Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[danny]

Dov khenin will be number 3 for Hadash.

[Famous Mortimer]

So apparently the number 2 seat on the Hadash list is reserved for a woman and the number 3 seat is reserved for a Jew.

Are there any more seats reserved for Jews? I remember looking at their list last time and it looked like there was only maybe 2 other Jewish names besides Khenin and they were both in something like the 90s and 100s.

I suppose this electoral system for having a contest for each seat individually rules out the chance of surprise high up placement of Burg.

Although I'm guessing he gets a symbolic 120th spot.

[danny]

So apparently the number 2 seat on the Hadash list is reserved for a woman and the number 3 seat is reserved for a Jew.

Are there any more seats reserved for Jews? I remember looking at their list last time and it looked like there was only maybe 2 other Jewish names besides Khenin and they were both in something like the 90s and 100s.

I suppose this electoral system for having a contest for each seat individually rules out the chance of surprise high up placement of Burg.

Although I'm guessing he gets a symbolic 120th spot.

Burg isn't running, if he gets a spot it won't be from any primaries and won't be realistic.

[Hnv1]

So apparently the number 2 seat on the Hadash list is reserved for a woman and the number 3 seat is reserved for a Jew.

Are there any more seats reserved for Jews? I remember looking at their list last time and it looked like there was only maybe 2 other Jewish names besides Khenin and they were both in something like the 90s and 100s.

I suppose this electoral system for having a contest for each seat individually rules out the chance of surprise high up placement of Burg.

Although I'm guessing he gets a symbolic 120th spot.

The 2nd spot was reserved for a Jew but they decided to move to the third to give the second to a womanץ
I looked at the list and saw 4 Jews till the 20th spot and 20 overall

[Famous Mortimer]

So apparently the number 2 seat on the Hadash list is reserved for a woman and the number 3 seat is reserved for a Jew.

Are there any more seats reserved for Jews? I remember looking at their list last time and it looked like there was only maybe 2 other Jewish names besides Khenin and they were both in something like the 90s and 100s.

I suppose this electoral system for having a contest for each seat individually rules out the chance of surprise high up placement of Burg.

Although I'm guessing he gets a symbolic 120th spot.

The 2nd spot was reserved for a Jew but they decided to move to the third to give the second to a womanץ
I looked at the list and saw 4 Jews till the 20th spot and 20 overall

Thanks for that. I was, of course, reading it translated from Hebrew by my browser. A lot of names just showed up as blocks. I only saw a a couple obvious Davids and Benjamins.

[Famous Mortimer]

Lieberman has announced her won't join a coalition that includes Meretz, seeming swinging back to the right.

Bibi has announced he won't form a grand coalition with Labor.

These announcements are important in what they tell us about how the parties are trying to position themselves.

As actual binding pledges though, they are meaningless. Livni said she wouldn't join a Netanyahu government before the last election.

[danny]

Final Hadash list:
1) Ayman Ouda
2) Aida Toma
3) Dov Khenin
4) Yusuf Jabbarin
5) Abdulla Abu Ma'aruf

[Famous Mortimer]

Any of those Christians and/or non-Maki members?

[Hnv1]

Any of those Christians and/or non-Maki members?

I think Ouda is Christian by the last name and the fact he's from Haifa. About Toma I'm not sure, Jabbarin is a muslim. There was a desire to see a druze on the list again though so we might see one a bit lower down the list.

Edit: checked and Abu Ma'aruf is a Druze

Regarding the Maki members...it's a difficult question to answer. Barake for example was a maki member despite the fact his power base was outside of it and he overthrew the Maki chairman (Nafa'a). The organizational mess there is incredible.
I don't think Toma or Jabbarin are communists though

[Famous Mortimer]

Hana Sweid was the only Christian before and he was also the only non-Maki member.

Looks like the list has gotten more diverse regardless.

