text: Filling The Black Hole: Early Elections In Israel – OpEd – Eurasia Review
  Filling The Black Hole: Early Elections In Israel – OpEd
  October 13, 2012 Uri Avnery 0 Comments
  So we have two election campaigns in the next three months — one in the US and one in Israel. I don't know which of them is more important for our lives.
  In Israel, all parties get free TV and radio time, according to their size in the outgoing Knesset (with a guaranteed minimum for newcomers). Outlays are strictly controlled. That does not prevent the same type of corruption. The same Sheldon Adelson finances both Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu. But the amount of tainted money raised and expended in Israel is much smaller.
  (By the way, Barack Obama's inept performance (the whole thing is a performance, after all) in the first debate was most glaring when Romney sneered at Obama's "green" donors. That should have been the cue for Obama to jump and attack Romney's donors. I suppose Obama was just not listening to his opponent, but thinking about his own next line — always a fatal error in a debate.)
  Who are these swing voters? It would be nice to think that they are sovereign citizens, who weigh the arguments carefully and work toward a responsible decision. Nonsense. They are the people who do not read newspapers, who don't give a damn, who must be dragged to the ballot box. Judging from the ads directed at them, many of them must be morons.
  In Israel, elections are strictly proportional. In the last elections, 33 party lists took part, and 12 passed the 2 percent threshold.
  The real battle in Israel is not between parties but between blocs. Can the left (or "center-left," as they like to call themselves nowadays) reach the magic number of 61?
  The other planned rally is held by unofficial supporters of the Labor Party, now headed by Shelly Yachimovich. They will talk a lot about social injustice and "swinish capitalism," but talk about the occupation and the settlers is banned. Peace will be mentioned, if at all, as an empty slogan.
  Yachimovich, a 52-year-old former radio journalist, has seen her party grow under her stewardship, from a pitiful remnant to a respectable 20 seats according to the polls. She has achieved this by studiously avoiding any talk about peace, since peace has become a four-letter word (in Hebrew). She has expressed sympathy for the settlers and the Orthodox, accepting the occupation as a fact of life. Under pressure, she has paid lip service to the two-state solution, making it clear that utopian things like that do not really interest her.
  Ehud Olmert, just convicted on a minor charge and still under several indictments for corruption, hints that he is itching to come back. So does Aryeh Deri, who has already served his prison term for corruption and wants to supplant the racist Eli Yishai. Tzipi Livni, the inept former Kadima leader, also wants back. Ya'ir Lapid, the handsome TV star, who has the enviable knack of sounding convincing without saying anything, has founded a new party, called "There is a Future", and sees a rosy future — for himself. Daphni Leef, last year's hero of the social rebellion, speaks about a new extra-parliamentary uprising, but may perhaps be convinced to become parliamentary after all. And so forth.