Yeranen Yaakov: Vote

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Monday, February 09, 2009

Vote

Click the image.

The choices are before you. Whatever you do, vote for 1 of these 3.

9 Comments:

At Tue Feb 10, 05:10:00 PM 2009, Anonymous said...: The problem with Shas and UTJ is that they will sell out to the Left for a small price...
At Tue Feb 10, 06:26:00 PM 2009, yaak said...: Many believe that, but I don't. I find it unfortunate that people believe that.

Any party backed by Gedolei Yisrael is a party worth voting for.

The 2 parties you mentioned don't do anything w/o their spiritual leaders, whose Shikul Hada'at I trust, even when I personally don't agree with their decision.

Lately, Shas has been very right-wing, providing a voice of reason in the current government.
UTJ, although not opposing disengagement, has great Torah scholars as leaders. I can't imagine them giving away Yerushalayim.
Ihud Le'umi has a lot of jblogosphere support, and I agree with much of what they say.

For me, backing by Torah leaders is critical. I happen to be a hutz-nik so I can't vote. If I could, I'd be a Shas person since I'm a Rav Ovadia person, but voting for any one of these three parties would be the right thing to do.
At Tue Feb 10, 10:45:00 PM 2009, גילוי said...: Yaak,

Shas became a laughing stock on the right, with its promises to quit the government if Yerushalayim is discussed in negotiations, and then consistently denying that the sky is blue, when Tzipi Livni got on television and said she was negotiating Yerushalayim. They did not run as a right-wing campaign, and rightly so. They ran as a socialist party. Eli Yishai said he wants Israel to be a welfare state. Those are his words.

In the end, we are stuck with political instability. It is what Bibi wanted (less than 30 seats, to keep out Moshe Feiglin), and we were unable to convince the faithful to adopt a more American system (where the coalitions are created inside the party, not outside of the party).

After you are done analyzing the election results, I suggest checking out history a bit:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern%20History/Historic%20Events/Israeli%20Election%20Results-%20May%201996

Looks similar, the right wing block wins, but Likud came in second. This was a very unstable time in government.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304744443&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Barak seems to get it, and has called for electoral reform, as he was worst hit by the pilug of the parties. The best, as far as I can see from Barak's point of view, is to have a government of Avodah, Kadima, Likud, just long enough to change the election system, and then call new elections.
At Tue Feb 10, 11:25:00 PM 2009, yaak said...: Gilui, I disagree with you on almost every point.

Shas very much ran on a right-wing campaign. Just take a look at the videos on their website. The most prominent issue is the division of Yerushalayim. This issue - not the child welfare allowances - is why they wouldn't join Livni a few months ago.

Likud may tie or even beat Kadima when all is said and done. See here:
"The votes of the armed forces usually tilt to the nationalist and religious parties, and are likely to create at least a tie and may even put Likud in the lead."

In 1996, there was a direct election of the PM. That is what caused instability - not the current system. The current system works well. Barak is just crying b/c he lost big. Why didn't he cry "electoral reform" when he won 10 years ago?
At Wed Feb 11, 01:24:00 AM 2009, גילוי said...: Yaak,

You are very much wrong on your first point. I happen to have worked in close physical proximity to the Shas campaign. They had hundreds of seminary girls calling their voters for months and asking them if they thought that Shas's decision to not join Tzipi Livni's government was a good idea or not. And if the people didn't seem to know about it, they pushed them further and said that Shas didn't join because of kitzbaot yeladim. That is Shas's official message that it gave out, and that is what Tzipi Livni stated as well, that she would not be victim to their sachtanut on matters of kitzbaot yeladim. Both sides stated it. I have been very well exposed to their campaign via their call center activities, as well as their bus campaigns, almost all of which speak of economic issues (kitzbaot yeladim, parnasah b'chavod, etc). I will admit to not owning a TV and not caring to view their video propaganda on their website.

