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Author Topic: Israeli election thread
Wilf Day
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posted 26 October 2008 07:53 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The thread title assumes an election, which you would think might not be necessary:

Kadima 29
Labor-Meimad 19
Meretz-Yahad 5
Gil Pensioners Party 4 + Justice for the Elderly 3 = 7
Ra`am-Ta`al 4
Hadash 3
National Democratic Assembly 3

Total 70 of 120

In the June 1992 national elections, the Labor Party reversed its electoral fortunes, taking 44 seats.

quote:
Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin formed a coalition with Meretz (a group of three leftist parties) and Shas (an ultra-Orthodox religious party). The coalition included the support of two Arab-majority parties. Rabin became Prime Minister in July 1992. Shas subsequently left the coalition, leaving Rabin with a minority government dependent on the votes of Arab parties in the Knesset.

Immediately after the election of Amir Peretz as Labour leader in November 2005, opinion polls showed the party's share of the Arab vote at 27.5 per cent.
quote:
Mr Peretz has promised that he would bring the Arab parties into a coalition as prime minister and appoint an Arab minister. Labour also has three Arab candidates among the top 25 on its list - including a woman, Nadia Hillou. None of the Arab parties has a woman candidate in a winnable position on its lists.
Livni's options have boiled down to two: She can either form a majority government that would include the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, or a left-leaning minority government that would have to survive on the external support of Arab parties.

So even without Shas or UTJ, Tzipi Livni could form a government. Even not counting the 10 "Arab" members, that's 60.

But that would mean a "narrow coalition" hostage to the Israeli Arabs, and seen as a "left leaning coalition." You might think this is a good one for peace talks, since any agreement has to obtain the blessing of the Knesset and brought to a referendum. To make peace they need Palestinian Arab partners. When are Israeli Arabs going to be accepted again as acceptable coalition partners?

In 2003, when Ariel Sharon formed his second government, he did not need the Arab parties for the coalition, but he summoned all Arab factions and spoke with their members, effusing his inimitable cordiality, warmth and charm.

quote:
Livni, as of yesterday, had not invited any Arab faction to meet with her. A possible narrow-based government would require significant support from the Arab parties - whom she had apparently forgotten about over the course of those 32 days. “Anyone who is counting on us next Monday [when the Knesset reconvenes] and thinks we can be taken for granted without talking to us, had better know that we will topple them in the vote,” MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List - Ta’al) said on Wednesday night.

From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
unionist
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posted 26 October 2008 07:58 PM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Livni failed to form a coalition and is moving to quick elections - so the thread title is ok after all.

quote:
Kadima party chair Tzipi Livni wants new elections held as soon as possible, and to that end, has instructed her party's faction chairman, MK Yoel Hasson, to submit legislation on Monday for the immediate dissolution of the Knesset and for new elections in 90 days - that is, on January 27, 2009.

In this way, the foreign minister hopes to seize the initiative and regain the momentum she lost during her failed efforts to form a government. ...

Her efforts to form a government without going to elections collapsed over the weekend after Shas, the Pensioners Party and United Torah Judaism all refused her final offer. Livni, who called these parties' demands "extortionate," told Peres that she had done everything she could to try to cobble together a parliamentary coalition, and noted that other parties said they also prefer elections.



From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
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posted 26 October 2008 08:51 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The two-team solution: the Palestinian football team has played their first ever home game in their new home stadium.
quote:
For a nation whose statehood drive is stalling amid apparently fruitless peace negotiations with Israel and a devastating internal split between its two main political groups -- Fatah and Hamas – hosting the match was something to cheer about.

"Our national team, in our stadium, means we exist no less than any other nation in the world."

Forming a circle and momentarily praying on the pitch in their white and green strip, the Palestinian national football team briefly injected a degree of normality and hope into morose Palestinian life by doing what in any other country would seem routine. "Filastin [Palestine], Filastin, Filastin", roared the crowd to drumbeats after Ahmed Kashkash's 10th-minute goal edged the home side in front. "God willing, another one," they chanted. It was not to be – the team is ranked 180 out of 207 by Fifa, after all – and Jordan equalised for a 1-1 draw.

