Israeli General Election 2013

[Benj]

After a week filled with silly polls with non-existent parties, here is a new one:

Likud Beitenu: 36
Labour: 23
Yesh Atid: 13
JH-NU: 13
Shas: 10
UTJ: 5
Meretz: 5
Am Shalem: 4
Hadash: 4
UAL-TAAL: 4
Balad: 3

Note: Kadima and Independence don't pass the threshold.

Was this after the US election? There's been some noise in the US media about Netanyahu being seen as having made a big mistake in repeatedly insulting Obama and that it is hurting him now that Obama has been relected, but it's not clear to me whether this is actually important in Israel or just something the US media has picked up on.

[Benj]

Balad and Hadash have identical or very close positions on nearly all issues. For what reasons Arab voters support Hadash? Two parties have the same ideology (socialism, secularism) but Balad is obviously preferable for Arabs due to its more clear pro-Palestinian stance.

I'm pretty sure more Hadash voters are Jews than Muslims, though they're the only party with significant cross-community support, thus being labeled as an Arab party. They are also the party for those Muslims who see cooperation with (pro-peace) Jews as essential--basically, less radical, for voters who don't harbor a real hatred of Israel as a concept.

Anyway, I landed about equidistant from Ta'al, Labor and Hatnu'a.

[Benj]

Wait... I'm aware of a rather divergent but nonetheless clearly "Jewish" people in India... the opposite end of India.

These people are news to me.

Funny story... I once dated a Bnei Menashe Jew, a Chin. His family must have been close to the only Bnei Menashe in the United States. He was from Burma, not India, though. He was nonreligious, essentially atheist, but his family were deeply religious. They're clearly not of Jewish descent, but there's a sizeable Jewish community anyway. I think there's a similar group somewhere in central Africa that claims Jewish ancestry but is clearly not ancestrally Jewish.

On the youth poll, doesn't KLH represent the radically anti-Zionist Hasidim? Or some of them, anyway? I think they're led by the guy who said Theodor Herzl was worse than Hitler. Definitely not the sort of party that Likud or JH or anyone else, really, could work with. Of course, the poll looks flawed. No young Arab voters? Unlikely.

[Benj]

Presuming that these exit polls are accurate (which is presuming a lot) most of the international coverage of the election is going to look pretty fycking hilarious.

The international media will be just fine. Never let reality affect the narrative.

True, true. Though I meant the coverage before the election.

To be fair to the media, if the exit polls are correct, the pre-election polling was poor, and the media's narrative was mostly based on the polls.

[Benj]

Something I dont understand after reading about Israeli politics, why is it a given that Arab parties would not be invited into a coalition? With 20% of Israeli citizens being Arab it seems strange. No surprise Arab turnout is low.

None of the Jewish politicians would stop to give the Arab politicians the time of day, or vice versa. You can hardly expect them to work together.