On the comparison to 1996, you missed my point. The change of the Basic Law to add direct election of the Prime Minister caused a steep rise in the power of the smaller parties starting in the early 1990s. This problem has not gone away since, not remedied by the repeal of this in Sharon's days. Assuming that Bibi returns to the office of PM, this will be twice that he is PM with the 2nd largest party. I don't see how you can say the current system works well when a government hasn't served for its full term in more than a decade. The last election to be held on time was 1996. Elections were held early in 1999, in 2001 (just for Prime Minister), 2003, 2006, and 2009. You could say that 2003 was on time, in that Barak didn't call for general elections at the end of 2000 when he resigned, but the instability caused him to resign.

You are right that he didn't cry for reform then. He obviously hopes to gain politically. I am for it as a citizen of this country that wishes for both political stability and an increase in the influence of the faithful on the fateful decisions.
At Wed Feb 11, 02:29:00 AM 2009, yaak said...: Ynet:
The statement went on to say that "Shas stressed throughout the talks that if Jerusalem's status is not strengthened and if it is not made clear that the Israeli capital is not cash, this will have an effect on any future dialogue and will present Israel as a country which fails under diplomatic pressure and as a serial conceder."

Shas officials stressed that the party's negotiating team presented solutions for both issues, but that these proposals were rejected, leading the party to decide not to join the government.
This seems to say they were at least equally important in making the decision.
While I know there are statements from the Livni camp that deny this and say that Shas would have conceded Jerusalem, I don't believe them.

On your second point, I understand why you'd feel that a government that doesn't come to full term is considered failed. However, I believe it's a Beracha from Shamayim to give power to smaller religious parties. In the current election, it appears that it will give a lot of power to Lieberman, which I'm not very happy about, but we'll see how this whole thing plays out.

Meanwhile, here's an article you may be interested in.
At Wed Feb 11, 03:18:00 AM 2009, גילוי said...: Shas basically preserved its electoral strength this time around. In its calls to its own voters (again keep in mind that in the end, they did not seem to get much in the way of new voters), Yerushalayim was not stressed *at all*. You cannot speak from a point of experience on this.

I kept quiet on the election topic on my blog, as you might have noticed, as I thought to myself that the outcome of the elections perhaps will show me a different path. I believe that I was wrong on my assumption, but not wrong to have reservations. The only way out is Manhigut Yehudit in the Likud. Look at the picture: The Left is beaten, but the Right is so divided that we cannot take advantage of it. Indeed my ideology sounds very close to Ichud Leumi, but yet again we are confronted with the fact that as a party representing a sector, it can be ignored, as it is only 4 seats. These 4 seats are expendable when the right block numbers 65.

Kol tuv
At Wed Feb 11, 03:47:00 AM 2009, yaak said...: You cannot speak from a point of experience on this. You're right, and some may argue I shouldn't be talking about it at all since I don't live there. I disagree with that, but that's another discussion.
I can only speak from what I see on the Internet, and from what I've seen on the Internet, Yerushalayim WAS stressed.

I have my opinion on the Manhigut Yehudit idea, but I'll reserve comment. All I'll say is that that is not the "only way out". Mashiah's coming will be the only way out. Perhaps you see elections as a means for MBY to arrive on the scene. Perhaps. However, I'd rather concentrate my Tefillot on a Geula now and not wait until the next elections.

Kol Tuv.
At Wed Feb 11, 04:41:00 AM 2009, גילוי said...: I did notice on a bus today the single ad referring to Yerushalayim which is just a quotation from Yeshayahu 62:1, with the audience left to infer what the actual policy is behind the pasuk.

When one says "the only way out", one is hopefully inferring a caveat of "unless we do sufficient teshuvah and Moshiach comes immediately". And I was of course speaking about the problem at the moment, which, on a superficial level, is a lack of political power to fix the wide range of problems facing Am Yisrael. None of the parties that you have endorsed address this problem. Ichud Leumi lacks the power because of lack of strength. UTJ/Shas don't even address most of the problems due to their sectoral nature.