treated like crap for being of a different religion, you'd want to...treat other people like crap for being of a different religion?

Is there any chance that the Arab republics crush Israel in the 50s or 60s, or are we doomed to continue this to the present?

It also sounds delicious.

()

Mapai

Speaking of bizarre alternate history scenarios, am I completely wrong or did we eventually elect basically a fascist party in one of the election series? I think it was the German one actually, where we literally elected neo-Nazis for the lulz towards the end.

That is how it usually works.

I am not opposed to Jews, I am opposed to a Jewish settler-colonial state seizing land from existing Arab populations.

So while you are not opposed to Jews as a "tolerated minority", you don't want Jews to have any options should their "tolerated" part of the status end. Good to know.

A minority being oppressed does not grant them the right to oppress a new population in a different part of the world.

Question: does living in location B automatically mean oppressing the "natives" of location B?

No, but seizure of land and discrimination against said natives does.

So you don't actually have anything against Zionism. Good to know.

Also, Israel getting crushed by Arab Democracies (unlikely considering that none of Egypt, Jordan, or Syria were democracies at the time) is almost certainly the least likely or positive fix. There are much likelier ways for some land return and an end to discrimination to happen.

Let's hope this is the last argument of those sorts we end up having.  Unlikely, but I'd greatly appreciate it if all of us try.

I mean, you did start an election series set in a country literally built upon a pile of Palestinian corpses

There was a very strong chance up until the Yom Kippur War that Israel would actually be wiped off the map. Why are you fully excluding this?

I'm a Christian, so it's not likely I'd vote for any of the almost all Jewish parties. So Democratic List of Nazareth I guess.

No it wasn't.
No there wasn't.

Zionists pls go

If you were to actually read the figures, you would find that the number of Palestinians actually killed was less than 12000. Still far too many, but hardly enough for a 'mountains of corpses type remark"

Edgy Marxist antisemites, leave already. This isn't your timeline.

More sensible if you anti-Zionists stayed out of an Israel election thread.

lmao

There is a (very) low bar necessary to be considered a non-antisemite antizionist. You have failed to cross it many times.

Call me what you want. At least I'm not running interference for a regime that bombs hospitals just because it's got universal health care.

I have Sephardi ancestry, for the record.

I don't run interference for any regime. You made a false statement. I corrected said false statement. Get over it.

Who cares?
Gilad Atzmon has 100% Jewish ancestry, and he's still an antisemite.

Someone with 1/32nd Palestinian blood who does nothing but apologize for Bibi and Bennett and calls for Greater Israel could very well be considered anti-Palestinian.

Take it elsewhere, everybody. This is an election series, not the 564584788329th thread dedicated about "debating" the Israeli-Arab conflict.

I think this thread needs a peace process. I call on all sides to immediately begin to at least consider the possibility of starting one.

Class enemy, guillotine pls

Like Snowstalker, I'm part Jewish * and I think trying to avoid debating the obvious issue is going to be an exercise in futility. In any event if such debate is forbidden it seems that in this series we're just going to end up with a kindler, gentler Israel that continues to massacre people but also has gay marriage or whatever or we decide that PEACE is magically reached by the 70s and we move on to discussing unique political issues like tax rates and transport policy.





*Note: not actually true but about as valid as Snowstalker's claim

Why not just, I don't know, not post in this thread?

If Meretz starts winning around 40% (as I hope it will) with the Arab parties to bring it at 50%, it's perfectly reasonable to assume peace will eventually end up being achieved with all interlocutors who seek it.

The earliest POD is of course that Sephardim/Mizrachim are not treated like **** and don't end up becoming right wing for forty years. Also is Mapai and company stop being so insufferable to anyone who isn't WAS (White Ashkenazi Secular)

FTFY

Leaving aside the traditional shouting match, I'm just suddenly wondering whether there's any non-Western (or non-'Western') country where this sort of exercise wouldn't get very odd very quickly. Even Japan for instance: I can't imagine this forum voting for permanent LDP domination.

Do the American election series typically start off this way?

If that's how you see it, then go vote to change it then, as you already have.  If you want to argue about Zionism, we can start another pointless argument outside this election thread.

Well I'd imagine they'd all vote for the communists.

India's the only country where I can imagine it being feasible at all, but India is a bizarre case.