Israeli General Election 2013

[Vosem]

Aryeh Deri is returning to Shas, and the party now won't have any leader, to keep everyone happy.

Who'll be first on the list?

Also the Jewish Home and the National Union have reached an agreement to run together in the coming elections.

Didn't an agreement to do this in '09 fall apart? (Although, it worked out in '06...)

[Vosem]

Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu separately would've gotten more seats, but together I think even a mythical grand centrist monster (Olmert+Lapid+Mofaz+Livni) would be unable to defeat them. In any case, I like this -- it shows Netanyahu may be shifting towards a more secular approach to politics, which is good news. Are they really calling the alliance Likud Beiteinu (Likud Is Our Home), like Wikipedia says? That...sounds awkward, somehow. And Lapid, remaining secular but shifting to the right and visiting Ariel to get Russian votes? Even better!

PPP's US state polls today have really frightened me, but all the news out of Israel seems largely for the better.

Also Kadima is continuing to collapse with mk's leaving the party left and right.

Really? Tell me about this. All I've learned from the English Wikipedia is Dichter's left the party, resigned from the Knesset, joined Netanyahu's Cabinet, and will probably be running with Likud Likud Beiteinu at the next election, though he remains an independent for now. Who else has left? And to go where? And how successful will they be there? And for what reason? EngWiki still says Kadima has 28 Knesset members.

[Vosem]

Of the Kadima ex-Soviets, Shamalova-Berkovich joined Likud and Abesadze goes to Avoda.

Aryeh Bibi has joined Likud as well, and so has Tzachi Hanegbi (and Dichter has apparently made it official) too...only Abesadze has gone to Labor so far, no one to Yesh Atid...

[Vosem]

So when will various party lists be determined? And publicized?

[Vosem]

Yesterday was the leadership election for the Jewish Home, in which Naftali Bennet (23,645 votes) beat Zevulun Orlev (11,501 votes) handily

All the remaining primaries are for the list and not the leader.

remaining election dates:

November 11: Meretz primaries
November 13: Jewish Home primaries
November 25: Likud primaries
November 29: Labour primaries
December 5: Yisrael Beitenu publishes list thus completing the Likud Beitenu list.
December 6: Last day to submit the candidate lists
January 22: general election

So, the Meretz primaries are today...what happened? And what's the prognosis for all these other pre-election events?

[Vosem]

Michael Ben Ari and Aryeh Eldad have officially left the Natinal Union, and formed their own party, to be called "Otzma Leyisrael" (strength to Israel).

Are they likely to get seats in the Knesset? Certainly hope not.

[Vosem]

have they had a total meltdown

Indeed they have. However, from what I understand most polls continue to show them just barely passing the threshold and getting 2 seats (thereby tying the 1993 PC showing in Canada). Not passing the threshold seems to be unlikely but a definite possibility (same goes for Atzmaut, while Strong Israel seems to have the opposite predicament of most polls showing it below the threshold but some showing it getting seats).

[Vosem]

Results are in, and the the more left wing of the Likud MK's are out, while Feiglin is in. of the Kadima refugees, only Hanegbi made it. Of the ministers, Meridor, Eitan, Begin and Dichter are out.

One of the big stories was the large union influence on the vote, and everyone was trying to get on the lists of the unions, and specifically the aeronautics workers union, led by MK Katz, and their thousands of votes.

Where could I find the full list, up until at least the twenties? Keep in mind I speak completely fluent Russian (but not Henrew), so a source in that language would be perfectly fine.

[Vosem]

So looks like despite all the hype about how the Gaza war would cost Netanyahu, there is virtually no chance he will not win another term. Good.

The thing is, that if you think Bibi was too soft during the war, but are not religious, you don't have much of an alternative. If Likud didn't merge with YB, and Lieberman was attacking Bibi's handling of the war, then Bibi would have been in more trouble.

Yep. The YB merger may have been one of the savviest political moves of his career.

I think the merger had more to do with Evet's ambitions than Netanyahu's -- as leader of Likud sometime in the future, he could become PM; as leader of YB he cannot...

[Vosem]

Lieberman has announced his list. Danny Ayalon, Anastasia Michaeli, and Stas Misezhnikov have all been voted off the island. New in town -- in fact, taking second place on the list -- is Yair Shamir, a prominent businessman and son of former Likudnik Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

[Vosem]

I can't seem to find HaTnuah's list anywhere...

[Vosem]

It's interesting that Livni is viewed as a likelier winner than Yachimovich...I really think with a good campaign Hatnuah could place second, ahead of Labour.

[Vosem]

The Israelis - 2

I don't think I've heard of this party. What is it?

A new Russian immigrant party.

Is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HaYisraelim) a different party with the same name, or is it the same thing? 'Doron' doesn't sound like a Russian immigrant's name, but perhaps it was Hebraized. In any case, the introduction of constituency seats is something I personally staunchly support. First reaction is quite positive.

[Vosem]

Their news feed is absolutely terrific. Really makes excellent reading. My personal favorite so far is:

11:48Бней-Брак: женщина с младенцем оступилась на лестнице, младенец травмирован

1148: Bnei-Brak: A woman with a child tripped on a staircase, the child is hurt

The newsfeed's mixture of everyday stuff and real news is somewhat reminiscent of The Onion. Their big headline is an article about why Lieberman won't resign as Foreign Minister (though, to be fair, his resignation was in the newsfeed).

[Vosem]

I was under the impression Balad has a vaguely Ba'athist, "socialist Arab unity" ideology affiliated with the Assad regime...