[Zanas]

As we haven't posted polls for the election itself in quite some time, and I was starting wondering how the race looked like nowadays, I'll just post the two latest ones, Panel/Maariv and TNS/Walla, don't know how these pollsters are rated.

Labor/Hatnuah 25-26
Likud 22-24
Jewish Home 17-18
Arabs (both aggregate them into one figure) 11-11
Yesh Atid 11-8
Kulanu 9-8
UTJ 7-8
Shas 6-7
Meretz 6-5
Yisrael Beitenu 6-5

I have a confession to make : I thought Jewish Home was the translation of Yisrael Beitenu... Hence a couple misunderstandings here and there. For my defence, Beitenu does mean "Our Home", and I thought Yisrael and Jewish would in fact be the same in Hebrew, why not. So I stand corrected.

I we go back a few polls, we see that Balad alone seldom makes it to the threshold, but they are often counted with UAL-Ta'al at around 5 seats. Hadash alone also gets around 5 or 6 seats. Could someone tell me what are the odds of these different possibilities of coalitions between the Arab lists now ?

And also, can someone elaborate a bit on Kulanu ? From what I quickly read on the wiki, seems like a moderate hero party if there ever was one.

[danny]

There so many polls coming out that I don't bother listing them, but if you want to follow then here is a link for all the polls in one place: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tcDrLL3rHDzhW54B8dzkLkg/htmlview#gid=0

[danny]

Livni will put journalist Ksenia Svetalova in the 21st spot on the joint list, in an attempt to appeal to Russians after none were elected in the primaries.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And also, can someone elaborate a bit on Kulanu ? From what I quickly read on the wiki, seems like a moderate hero party if there ever was one.

Israeli politics has a long tradition of personalist populist parties of a vaguely middle-of-the-road bent and with policies that look suspiciously like a list of platitudes; Kulanu is but the latest example.

[Famous Mortimer]

As we haven't posted polls for the election itself in quite some time, and I was starting wondering how the race looked like nowadays, I'll just post the two latest ones, Panel/Maariv and TNS/Walla, don't know how these pollsters are rated.

Labor/Hatnuah 25-26
Likud 22-24
Jewish Home 17-18
Arabs (both aggregate them into one figure) 11-11
Yesh Atid 11-8
Kulanu 9-8
UTJ 7-8
Shas 6-7
Meretz 6-5
Yisrael Beitenu 6-5

I have a confession to make : I thought Jewish Home was the translation of Yisrael Beitenu... Hence a couple misunderstandings here and there. For my defence, Beitenu does mean "Our Home", and I thought Yisrael and Jewish would in fact be the same in Hebrew, why not. So I stand corrected.

I we go back a few polls, we see that Balad alone seldom makes it to the threshold, but they are often counted with UAL-Ta'al at around 5 seats. Hadash alone also gets around 5 or 6 seats. Could someone tell me what are the odds of these different possibilities of coalitions between the Arab lists now ?

And also, can someone elaborate a bit on Kulanu ? From what I quickly read on the wiki, seems like a moderate hero party if there ever was one.

The Jewish Home is unambiguously right-wing. It opposes a Palestinian state. The only internal inconsistencies are that some members want it to be a religious party and some members want it to be a theocratic party. The merely religious are dominant right now. Also, The Jewish Home home used to be called the National Religious Party, it's actually one of the oldest parties in Israel. As such, it actually has some organization and holds primaries like Labor and Likud.

Yisrael Beytenu (Our Home is Israel) is ideologically very ambiguous, although always leaning right. It used to oppose a Palestinian state now it is the main advocate of land transfer. It wants to annex settlements in the West Bank and give Arab parts of Israel to a potential Palestinian state. It's pretty much synonymous with its leader Avigdor Lieberman and thus doesn't have primaries,  he just picks the candidates himself. Unlike The Jewish Home, it is very secular, this has something to do with the fact that it's base is among Russians immigrants who were secularized under Communism. The party's name was supposed to evoke Yeltsin's party "Our Home is Russian" but it outlasted its namesake and people seem to forgot that bit of trivia entirely.

