Israeli General Election (2nd of March, 2020): Madness

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is there any reason to believe the results might be any different this time?  Perhaps Arab fatigue lower seat count of Joint List and helping Likud.

Arab fatigue? No, what will make this election different and decidedly unhelpful to the Likud is Netanyahu fatigue. The left (and indefatigable Arabs) smell blood and a significant non-Bibist flank of the right just doesn't even care anymore about propping up an indicted and autocratic pm who has cannibalized all the energy and ideas on the right for his own political survival. These are factors that give the left a majority.

It may in fact play out exactly as it did in September, but if it's different it will be favorably so for the left and not the right.

Remember that this is "I'd be a sex trafficker if the money in it outweighed the risk of getting caught" jaichind you're talking to. His main problem with Netanyahu, if he has any at all, is probably that he hasn't made it legal for business owners to kill their employees for kicks.

Also, initially I was hoping I could start this thread myself so I could call it either "Israeli Election! Here We Go Again" or "Israeli Election 3: Oh Hell No!".

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Is there any reason to worry that the last-minute "Liberman Come Home" lovebomb that Likud apparently has planned will go anywhere?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Due to the infighting in the Democratic Camp and Meretz old guard threatening to pushShaffir and Golan back on the list - Shaffir rebranded her Green movements as the Green Party with the threat of running solo pushing both under the threshold

ffs

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56.3% turnout as of 18:00, 3% more than last time. I don't have a good feeling. Apparently KL think that it's either from the Arabs or Likud, and are "very worried".

Yeah, KL is finally starting to pull the Gevald card.  They say turnout is low in their strongholds
Who knows if it's for real.

It wouldn't be an Israeli election without somebody gevalting.

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Likud has been fined for taking voters to polls in limousines (!)

Galaxy brain: Be a sociologically right-wing Israeli voter, get a free limo ride to the polls, roll into the polling booth, and vote KL.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How does Bibi still win after being in power so long and with all the corruption?  Honest question about what makes him unbeatable.

AAAH ARABS

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How does Bibi still win after being in power so long and with all the corruption?  Honest question about what makes him unbeatable.

AAAH ARABS

More detailed answer: Bibi insists, and might genuinely believe, that he is literally the only person in Israel, up to and including the three former IDF Chiefs of Staff in the KL leadership, who can be trusted to keep the country physically safe as Prime Minister, and he says this often enough and loudly enough that other people believe it too.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How does Bibi still win after being in power so long and with all the corruption?  Honest question about what makes him unbeatable.

Excellent economy, better international relations than ever, less of a security threat by neighbors and militant Palestinians than perhaps ever. I'd have voted Likud in this one.

I mean sure, but you're saying this as a natural voter for the right, quite a hardcore one.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How does Bibi still win after being in power so long and with all the corruption?  Honest question about what makes him unbeatable.

Excellent economy, better international relations than ever, less of a security threat by neighbors and militant Palestinians than perhaps ever. I'd have voted Likud in this one.

I mean sure, but you're saying this as a natural voter for the right, quite a hardcore one.

Okay, but the economy, the good national security situation and Israel's improving international standing are still reasons for why more than a fourth of Israelis would still vote for Likud - which was what Mileslunn asked - even apart from my personal preferences.

Didn't intend to post on Atlas anymore, but just wanted to clarify, as I didn't want the impression that Likud solely received a big part of the vote because of some anti-Arab scare or "irrational voters" to go unchallenged.

Sure, some of Bibi's foreign policy successes have been genuinely impressive, although as an American leftist I obviously hate the fact that he constantly runs interference and carries water for Trump and the Republican Party as a key part of his policy towards the Western powers. As for the economy, though, a "good economy" doesn't explain as much as it used to because in a post-truth society people's perceptions of how good the economy is depend a lot on their preconceptions about who's in power--witness THE TRUMP RECOVERY rhetoric on the American right vs. rhetoric about fragile/illusory prosperity where lots of people are still getting screwed on the American left.

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The main thing that I would consider to be "destabilizing and backwards" has been the attitude of the Palestinian leadership - which is why even its Arab allies have abandoned it. Meanwhile, the country you, as an anti-Zionist Palestinian, want destroyed, is stronger than ever; and today, it has probably elected a government that will make it even stronger

You do realize that Likud's been in power for a while.

David's drunk the Fashintern Kool-Aid so the more frothingly racist a government in a non-Muslim country is the better as far as he's concerned. And the right-religious bloc in Israel is nothing if not more frothingly racist now than when Bibi first came to power.

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I'm grateful for people like DavidB because they're brutally honest about Zionism's true nature, and help observers see it for what it really is. It's also why I want Bibi to remain PM.

This is accelerationist BS and just as blinkered by your pet hates as David's posts are by his. And you, unlike him, are better than that.

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Who votes Shas and who votes UTJ?

