Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[ag]

Again, what gets to me isn't so much Netanyahu's hawkishness in general as the specific fact that a major plank of his platform is, essentially, outright refusing to try to take advantage of a situation that could, if played right, give him a fighting chance of finally putting his country at peace. How come this man has yet to be run out of the Knesset on a rail?!

I think we have to question whether a plurality of Isreali people care about that.

I have to believe that a plurality of Israeli people would rather live in a democracy at peace than a hybrid regime at perpetual war. I have to.

You have heard the old saying that Israel wants three things: the West Bank, its status as a Jewish state, or democracy, and it can have any two of those? The saying is older than I am and hackeneyed as it is, there is a lot of truth in it. Israel has made it clear that the West Bank is one of its choices.

It's pretty clear that they have chosen apartheid.

They reiterated their choice today.

[danny]

regarding the vote surplus agreement it seems that the main stream Israeli media can't agree on it either, as they seem to be showing slightly different results between each other.

[ag]

Again, what gets to me isn't so much Netanyahu's hawkishness in general as the specific fact that a major plank of his platform is, essentially, outright refusing to try to take advantage of a situation that could, if played right, give him a fighting chance of finally putting his country at peace. How come this man has yet to be run out of the Knesset on a rail?!

I think we have to question whether a plurality of Isreali people care about that.

I have to believe that a plurality of Israeli people would rather live in a democracy at peace than a hybrid regime at perpetual war. I have to.

You have heard the old saying that Israel wants three things: the West Bank, its status as a Jewish state, or democracy, and it can have any two of those? The saying is older than I am and hackeneyed as it is, there is a lot of truth in it. Israel has made it clear that the West Bank is one of its choices.

I would say that you can be smart, want to live in a mostly Jewish democracy, or vote for Netanyahu, but you cannot be all three at the same time

[ag]

regarding the vote surplus agreement it seems that the main stream Israeli media can't agree on it either, as they seem to be showing slightly different results between each other.

At the very least, there should not be a possibility that an agreement results in a pick-up by a party outside of it from those in it. Because otherwise these agreements would be pretty worthless.

[MalaspinaGold]

To elaborate, Galon will only resign if they get 4, so Zandberg remains in the Knesset. She will hold onto the chairmanship until the next party primary though.

On Israel, my Israeli classmate I think described it the best:
I think Israel is a case study for the amount of s**t people can eat and still kiss the heels of the sh**ter

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Again, what gets to me isn't so much Netanyahu's hawkishness in general as the specific fact that a major plank of his platform is, essentially, outright refusing to try to take advantage of a situation that could, if played right, give him a fighting chance of finally putting his country at peace. How come this man has yet to be run out of the Knesset on a rail?!

I think we have to question whether a plurality of Isreali people care about that.

I have to believe that a plurality of Israeli people would rather live in a democracy at peace than a hybrid regime at perpetual war. I have to.

You have heard the old saying that Israel wants three things: the West Bank, its status as a Jewish state, or democracy, and it can have any two of those? The saying is older than I am and hackeneyed as it is, there is a lot of truth in it. Israel has made it clear that the West Bank is one of its choices.

I'm in denial about that, because it's both immoral and flagrantly self-destructive in the long term, and I want to continue to have a more or less positive opinion of a country that's produced several of my friends and a lot of culture I love.

I am afraid, most of us will have to follow NYT's Friedman in "burying <our> illusions about the Jewish state".

I guess.

It's a shame. It really, really is. A Jewish state in the Levant is, on paper and without any elaboration, something that I think is very desirable.

But not like this.

[danny]

To elaborate, Galon will only resign if they get 4, so Zandberg remains in the Knesset. She will hold onto the chairmanship until the next party primary though.

On Israel, my Israeli classmate I think described it the best:
I think Israel is a case study for the amount of s**t people can eat and still kiss the heels of the sh**ter

Just because some think we are eating sh**t, doesn't mean us Israelis think so, I don't think the outgoing government has been bad.

[danny]

Mine is in Kiryat Yovel, Jerusalem.

Ballot box:

JH: 20%
Likud Beitenu: 19%
UTJ: 13%
Labour: 11%
Shas: 9%
YA: 8%
Meretz: 5%
Am Shalem: 3%
Kadima: 2%

And updating from my ballot box for this election:

Likud: 21.1%
ZU: 14.7%
Yachad: 12.7%
JH: 11.9%
Shas 11.2%
UTJ: 10.9
Yesh Atid: 5.6%
Meretz: 5.3%
Kulanu: 4.1%

[Bacon King]

regarding the uncertainty earlier in the thread about how surplus vote agreements work, this source explains it pretty well:

https://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/seats_eng.htm

[ag]

regarding the uncertainty earlier in the thread about how surplus vote agreements work, this source explains it pretty well:

https://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/seats_eng.htm

I used this very page. It is impossible to understand, to the best of my effort. At the very least, it is ambiguous on some things. I could not follow it.

[ag]

To elaborate, Galon will only resign if they get 4, so Zandberg remains in the Knesset. She will hold onto the chairmanship until the next party primary though.