So Jewish Home: Religious, anti-Palestinian state, and an actual party. Yisrael Beytenu: Secular, convoluted "clever" position on a Palestinian state, main just one guy, also Russian. The Jewish Home is to the right of Likud. Yisrael Beytenu is simultaneously both to the left and right of Likud.

As to the Arab parties, you have to understand that they talk about merging every election campaign. They always agree in theory but can never agree about which party will get to lead the alliance, how the seats will be distributed. It was thought that the raising of the electoral threshold would force them to do it for serious this time but I was always skeptical. The threshold is still pretty damn low by most standards. The only party really threatened is Balad. UAL and Hadash should be safe. Maybe if the threshold was 5% and they were all threatened, then you would see a merger.

Kahlon was a Likud member and Minister of Communications. Under his tenure, he deregulated the cell phone market and caused service prices to drop considerably. Even though this was a (rare) success of neo-liberal/libertarian economics, the public viewed this as some sort of benevolent state action. Largely because all of Netanyahu's other capitalist policies have only led to more inequality. So even though Kahlon was on exactly the same page as Netanyahu ideologically, he weirdly got the reputation as being "to his left"/not hating working people/not being as much of a free market ideologue. Part of this, undoubtedly, is because Kahlon is from a working class Sephardic background. So that explain why people think Kahlon is special. It doesn't explain why he has gone along with that misconception despite being a generic Likudnik. I think the reason for that is probably just the media pushing him. They used to constantly do polls showing him in first or second place if he led his own party (Israeli media do stupid hypothetical polls all the time "to make things interesting).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

YB doesn't really stand for much beyond MOAR MONIES for Russians and (of course) whatever incoherent nonsense Lieberman chooses to rant about on any particular week.

[Famous Mortimer]

To be very simplistic

Yisrael Beytenu: MOAR MONIES for Russians.

Shas: MOAR MONIES for the ultra-Orthodox.

The Jewish Home: MOAR MONIES for West Bank settlers.

[ag]

So the Labour Livni union will be called "The Zionist Camp" after all.
Also Kachlon seems to have made up his mind and now says that he supports same sex marriage.

Apparently, only in Hebrew, not in Arabic. Is that true?

[MalaspinaGold]

Meretz primaries will take place today. Raviv Drucker had an article out that eviscerated the anticipated list that would come out of it, saying that there were no new authoritative faces that could pull voters that way, and specifically brings up the case of Ben Reuven. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.637639

Personally, I think he does have a point and that somehow the Meretz election structure should be revamped to accommodate outsiders. Maybe open it up to all the party members or reserve one spot in the top five to someone new? Would be interesting to know what hnv1 thinks (as well as how you'll be voting!)

The only real feedback from an actual Israeli is from the Israel fellow at my Hillel. He's center-left and voted for Yesh Atid last election, but he wants Issawi Frej to take the number 3 spot. He likes Zaki but is unsure whether his work as head of B'tselem will turn voters off.

[Hnv1]

Meretz primaries will take place today. Raviv Drucker had an article out that eviscerated the anticipated list that would come out of it, saying that there were no new authoritative faces that could pull voters that way, and specifically brings up the case of Ben Reuven. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.637639

Personally, I think he does have a point and that somehow the Meretz election structure should be revamped to accommodate outsiders. Maybe open it up to all the party members or reserve one spot in the top five to someone new? Would be interesting to know what hnv1 thinks (as well as how you'll be voting!)

The only real feedback from an actual Israeli is from the Israel fellow at my Hillel. He's center-left and voted for Yesh Atid last election, but he wants Issawi Frej to take the number 3 spot. He likes Zaki but is unsure whether his work as head of B'tselem will turn voters off.