Shas is Sephardi/Mizrahi (and used to be a somewhat bigger tent than just the Haredi members of those groups, whereas UTJ did not), UTJ is Ashkenazi.

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https://twitter.com/lahavharkov/status/1205010955110879232?s=21

Lol, they did it. Madmen.

Based, as they used to say

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"Interesting" take on where Jewish votes for JL might be coming from

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Hendel and Hauser are pushing for a unity government and reportedly refuse to support a minority government. Had a meeting with Yaalon where shouting was reportedly heard

The Israeli center-left is so masochistic that Yamina could probably win mandates out of Tel Aviv if their ads for election #4 had Shaked in a corset with a riding crop.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hendel and Hauser are pushing for a unity government and reportedly refuse to support a minority government. Had a meeting with Yaalon where shouting was reportedly heard

So...do I have this right?

Balad's going to abstain no matter what (right?), so currently the vote on the mandate would be Gantz 59, Bibi 58. If these two refuse to vote for a majority government, then Gantz won't get the mandate. If Gantz doesn't get the mandate, the law to ban Bibi from being PM doesn't pass and the already shaky minority government hopes collapse.

Is this accurate?

Support for Gantz getting the mandate isn't the same as support for the formation of any specific government, thank God.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Of course, in September Hendel and Hauser could have been told to go screw themselves and there would still have been enough votes for Gantz as long as Balad abstained. But alas.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I wish Gantz could just toss out Lieberman and make a government with the Joint Lists and the Haredim. It just sounds so much better than letting in secular racists.

The Haredim are, unfortunately, also quite racist at this point. (My understanding is this wasn't always the case.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm sick of it. I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of it.

("it" is defending this country)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The right wing is back to hyperventilating about a minority government. Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein says that he will not allow a vote to replace him, which the Gantz bloc had planned to do tomorrow after MKs are sworn in. The move basically puts Gantz up against a wall and makes a minority government the only real option for KL at this point. Hopefully he is really quick to put the coalition agreements in ink.

Simply not allowing a vote to replace him when there's a majority to do so seems like the kind of power that a Speaker probably shouldn't, uh, have.

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Well, seventy-two years of democracy is a good run. Better than most countries founded in the twentieth century have managed. Here's hoping Arabs, gay people, less-religious Jews, kibbutzniks, etc. still find ways to survive and thrive in the coming Chardalized ethnarchy.

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I truly don't understand what his game plan is; he just told any possible center-right voter that "Bibi is better than me; it's okay for him to be Prime Minister." He won't get any votes from them, & now he won't be getting any votes from the left either.

Israeli center-left, masochism, ads at the next election with Shaked in a bustier holding a riding crop, Yamina mandates out of Tel Aviv. I've said it before and I'll say it again.

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F*** it, I'm done defending Israel. 

Yeah.

I know how awful it must feel for you to give up on this, and I hope you know how awful it feels for me as well.

Very good poll for Gantz and a very solid 75 seats for the soon to be formed government. It's obvious a lot of KL voters prefer this unity government over the Tibi coalition, protracted deadlock, or a potential fourth election. And also logical, given that most Israeli center-left voters are still Zionists after all.

"The Tibi coalition" is an interesting (read: delusional and shamelessly racist) way to describe a Zionist-center-left minority government that would have had outside confidence and supply from the Arabs. But delusion and shameless racism (whether against Ostjuden or Sephardim and Mizrahim or Arabs) have characterized a certain current in the Zionist center-left for a very long time, so I agree with you that it's logical for these people to prefer a fundamentalist ethnarchy over a democracy in which them Ay-rabs are equal political participants.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"The Tibi coalition" is an interesting (read: delusional and shamelessly racist) way to describe a Zionist-center-left minority government that would have had outside confidence and supply from the Arabs. But delusion and shameless racism (whether against Ostjuden or Sephardim and Mizrahim or Arabs) have characterized a certain current in the Zionist center-left for a very long time, so I agree with you that it's not logical for these people to prefer a fundamentalist ethnarchy over AAAAAH AY-RABS.

I wouldn't see you downplay the significance of "outside confidence and supply" when it would be a hypothetical CDU-FDP coalition with AfD outside support in Sachsen (or indeed similar hypothetical arrangements with much more mainstream parties on the European right). What's the difference?
Current and recent former JL MKs have made endlessly more problematic comments on Jews than Höcke ever did.

I wouldn't downplay its significance, no, and I don't expect somebody with your overall perspective within the Israeli political context to support a JL-supported government or be comfortable with it at all; the reason I've supported Israel and Zionism for as long as I have precisely is a recognition that the Arab players in the region are at least as bigoted against Jews as Israeli Jews are against them, maybe more so. But calling it "the Tibi coalition", as if it would be a JL-led government or one with JL ministers in key departments, goes beyond discomfort into histrionics and scaremongering, and it's exactly the kind of histrionics and scaremongering that finally has me fed up with this country's politics and society.