The much-anticipated fixture marked the end of years of athletic homelessness. The Palestinian national team's matches had until now been played in Jordan or the Gulf because there was no home stadium that met Fifa standards. And training was in Egypt because the team was split between the West Bank and Gaza, and Israeli travel restrictions made it difficult to gather in either part of their fragmented homeland.

The venue for yesterday's match was a newly refurbished stadium, on the edge of the east Jerusalem area the Palestinian Authority envisions as the capital of a future state. Fifa had stumped up some of the cash for the $4m renovation, and its president, Sepp Blatter, deemed the match a "historic event" and the realisation of a Palestinian dream.

"I've waited all my life for this. Imagine what it's like. The whole world is coming. The head of Fifa is coming; it is the first match on Palestinian land."



And we just heard Blatter on CTV musing that their next game might be with Israel.

"The aim of football is not only to put the ball in the net, but to touch the world and build a better future" stated Blatter.

quote:
Tomorrow (Monday, 27 October), he will arrive in Israel, where he will take part in the inauguration of the Peres Peace House on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Peres Center for Peace. The next day, he will lay the foundation stone of another football turf pitch funded by the FIFA Goal programme.

Here's a group trying to promote a joint Israel/Palestine bid to host the World Cup in 2018. Might be something they could agree on. Football will do that.

From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 26 October 2008 09:16 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Irsraeli Knesset has not really been an effective governing body in Israel since 1995. That power resides with the IDF. Previous to that Israeli Labour Party managed to govern in a manner closely co-ordinated with the IDF because they were jointly the founding political institutions of the country.

The Knesset began to loose control of Israeli civil society at the point where the military high command threatened a coup de'tat against the government of Levi Eshkol in 1967 if he did not authorize an "premetive attack" by Israel on its Arab neighbors using the pretext of the closure of the Straight of Tiran by the Egyptian government.

The slow errosion of the power of civilian government in Israel begins here, and finally ends with the assassination of Yitzak Rabin in 1995 by an Israeli ultra-rightist of the Kach Party. Since this point in time, no civilian government has had the moral authority, or courage to resist the entrenched power of the IDF, which has become more or less the sole arbiter of Israeli policy since then.

As a result Israel is wallowing in a political mire and survives in a state of inertia refinforced by generous donations made on behalf of the people United States by the US government to the governing power in Israel, the IDF, through military aid.

This election, therefore, is irrelevant, just like every election in Israel since 1992.

[ 26 October 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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Stockholm
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posted 27 October 2008 08:15 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I guess you consider any election where the side you favour doesn't win to be irrelevant.

Kind of like a "heads i win, tails you lose" attitude.


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Cueball
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posted 27 October 2008 08:25 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That is your "guess" is it?
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 27 October 2008 10:40 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Stockholm, the largest parties in the upcoming Israeli snap election are going to be Likud (batshit crazy Arabicidal settler-enabling reactionaries)and Kadima(just slightly less batshit crazy etc, etc.) Do YOU honestly think any sane person should think this election will matter?

The one thing that we can be certain of is that no party that supports peace, social justice and a decent, humane, secular and democratic set of values will come within a million hectares of leading the next Israeli government. Why pretend otherwise?

[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


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Cueball
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posted 27 October 2008 10:44 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 

From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 27 October 2008 10:46 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Not sure what your rolling your eyes at there, Cues. I think you'd pretty much agree with that assessment.

[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]


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Cueball
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posted 27 October 2008 11:14 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That was pre-edit.
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Ken Burch
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posted 27 October 2008 11:21 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Oh.
From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
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posted 27 October 2008 11:26 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Stockholm, the largest parties in the upcoming Israeli snap election are going to be Likud (batshit crazy Arabicidal settler-enabling reactionaries)and Kadima(just slightly less batshit crazy etc, etc.) Do YOU honestly think any sane person should think this election will matter?

