ISRAELI POLITICS FOR DUMMIES

I see people reading small "prayer" books ALL the time, especially on the bus. They always move their lips when they read and even though they have read these prayers a thousand times, they still have to read and say them word by word. Note: Psalm 51, verse 17, says: "May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable to You, O God, my Rock and my Redeemer." I think that's why they have to move their lips, get it!! I also see Ultra-conservative men running quickly down the street, I'm told this is because they are going from one religious training session to another and if they walk slowly, this will be time wasted and taken away from their studies. This gives new meaning to the expression "Time is Money" actually it should be, "Time is Study."

So far I have avoided political comments, not because I didn't want to offend people, but because I never know what side of the argument I am on. It's easy to be opposed to Israeli military activity, but its hard to support the actions of a crazy guy on a bulldozer driving down the street in front of one's house. In any case, here is a brief discussion of the recent Israeli election results.

Israel prides itself on being the only democracy in the Middle-East which says less about Israel and a lot about the autocracies of the surrounding kingdoms and military governments. But it is this very claim of democracy that causes so much concern because once you make a commitment to democracy, you also make a commitment to majority rule and before you commit to majority rule you better make sure your side has the majority of people. It's unclear who is in the majority because if you believe in the one state solution, there could be more Arabs than Jews and if you believe in two states, then than could be more Ultra-religious people than secular one.

Added to this problem is the fact that secular people LIKE ME don't make kids as fast as the Ultras and the Arabs (Palestinians), so even if there are currently enough secular voters to provide some sanity to the process, in the future that will not be true. As a result, the question always becomes, "what if the majority of voters are crazy and vote for destructive policies?" As the Bush years have shown, Israelis are not the only ones who wrestle with this dilemma.

The essence of the Israel election disfunctionalism resides in its mathematics. There are 120 Knesset seats and it takes 61 votes to keep the government in power. If any issue fails to get 61 votes, the government falls which happens about every 2 years. In theory this isn't such a bad idea, but here is the problem; no one party in recent times has ever gotten more than about 30 votes and that means whoever can put together a coalition of 61 votes gets to run the government.

Now, there were 33 parties running in the last election and they range from a party called, Holocaust Survivors in Support of Legalized Marijuana (really!) to an ultra-religious party that believes God gave the entire Middle-east to the Jews from the Mediterranean to Iran. A party needs about 2% of the total vote to get a seat and only 12 parties crossed that threshold. The Labor Party (Barack) which used to run the country got 13 votes, their poor showing signaled the end of the Labor/Kibbutz orientation of the past. The Kadima Party center-left-2 state solution-pro-peace process, philosophy got 28 votes headed by a woman, Tzipi Livni. Likud, (Netanyahu) right-wing, one state solution, anti-peace process, platform got 27 votes . But the real shocker is the Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman who got 15 votes and they represent the new Russian immigrants who are very secular, many may not even be Jewish and are militantly anti-Arab. There are a few peace oriented parties which have about 10 votes and a few religious parties (like Shas) that have about 20 votes.

Here's where the math gets really interesting. Tzipi (the winner) can automatically count on Labor and Peace parties for about 51 votes and Likud can MAYBE count on the Religious and Yisrael Beiteinu Parties for 63 votes. But not so fast Likud! Y.B wants civil marriages and new easy conversion to Judisim rules for the Russians, which the religious parties violently oppose. Also Likud stands for less government social programs and the religious parties want huge government payments for religious schools and child payments for large families. Generally everyone of the leaders hates or distrusts the others, Lieberman/Netanyahu are bitter rivals, Tzipi can't stand Netanyahu's corruption and immorality, Labor will never be part of Lieberman's racist attitude towards Israeli Arabs.

As a result of all of this, there is a lot of horse-trading and the currency for this is government ministries. Likud has promised Shas that they can head the Housing and Education Departments thus building cheap settlement homes in the West Bank and setting up free religious schools for the orthodox, while Lieberman has been promised Foreign Affairs, Finance and Justice Departments. (Lieberman is under investigation for bribery/money laundering and wants to prevent anticipated indictments). Tzipi who probably could work with Lieberman because they are both secular, has demanded that Netanyahu support the peace process and the 2 state solution, something he has absolutely refused to do.

Finally, just to complicate the matter, there is no way that a right-wing Likud government can ever work with the Obama administration and Hillary who are pushing for an independent Palestinian state and a halt in settlement construction. On a cheerier note, EVERYONE wants to bomb the crap out of Iran, sooner rather than later and certainly before Obama opens up a dialogue with both the Syrians and the Iranians a process that has already gotten started and will be difficult to stop.

Sorry this was such a long explanation and at the time of this writing there is no clear government in sight although Netanyahu first offered a unity government with Kadima, which was flatly refused by Tzipi and he has now approached Lieberman which is freaking out Shas who sees these Russian Goys becoming instant Israelis. Stay tuned, there is many more miles before this journey ends.