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Democracy doesn't equal liberal democracy, it can also mean the right of an (ethnically or culturally defined) people to govern itself. The core of Zionism is the right of the Jewish people to have a national homeland, and if there is a conflict between that and liberal principles (as enshrined in the constitution) then you can't just assume that the latter takes precedence for every Zionist. If one were to follow your logic you can't be a Zionist unless you believe in liberal principles incl. minority rights, and that's a meaningless definition.

Are you implying there exist alternative forms of democracy based on ethnicity, such as ''Jewish democracy'', ''Arab democracy'', or ''Chinese democracy''? I don't think so

I concur that Zionism and liberal democracy are not indivisible. Far from that, the mainstream rightwing revisionist Zionism is blatantly racist and illiberal. But there's a brand of liberal Zionism that tries to reconcile the notion of ethnic state with the principles of liberal democracy, as it's enshrined in the constitution. In case of conflict (unavoidable), it seems clear many Zionists give precedence to ethnicity

Descriptively of course there is, there exists democracies which satisfy the majoritarian principle and have an ethnic constitutional basis. You might not think that it’s *desirable*, or that any democracy should always contingently come with an absolute equality before the law (still reconcilable with ethnic democracy), or even a stronger case where no there should be no ethnic trait to the state (and the problem lies here).

I am not a big fan of democracy, nation states, or any popular based institution. But your claim is too rigid if you also want to maintain a group right of self determination. Or as a matter of fact enable non liberal societies to move towards a liberal path an ethnic democracy might be a necessary pre condition.

Could you provide examples of ''ethnic democracies''? The subject would be fascinating to be discussed in another board, as well the right to self determination (its true meaning, in which cases it's enforceable, which people has precedence in case of territorial conflict...). I'd say that Israel is a particular case and most western democracies have constitutions based on liberal principles, but...

In any case, I think democracy is both defined by the majority rule and by the scrupulous respect for minorities. When the Israeli government tries to disenfranchise (even partially) its official Arab minority with the Nation State Law, it's undermining one of the pillars of democracy. Let alone the existence of a consolidated 'status quo', in fact a one-state reality. Israel extends beyond the pre-1967 border to incorporate the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Given that it's unlikely that Israel resigns territorial gains, the Jewish state or the 'ethnic democracy' seem only possible by the disenfranchisement of nearly 1/2 of the population between the Jordan and the Sea

Most of the European state are ethnic democracies to a degree, even liberal Germany has a law of return for German ethnics. France is really the only state with a clear ethnic/nation separation de jure, the rest are on a spectrum. Israel is a bit closer to Central Europe conception of the nation state where the nationality is also strongly linked with ethnicity.

I don’t think your conceptualization excludes ethnic democracies as long as they provide minorities with ample protection either through human rights or through collective autonomy rights (e.g. the danish minority in SH state of Germany).

The Nation State Law night sound bad on paper but I think it has minimal actual effect. SC ruling in Kaadan already established that the Jewish element trumps equality only in regards of immigrations, “once inside the house we are all equal, it’s only the key to the house where lies the difference”.

The problem here is not of definitions but of ambitions, as both (well large parts of) both national movement demand self determination across the entire territory the conflict arise and then escalated to aggressive steps to solidify power like the disenfranchisement or the discrimination in land laws against Arabs.

But that is a debate about concrete facts, not of conflicting conceptual schemata

The right of return in Germany may well be related to the post-war context, with millions of Germans fleeing former eastern territories and Central European countries. The question to determine whether Germany is an 'ethnic democracy' (I tell you that concept sounds horrible, due to its historical impications) is not the right of return. Does German Basic Law define Germany as ''The Nation of German People'', in the same fashion as Israel with the Jewish people?

With regard to the ethnic character of Central European nations ,-that is more accentuated with regard to Western democracies- and the protection of minorities, Hungary is an imlustrative example of illiberal government mistreating the non-Hungarians. Orban's regime might be, in a sense, a mirror for the 'ethnic democracy' envisioned by the Israeli right (and more centrist emements as well)

The Nation State Law enshrines the notion that Israel is not a state for all its citizens, but only the state for its Jewish majority (excluding disrnfranchised Palestinians, of course). The second-class condition of the official Arab minority is consecrated. Such legiation inspired by 'ethnic democratic' principles is radically illiberal and undemocratic. There is a difference between the majority rule and the tyranny of the majority that you are missing. Ethno-nationalism and liberal democracy are not really compatible

Okay, resident of ethno-nationalist homogenous country. You been to any 'Japanese Only' restaurants lately?

Are you seriously suggesting that it's hypocritical for anybody not in favor of Japanese ethnonationalism to live in Japan or have a JP avatar? Seriously?!