On Israel, my Israeli classmate I think described it the best:
I think Israel is a case study for the amount of s**t people can eat and still kiss the heels of the sh**ter

Just because some think we are eating sh**t, doesn't mean us Israelis think so, I don't think the outgoing government has been bad.

Unquestionably so. This IS your preference. As a social scientist I am most curious and happy observing it. As a human being, of course, I feel revulsion.

[Famous Mortimer]

Israelis are not choosing perpetual war over peace. They choose war because they do not think peace is possible, they do not think the Palestinians will ever make peace. It's a reasonable belief.

[SPQR]

I'm glad to see that after almost 20 years of Berlusconi-led Italy,the world has found a new joke country.

[Horus]

At least Jewish Home lost seats?

Struggling to find something positive to take away from these ghastly results.

[Bacon King]

regarding the uncertainty earlier in the thread about how surplus vote agreements work, this source explains it pretty well:

https://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/seats_eng.htm

I used this very page. It is impossible to understand, to the best of my effort. At the very least, it is ambiguous on some things. I could not follow it.

Here's the full process, to my understanding:

1. Find the number of votes per seat (called the "general indicator"). Add up every vote for every list that passed the electoral threshold, then divide that number by 120.

2. Divide each list's vote total by the general indicator. Remove any decimals. This gives you the pre-surplus seat count of all the lists.

3. Parties with surplus agreements are now paired up and their votes and seats are combined for the purpose of the allocation formula. The remaining seats are allocated one at a time based on who has the biggest number for the following equation:

Number of votes for a party / (seats currently allocated to that party + 1)

4. When all 120 seats are awarded, take any seats that have been awarded to surplus agreement partners and divide them between the parties in that agreement, using the same formula as above.

[MalaspinaGold]

At least Jewish Home lost seats?

Struggling to find something positive to take away from these ghastly results.

Joint List got 14 seats...

[Bacon King]

Here's what I have as seat count, alongside the current vote totals I'm getting them from:

Likud:             29 seats; 924,766 votes
Zionist Union: 24 seats; 744,673 votes
Joint List:        14 seats; 436,532 votes
Yesh Atid:        11 seats; 348,802 votes
Kulanu:           10 seats; 294,526 votes
Jewish Home:    8 seats; 254,663 votes
Shas:                7 seats; 230,735 votes
YB:                    6 seats; 205,619 votes
UTJ:                  7 seats; 205,551 votes
Meretz:             4 seats, 154,648 votes

[palandio]

Wikipedia with the same vote totals got Likud 30 and UTJ 6. Maybe they didn't include the Shas+UTJ surplus agreement?

I get the same result as Bacon King: The 120th is the 14th seat for Shas+UTJ with a divisor of <31,163; the (hypothetical) 121th seat would be the 38th seat for Likud+JH with a divisor of <31,037.

[Boston Bread]

Absolutely dreadful that Likud's last-minute appeals to the worse aspects of the Israeli right seems to have worked.
The centre, left, and arab parties can still topple the current right-wing government if they so desire, I hope they do so.

[Simfan34]

There is one side-effect of the Likud over-performance that I think we can all agree is good news: much hay was made earlier in the campaign of the fact that it seemed the next Knesset would have no Jews of Ethiopian heritage in it. However, Avraham Negosa, who is 27th on the Likud list and of Ethiopian heritage, will enter the Knesset. Negosa previously led the minor sectarian Ethiopian party, Atid Ehad, in the 2006 elections. He will replace Pnina Tamano-Shata, a Yesh Atid MK who was the sole Ethiopian in the last Knesset. Tamano-Shata was 13th on the Yesh Atid list this time, and it seems Yesh Atid have received only 11 seats.

That is good. But only one?

[Hnv1]

This was indeed a very hard morning. Positives: Marzel and Yishai out, Bennet humiliated, Liberman nearly extinct. Negatives: Bibi won a "landslide" (well by our current terms) meaning his narrow right government is going to last all 4 years, I see the immersion of Meretz in Labour as inevitable now.

Results from my ballot box:
Labour 38.77%
Likud 15.56%
YA 13.58%
Meretz 11.85% (I think having my entire family vote in this single box makes a strong swing...)
JH 6.91% (shocking really! lots of old school national religious folks around)
Kulanu 6.42%
Liberman 2.72%

My entire precinct:
Labour 41.8%
Likud 17.3%
YA 15.3%
Meretz 8.2%
Kulanu 7.1%
JH 6.1%
Liberman 2%
all the rest 2%

[Antonio the Sixth]

So the right (including orthodox parties) will have 57 seats, the left (including the Arabs) 42, and the center 21?

[Tender Branson]

"Uggghhhh" sums it all up really.

I already had a feeling that Likud might pull it off again and they did. The Left fails again in winning elections.

I already upwheighted Likud in my prediction yesterday. Now they might even finish ahead of the ZU, with the latest right-wing stunt ...

Any chance the centrist parties are still tolerating a Labour-led minority government ?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Olmert was the left's only real Prime Minister, after Ehud Barat, because he was close to Ariel Sharon, other than him, the left didn't have a prayer for the next four years.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

I'm glad to see that after almost 20 years of Berlusconi-led Italy,the world has found a new joke country.