I disagree with drucker on that open primaries are the right system, espcially for a small party. Open primaries allow an unpopular candidate among the base to add lots of people only for it and get elected. Also, in the power structure of Meretz as was see when there were open primaries (2003, 2007) its skews the results to the Kibbutz vote which is a minority among the general voters.

On attracting a "big" name I strongly disagree. Meretz never had big names dropped in (unless you consider 2009 as big) and considering the stable position in polls I don't think it should. I am also very strongly against ex-generals in politics, their net contribution is usually very low and their conduct in political life is rather lame considering the military habits. From the normative prespective I think it is unhealthy for a democracy that every general who leaves the army jumps into politics, Labour can do what they want but Meretz never saw the appeal in the military "language" and I'de like it to continue.

In case drucker forgot last time around we got 3 new names on the list so the system is fine.

My vote is going to Raz, Laski, Zandberg, Gilon, Svirsky, and others. Part for Villan and Bandel I see everyone as a decent candidate.

[Famous Mortimer]

Yisrael Beytenu list:

1 Avigdor Lieberman
2 Orly Levy (daughter of moderate Sephardic Likudnik David Levy, her brother is also on the Likud list)
3 Sofa Landver (Immigrant Absorption Minister, MK for Labor before she switched to YB)
4 Ilan Shohat (Mayor of Safed)
5 Sharon Gal (journalist)
6 Hamad Amar (token Druze)
7 Robert Ilitov (current MK, Russian immigrant)
8 Oded Porer (party bureaucrat)
9 Yulia Melinovsky (Holon city council member)
10 Shira Mistrial (head of student union at Ariel University in the West Bank)

Further down the list won't matter as Beytenu is polling below 10.

Interesting to see the ethnic breakdown of the list, as the party has been getting less and less Russian overtime. Lieberman, Landver, Ilitov, and it's probably safe to say Melinovsky are all of Soviet origin. Levy is Sephardic, her dad is from Morocco. Amar, as I said, is Druze. Unsure about the other new people, Shohat, Gal, Porer, and Mistrail. Anyway, potentially less than half the top 10 are Russian.

[Famous Mortimer]

Apparently Mofaz was offered the 20TH stop on the Labor list and he turned it down as insulting. He won't be joining the list at all now.

Amos Yadlin now sure to get the 11th spot. I guess Herzog was going to give it to him regardless.

[Vosem]

Apparently Mofaz was offered the 20TH stop on the Labor list and he turned it down as insulting. He won't be joining the list at all now.

Amos Yadlin now sure to get the 11th spot. I guess Herzog was going to give it to him regardless.

JPost says that Herzog and Mofaz have actually not spoken in several weeks, and that Livni did not want Kadima to join the Zionist Center.

So...is it too late for Mofaz to be snapped up by some other list, or is he out? Running independently after barely crossing the 2% threshold in 2013, and having declined in polls since then, seems kinda hopeless, but it seems strange that no parties want anything to do with him.

EDIT: In their article on Ksenia Svetlova being given the 21st seat on the Labor-Hatnuah list, JPost noted that one of the two remaining Hatnuah slots is expected to be given to former MK Yoel Hasson -- is that just speculation or is there some truth to it?

[Famous Mortimer]

That makes sense, he's the next highest person on the Hatnuah list after Livni and Peretz who hasn't retired. He was one death/resignation from getting into the Knesset.

It's a little disappointing if true though. Hasson has a firmly right-wing background, former leader of Betar. Not that I think he'll be a particular defection risk, just personally saddened as a leftist. Also, he's just dull.

I would much rather see a minority candidate from Hatnuah like Shlomo Molla or Majalli Wahabi.

[danny]

Meretz list:

1) Zehava Galon
2) Ilan Gilon
3) Issawi Freij
4) Michal Rozin
5) Tamar Zandberg
6) Mossi Raz
7) Gaby Lasky

So all the incumbents except Horowitz in the first 5, followed by Raz who was an MK between 2000 and 2003. So unless Meretz get to 7 seats, there will be no new faces.