[Vosem]

I came closest to Kadima, which is mildly depressing as it seems likely they'll be kept out of the Knesset. Next closest is Yesh Atid. My 'grey circle' of acceptable parties is huge, however, and Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, United Torah Judaism, Kadima, Yesh Atid, Am Shalem, and Hatnuah are all inside of it, which you may recognize as being a very wide range of parties. Labor and Shas are both 'on the line'.

[Vosem]

A hypothetical poll from mako in the case that Israel returned to a separate vote for PM.

Knesset:
Likud Beitenu: 23
JH-NU: 17
Labour: 15
Yesh Atid: 14
The Movement: 12
Shas: 11
UTJ: 5
Meretz: 5
RAAM-TAAL: 5
Hadash: 4
Balad: 3
Otzma Leisrael: 3
Am Shalem: 3

PM:
Bibi: 37%
Livni: 18%
Bennet: 12%
Shelly: 12%
Lapid: 4%
Deri: 4%
Eldad: 4%
Mofaz: 3%
Galon: 1%
other: 5%

Are the first numbers a real poll for the Knesset? Because if it is, that is one hell of a drop for LB -- 23 seats is less than Likud got last time on its own, and Bennett is now in second -- if that is a legit poll and that trend continues another week, Bennett could totally emerge leader of the biggest right-wing party.

[Vosem]

Message to Vosem: being fifteen is no excuse for being a twat.

Isn't the point of archiving very old threads so that in the future we can look at mistaken predictions and try to be closer to the mark this time? Or are they just there to take up space?

Sorry, I guess.

[Vosem]

No. The point of archiving old threads (a thread from 2009 is not 'very old') is to archive old threads. Bumping old threads to giggle at inaccurate predictions is dickish at the best of times, and is actively obnoxious when the dickish person in question had yet to hit puberty when the thread was active.

The point was to show that there are certain things in Israeli politics (such as which parties will/won't coalesce with each other) that cannot be assumed. But if you want to interpret it as dickish giggling, go ahead -- you're the moderator, not me.

EDIT: Grammar.

[Vosem]

I think it is just about possible that the risible shenanigans of the past four years had made that fact reasonably obvious. After all, everything is obvious in hindsight. But when people make predictions, they don't do so with the benefit of hindsight; instead, they rely on assumptions, which are generally based on past patterns and known facts. This has obvious limitations.

The point of bumping the thread was to bring attention to this...

You'll understand the implications of all of this a little better when you are a little older, hopefully. In the meanwhile, try not to be quite such a knowingly precocious child.

[Vosem]

According to Ha'aretz, Lapid's exact phrasing was that he "won't sit with Shas in an extreme-right-wing coalition", before coming right around and saying that it's important to moderate the Netanyahu government. Also he says he'll only sit in government if Livni approves. The logical conclusion is that he wants to join but would like to exclude Shas. Of course, prior to the '09 election, Lieberman also wanted to sit in the coalition, just without Shas, but Shas wormed their way in anyhow.

Anyway, what Lapid wants to see, I think, is Hatnuah+Yesh Atid+Likud Beiteinu+some right-wing parties other than Shas (Bayit Yehudi is the obvious one, but perhaps UTJ as well). In the Jerusalem Post poll, this would add up to 73 seats (68 if you exclude UTJ). Such a coalition would see Netanyahu as ideologically average, so I think this is roughly what he would like to see as well.

Of course, this is Israeli coalition-building, so really anything goes.

[Vosem]

Political ads are on TV now, and the one making the biggest noise is this one from Shas, which drew wide ranging condemnation for its perceived  anti Russian racism.

http://youtu.be/A-auotGWUeM

I find it extremely funny considering most of my acquaintances' first thought of what a stereotypical Russian would look like is me, and I look very much like the dude in that ad...

Of course, we already knew Shas are assholes.

[Vosem]

There's a lot of interesting trends in the youth vote...none of the Arab parties, or for some reason Livni, make it in...UTJ falls below the threshold...Otzma leIsrael doesn't shift at all...but Green Leaf (!) and Koach leHashpi'a (!!) would enter the Knesset. If you were to translate this youth vote into Knesset seats, you would get (I took all parties with 2%+, multiplied their percent by 120/93 and rounded to the nearest whole number). And then in parentheses next to it you see numbers compared to the actual poll (future of Israeli politics!):

Likud Beiteinu 23 (-10)
Labour 19 (+1)
Jewish Home 18 (+4)
Meretz 17 (+11)
Shas 16 (+5)
Yesh Atid 9 (-2)
Koach leHashpi'a 9 (+9)
Green Leaf 6 (+6)
Otzma leIsrael 3 (+1)
Hatnuah 0 (-8)
United Torah Judaism 0 (-5)
Kadima 0 (-2)
Arab parties 0 (-8)

(gave Shas an extra seat so it would add up to 120, as they were closest)

So...(before anyone asks, since KLH is a religious party, this is a right-religious majority over center-left 69-51, but it's dependent on KLH and OLI, both of which Netanyahu would be unlikely to invite into his coalition)...is turnout particularly low among Arab youth? Could some of the more unusual trends (I want to list some, but...really there's nothing not notable in that poll) be explained?

[Vosem]

Final Vosem prediction, after spending way too much time trying to weight polls based on their accuracy in 2009 and coming up with something a simple average could've given you:

Likud Beiteinu 34
Labor 17
Jewish Home 14
Yesh Atid 12
Shas 11
The Movement 7
Meretz 6
United Torah Judaism 6
Hadash 4
United Arab List 4
Balad 3
Kadima 2

The right-religious bloc of LB/JH/Shas/UTJ has 65 seats, while the left-center bloc (not counting the Arabs) has 44, with 11 -- same as last time -- going to the Arabs. Not that the government-formation is going to be that simple, of course...

[Vosem]

Do mine eyes deceive me, or does the YouTube map show that UTJ topped the poll in Jerusalem again?