Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[Famous Mortimer]

Polls closed an hour ago. We should be getting results very very soon.

[Famous Mortimer]

Danon has conceded to Netanyahu (no big surprise)

Results for the list may not come out until Friday. Why so long though? New Years?

[Famous Mortimer]

Also, just for the sake of trivia, do people celebrate New Years in Israel?

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Gross. Regev is the one who called African migrants cancer and then when she was confronted about it, apologized to cancer patients but not Africans. And also brought up the Holocaust for no reason.

[Famous Mortimer]

Danon's not even in the top 10 at this point? Did his leadership run actually damage him?

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Which unions are those? Is the one Haim Katz is the leader of one of them?

[Famous Mortimer]

I haven't previous heard about Levy's son. Is he fairly moderate? That must be good news for Netanyahu.

[Famous Mortimer]

Lots of sites reporting that Moshe Feiglin will not be in a realistic spot.

Also, right before the primary, Miri Regev had said that if Netanyahu didn't appoint her as a minister, she would "make a coup." This might have contributed to her becoming the most popular woman in Likud, although the results overall don't seem especially anti-Bibi.

[Famous Mortimer]

Has there been any speculation about who Bibi will pick?

Might he pick Hotovely, since apparently they are close now? Or would that be too anti-democratic and cause resentment?

[Famous Mortimer]

Former Knesset Speaker and former Labor MK Avraham Burg has officially joined Hadash.

Burg ran for Labor party leader in the '00s and actually won the title for a little bit but his victory was overturned in a recount.

His father was the leader of the National Religious Party, which became The Jewish Home.

He's been identifying as non-Zionist for a while and he already endorsed Hadash so this latest move isn't all that surprising.

Still, it's quite an image.

[Famous Mortimer]

I agree with danny as well.

At least, it's what happened with Likud last time.

Ayoob Kara got a seat reserved for minorities on the Likud list, which was in the realistic 20s. Then Likud and YB smashed their list together and the 22nd or whatever spot on the Likud list became something in the mid30s of YB.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's not really good for that either.

Kulanu, Shas, and UTJ could join either a right or left government. To a lesser extent, so could Yisrael Beytenu. Yesh Atid is also not totally committed to the left, although it probably will be this campaign.

[Famous Mortimer]

Netanyahu might regret forcing Feiglin out of the party. If a Feiglin/Ben-Ari party (which would be pretty untouchable in coalition terms) makes it into the Knesset, it will make a narrow right-religious government impossible.

[Famous Mortimer]

Also, Labor-Livni will not appear on the ballot as "The Zionist Camp" because they don't want to alienate Arab voters. They will announce their official name after the primary.

[Famous Mortimer]

Is there anyone opposed to secular marriage but in support of gay marriage?

[Famous Mortimer]

So Yisrael Beitenu is running alone this time? Are they willing to only enter into a coalition with Likud, or would they consider one with Labor-Livni et al. ?

Old news, dude. Yes, they're running alone. Apparently Lieberman is trying to appear less right-wing this time around (actually it would be more accurate to say he's trying to be all things to all people, saying Netanyahu should have launched a ground invasion of Gaza and he should negotiate more). I suspect if push came to shove, he would still join a Likud led coalition pretty easily. Labor is also a real possibility though (and they will probably need him to form a government), as is sitting out and being in the opposition. Of course, this isn't that big of a shift for him, he did sit with Kadima and Shas under Olmert.

[Famous Mortimer]

Some more speculation about who Bibi might pick:

"Several commenters suggested political figures, such as Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who was elected in the primaries to the 26th spot and is in danger of not making it into the Knesset; former ministers Benny Begin and Dan Meridor, who did not make it into the Knesset in the previous election; MK Orly Levi-Abekasis of Yisrael Beiteinu; Be’er Sheva Mayor Rubik Danilovich; Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat; General (res.) Yoav Galant; and Father Gabriel Nadaf, leader of a group advocating that Israeli Christians join the army."

Of course, the article this is from was written the day before Yoav Galant joined Kulanu.

[Famous Mortimer]

Deri's resignation from the Knesset officially went through but not the resignations of the other Shas members.

[Famous Mortimer]

Feiglin won't run for this election but he will form his own party with the aim of running for the next next election.

[Famous Mortimer]

Labor primary on Tuesday.

The race for top spot will be between former leader Shelly and Eitan Cabel, who is ideologically exactly the same as Shelly but is backed by Herzog.

You may remember in the last Labor primary, when Shelly was leader, the race for top spot was between Peretz (who was ideologically identical to Shelly but Shelly didn't want him to win) and Herzog, who was backed by Shelly as the anti-Peretz candidate.

Labor.

[Famous Mortimer]

Any results from the Labor primary yet?

[Famous Mortimer]

Holy crap.

Eitan was supposed to come in first or second. Instead he came in sixth.

On top of that, Shaffir is a Shelly ally who came in second.

I guess if Herzog doesn't become PM, Shelly will be able to re-take leadership.

[Famous Mortimer]

The two incumbent MKs who fell to unrealistic spots are Moshe Mizrahi and Arab MK Raleb Majadele, who just re-entered the Knesset like a week ago.

As far as I know, there was nothing really wrong with Mizrahi. His loss seems kind of random, like Hotovely's in the Likud primary.

I think he's a Shelly supporter though, so unlike Hotovely, there's no chance he'll get airdropped into one of the leader's picks' slots

[Famous Mortimer]

Moshe Mizrahi is most famous for overseeing a corruption case against Avigdor Liberman. With him gone, it will be easier for Labor to form a government with Beytenu.

Voters might have even shunned him specifically for this reason.

[Famous Mortimer]

Now the Jewish Home primaries.