Bibi was right to be afraid.

(First and foremost,  I know all of you are wondering who I voted for in the end.  When it came down to the moment of truth, I couldn't bring myself to vote Likud.  Both my wife and I voted Ichud Leumi.)

The results are pretty much in.  For those of you who don't read Hebrew:

Likud 27

Kadima 28

Labor 13

Israel Beiteinu 15

Shas 15

Meretz 3

United Torah Judaism 5 

Ichud Leumi 4

Jewish Home 3

Ram Tal (Arab) 4

Chadash (Arab) 4

Of course these results are still not entirely final.  There is still about 0.3% of the vote that has not been counted.  This is mostly from Army bases and hospitals.  Those votes have to be counted very carefully to make sure that those people didn't vote once at their regular polling place and then again at the mobile polling place.  Once these results come in, they could be enough to shift any one of the parties at most 1 seat in either direction.

What does all of this mean?  Here's my take.

What it really boils down to is this.  Who is the real Bibi Netanyahu?  

If he is only interested in power, keeping his seat as long as possible, and looking good in the eyes of the world (especially the USA), he will work out some kind of power sharing situation with Kadima, Labor etc.

If he is truly a nationalist who wants to retain all of the Land of Israel without compromise, he will form a right wing/religious coalition.  If he does this, he will have a very stable 65 seats.  

Bibi holds the keys here.  It is next to impossible for Tzippy Livni to form a coalition if Likud refuses to join.  

This makes me very happy that I voted Ichud Leumi in the end and not Likud.  You see, we now have the perfect test scenario to know who is the real Bibi.  If Likud had a clear majority, Bibi would have been able to give in to his bad habit of turning left after he gets elected.  Now he will have to make his intentions clear from the outset.  If he chooses a Right/Religious coalition, then we will know that he meant everything that he said during the campaign.  More importantly, he will have the smaller, more right wing parties like Ichud Leumi, there to hold him to his word.

 

If Bibi chooses to make some kind of deal with the left, it will mean that he never intended to be strong and hold on to our land.  In that case, I will be even more happy that I didn't vote Likud!

When all is said and done. I think that this is the very best result that us right-wing-extremists could have hoped for.  At least there is a descent chance that we are going to get a government made up of parties who's sole thing in common is a desire (albeit to varying degrees) to not give away land to the Arabs.

When all is said and done, Bibi was right to be afraid.  His worst nightmare has come true.  He is not going to be left to do what he feels like.  Whichever path he chooses, he will have a strong babysitter sitting over his head making sure that he sticks to it.   

Let's hope he makes the right choice.

The best news I have heard in months

This story from the Jerusalem Post is the best news I have heard in months:

Arab Israelis Consider Elections Boycott

(IsraelNN.com) As the popularity of Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) grows and debate rages on the degree of loyalty Arab citizens harbor for Israel, many of Israel's Arabs are considering avoiding the elections altogether. Many political debates between Arab parties now include a representative who argues that Arabs should not vote at all.
Mohammed Kanaaneh, one such representative, was quoted in Haaretz as arguing that voting in Israeli elections constitutes recognition of “the Zionist entity” built on what he claimed is rightfully Arab land.


By voting Arab parties into Knesset, voters allow Israel to project an image of equality and democracy, Kanaaneh argued. In reality, he said, the Arab MKs do not have significant influence.

Arab MKs argue that their presence in Knesset is necessary in order to support diplomatic agreements with the Palestinian Authority and Arab nations, and to fight discrimination.

Some Arab MKs have argued that many Arab Israelis who previously boycotted elections will vote this year in protest of the Cast Lead operation in Gaza, which ended last month. Other Arab voices claim the Gaza war will have the opposite effect -- alienating Arab voters and causing them to boycott the polls.

Recent polls predict unusually low voter turnout in the Arab sector, where turnout was already lagging behind the rest of the country, and some show the Balad and Ra'am Ta'al parties failing to enter Knesset.

If this prediction holds true, and if right-leaning voters do not carry out a boycott of their own, the Knesset next could become a relatively nationalistic one.

I really hope that they carry through with it. It is the next best thing to my proposal of taking voting rights away from all non-Jews.

Likud or Ichud Leumi?

Elections here in Israel are coming up on Tuesday. I thought that I was sure who I was going to vote for but the latest polls are making me think again...

There is no doubt that Ichud Leumi is the party that is closest to my political views. But, I was planning to vote Likud for very specific strategic reasons. In general, I am a supporter of Moshe Feiglin. Feiglin published a recommendation list before the primaries. It contained candidates who have a record of apposing the disengagement from Gaza or who are known to be very right wing. A lot of his people got on the list. The interesting thing is that most of them are either in the top 20 of the list or they are between numbers 30-40. The important point to note is that none of them are between numbers 25-30 on the list. (See the Likud list here)

As of a few days ago, all of the poles were showing the Likud hovering around 30 seats in the elections. This would have meant that every extra vote for the Likud would be a vote for the 'Feiglin people' in numbers 30-40. The polls were also showing Ichud Leumi with only 3 seats, which put my vote in danger of being wasted. This is due to the rule that a party who falls short of the 3 seat minimum doesn't get into Knesset and their votes are discarded.

Based on that, I was planning to vote Likud. My reasoning was that I would rather put my people inside the ruling party, where they would have more leverage. This would also be giving more clout to Moshe Feiglin in future elections. Whereas by voting Ichud Leumi, I could be throwing my vote in the trash! And even if they did make it in my the skin of their teeth, they would be sitting in the opposition, not doing much good.

But today's numbers show a very different picture. It seems that in the latest poll, Likud gets 26 seats. That would mean that if right wing voters vote for the Likud, we would just be putting in numbers 27, 28, 29 who are not people from Moshe Feiglin's list and not people that I want in the Knesset.

Ichud Leumi gets 6 seats in today's poll. That means that if I vote Ichud Leumi I don't have to worry about throwing my vote in the garbage. It also means that they have a significant bloc of seats that Bibi may need to form a coalition with his now smaller party of 26. It also means that I wouldn't have to plug my nose during the voting process.

As of this moment, I am leaning toward Ichud Leumi. What do you think?