Elections always "matter" regardless of whether the people you like win them.

It certainly mattered that Netanyahu narrowly defeated Shimon Peres in the Israeli election ten years ago. That alone set the peace process back about 20 years.

Some people say that in the US election next week the winner will either be McCain (batshit crazy warmongering neo-con) or Obama (just slightly less batshit crazy warmongering neo-con).

Be that as it may - I still think its matters who the next President of the United States is.


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Cueball
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posted 27 October 2008 11:28 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ok, now I can do this:
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St. Paul's Progressive
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posted 27 October 2008 11:32 AM      Profile for St. Paul's Progressive     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
It certainly mattered that Netanyahu narrowly defeated Shimon Peres in the Israeli election ten years ago. That alone set the peace process back about 20 years.

That's for sure. Elections matter.


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Cueball
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posted 27 October 2008 11:36 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Escuse me. No party has been able to assemble a working government or even a functional coalition since 1992.
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St. Paul's Progressive
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posted 27 October 2008 11:38 AM      Profile for St. Paul's Progressive     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And this is because the IDF controls everything in your view?
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Stockholm
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posted 27 October 2008 11:40 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If you want to help make the Israeli election matter - catch a flight to Tel Aviv and do some door-to-door canvassing for the Meretz party!!
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Cueball
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posted 27 October 2008 11:46 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by St. Paul's Progressive:
And this is because the IDF controls everything in your view?


More the other way around. In the absence of an effective civilian governement. Power is maintained by the IDF. That said, certain political alignment, many connected to the IDF have actively undermined the effectivness of civilian government.

For example, the threatened 1967 coup by the military elite, and the assassination of Yitzak Rabin in 1995 by an Kach party "activist".

[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
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posted 27 October 2008 11:56 AM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
If you want to help make the Israeli election matter - catch a flight to Tel Aviv and do some door-to-door canvassing for the Meretz party!!

OK, that's a good suggestion. The only question is, are Israeli voters ok with people flying in from North America to try to influence how they vote?

If I was going to fly in there(which I can't actually afford to do), I'd probably support Hadash.


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Stockholm
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posted 27 October 2008 12:07 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
You could also write them a cheque!
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Wilf Day
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posted 27 October 2008 12:55 PM      Profile for Wilf Day     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:
no party that supports peace, social justice and a decent, humane, secular and democratic set of values will come within a million hectares of leading the next Israeli government.

I may be over-simplifying and drawing a strained analogy, but here's what I'm hoping to see before I die: an Israeli Arab counterpart to John Hume.

Before the founding of the SDLP in 1970, the Catholic population of the North of Ireland had been divided into two futile camps: conservative Catholic nationalists who had not had a new idea in a generation, and old-style Republicans who ran for parliament under a pledge to refuse to serve if elected.

Israel is 20% Israeli Arab. I think about half of them refuse to vote. Those who do elect 10 of the 120 Knesset members, plus those who vote for Labour, Meretz or even Kadima.

John Hume helped create a modern social democratic party that led a positive fight for equal civil rights. Within three years they had mobilized enough voter support, while respecting the rights of the majority of the population, that they formed a power-sharing government.

A Palestinian Arab John Hume, in my dream, would win 17 or 20 Knesset seats, become deputy Prime Minister of Israel, help bring about a Middle East settlement, and win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Middle East conflict.

Not this year. Pity.

[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]


From: Port Hope, Ontario | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 27 October 2008 05:57 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
I guess you consider any election where the side you favour doesn't win to be irrelevant.

Kind of like a "heads i win, tails you lose" attitude.


Sort of. Any winning side in an Israeli election is going to cause Palestinians to lose, unless there's some obscure Zionist faction out there that is opposed to the continuing dispossession of Palestinians.

Oh wait, that's what Zionism means.


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged

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