Post-Election in Israel

On Tuesday, February 10th, 63.9% of eligible voters, 3,373,490 people, voted for one of 33 parties running to the 18th Knesset of Israel.

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There are 120 seats in the Knesset.  28 of them go to Kadima (center leaning left), 27 to Likud (center leaning right), 15 to Liberman's party (right), 13 to Labor (center leaning left), 11 to Shas (religious) and the remaining 26 seats are split among seven other parties according to the number of votes each received.  In total, 21 parties have not passed the 2% minimum threshold required for entry.   There was a public outcry, led by the politicians themselves: The system needs to be reformed.  If it were not so sad, one would burst out laughing:  Was no one aware of the dire need for change a day before the elections, rather than hours immediately after?   The day has come that numerous small parties should form clusters – left, center, right.  At the end of the day they are forced to do so anyway.   Shortly, the President of Israel will assign the task of forming a government to the person he believes is most likely to form the new government within the time allotted under the law.  A government needs a majority in the Knesset, and neither Kadima (28 seats) nor Likud (27 seats) on its own is even close to reaching the magic number of 61.   Much like the California budget impasse, teams are negotiating around the clock.  How is the pie to be divided?  What additional budgetary concessions might be squeezed?  How many more ministers and assistants at all levels will be authorized?  All the ugliness is usually kept behind close doors – the elected officials and their teams are, for once, ashamed to do it all in public.  Promises, the costs of each all Israelis will bear in years to come, are made, then executed as legally binding contracts.   Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the Likud party, has made it known that he will invite all parties to a government under his leadership.  He wants as wide a base as possible.  His arch nemesis , Livni, head of the current ruling party and the only other contender for Prime Minister, has just declared, in a press release sent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:  

Today the foundations for an extreme right wing government under the leadership of Netanyahu were formed.  This is not our way and we have nothing to look for in such a government.   We were not chosen in order to facilitate this extreme right wing government, and we must become an alternative of hope to it and go to the opposition.

  Foreign Minister Livni then proceeds to set the main points of her way, her party's platform.   Even in politics there must be some traces of responsibility and accountability.  Even amidst the ongoing extortion-wheeling and dealing-bazaar-like atmosphere raised to unimaginable heights, one expects to find integrity.  After all, we now are to refer to our elected officials as "the honorable."  Honor? Example?  Personal values?  The general good before personal gains and considerations?    Going to the opposition is an honorable, respectful way to fight for one's values.  Choosing to smear the other side along the way is not.  Using labels like "extreme right wing" plants the seeds for a greater divide.  Tomorrow, after all, all will have to work together, to move the country forward, to defend its existence and to highlight the many unique aspects that make up this complex miracle on the shores of the Mediterranean.

A House Divided

 By Norma Zager   "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Abraham Lincoln   The mantra is change. "Change," a word used adnauseam during the last ten months, bandied about like a party girl's phone number at a frat party.   So now we have this so-called change, but what do we actually have after the smoke has cleared?   Moving forward is a useless exercise unless it carries the lessons of the past in its memory banks.   America is a country more divided than it has been since the civil war. Friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, families at odds, but why?   I have been attacked more in the last year than a baby in a cage filled with pit bulls.   It is obvious this is a  "change" we never anticipated:  We've created two Americas, a civil divide.  An excuse for hatred so engrained it has infected the entire fabric of our nation and is spreading like a cancer throughout the body politic.   Before the last election I was accused of being a "right wing bigot" by one of my best friends as she was treating me to a birthday dinner.  Then I was labeled "racist" by another good friend over my expressed concerns with Chicago politics. I wasn't about to be lured into a mass hysteria disguised as a presidential election, as I am inherently suspicious of politicians who are born out of a machine that allows dead people to vote.   As a journalist I was taught to look beneath the surface, the rhetoric, the hype and seek truth. It's a shame 90% of America's journalists forgot that lesson in objectivity and were swept away in a love fest, while humming choruses of Kumbaya in lieu of responsible reporting.   The mentality of the 2008 election is easily understood. It was succinctly portrayed in a movie shown to students called "The Wave," about Fascism in an American high school. Ask the German people how easily one is swept up in the hysteria and euphoria of the moment when confronted with a difficult reality.   The smoke cleared, but where is our nation now?   It is a house divided, a country of haters, bitter and helpless to undo the damage brought about by some force of destiny too powerful and terrifying to explain.   There are two Americas, and they are deeply at odds.   It's impossible to have a political conversation with someone on any level without being attacked in a hateful, deranged manner.   Are we no longer on the same side? Are we no longer all Americans, part of a dream, a history, a future?  No, it seems there is only right and left, conservative and liberal. Battle lines have been drawn with a pearl-encrusted smug woman holding Congress hostage, because "her" America won the election. When did it stop being everyone's America? When did this country become only the America of the winning party?   Are we back to signs reading "Irish need not apply?"  Should we change that to  "Conservatives need not apply?"   What's a conservative anyway? From what I can glean, it's all very simple.   Democrats like big government, Republicans like less.   Alexander Hamilton liked big government while Thomas Jefferson was a state's rights guy.   Had Jefferson lived today, he would be pelted with tomatoes, ostracized and condemned for his beliefs.   Our founding fathers had no clue this country would become a nation divided and implode from within. Or did they?   Thomas Jefferson said:  "Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."   America needs a marriage counseling time out or it will wind up divorced and broke.   Oops, I forgot. We already are.   Bad credit, overextended finances and no one can say a civil word to one another, even on birthdays. Looks like the time for a serious intervention.    We are no longer judged by our good deeds, but for how much government we want interfering in our lives.   Will America wind up with nothing save a Broadway play about their turmoil and descent into madness?   Too bad Eugene O' Neill or Arthur Miller aren't around to chronicle America's long day's journey into night.   Unless we stop acting like enemies and remember we're all on the same side, it's over. The blame game is so last century. Get over it! Americans agree on what's important, like national security, wealth, family and decency. This is, after all, a Judeo-Christian country with a strong Puritan work ethic and deep moral conviction. When did these virtues become vice?   If even one American is attacked for his beliefs, every American has lost a piece of his soul.   There is much work ahead before solving the monumental problems we now face. If we pursue battling amongst ourselves, if we emulate the angry vicious women on "The View," bitching and shooting dirty looks at those who disagree with their philosophy, how will we ever pull together to fix this country? We can't. Take one moment, please, to remember our glorious past before racing headlong into a future fraught with animosity. Despising those very principles responsible for America's greatness.   Desperation breeds desperate measures. Will we become a third-world country, feeding on the promises of some sick, deranged dictator? Is that next on the agenda for the United States? If you believe it can't happen here, guess what? It will.  There is another alternative, however, and "yes – we can!" assume responsibility and take a different, better path.   Healthy disagreement is a good thing for a democracy. Hatred is not. Are we now ourselves those "huddled masses yearning to be free?" America is supposed to be a light among nations. For God's sake will someone turn the light back on before they get into bed tonight?  

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