Israeli Elections

This BBC graphic shows the results, but as Ynet notes there is No clear winner – Kadima 28, Likud 27.

The CBC noted that a couple of days ago a “national unity” government was not going to happen: Israel headed for ‘extreme right-wing’ regime, Kadima’s Livni says.

Wikipedia’s List of Israeli political parties has links to short descriptions of each, which I will include in my ratings.

First off Americans should understand that the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is elected in a totally different way than the US Congress. There is no connection between the seats in parliament and any geographical location; all 120 seats are “at large”.

Second, Israelis are not voting for people when they go to the polls, they are voting for parties. The parties decide who will represent them in parliament and create a list to be used to fill any seats that are won. While some parties, like Likud, hold a primary election to select the people on the list, in many parties the names are chosen and ranked by the leadership alone.

Third the number of seats a party receives in parliament is based on the percentage of the total vote that that party receives. To be eligible for a seat, a party must win at least 2% of the vote.

What follows is my totally subjective view of the Israeli political parties. You are welcome to your opinion; this is mine. If you think I’m unfair to a party, tell the leaders of the party to stop making stupid statements to the press.

Arab Parties: 7 seats

United Arab List Ta’al – Religious Arabs and the Bedouin – 4 seats

Balad – Arab liberals – 3 seats

Left: 7 seats

Hadesh – Arab and Jewish communists and socialists – 4 seats

Meretz – Traditional liberals – 3 seats

Center: 41 seats

Kadima – Center right – 28 seats

Labor – Just to the right of center – 13 seats

Right: 65 seats

Likud – Secular Neocons 27 seats

Yisrael Beiteinu – Racist Eastern European immigrant Neocons who favor apartheid – 15 seats

Shas – The party of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews – 11 seats

United Torah Judaism – Ultra-Orthodox neocons – 5 seats

National Union – The party of ethnic cleansing – 4 seats

Jewish Home Religious Zionists – 3 seats

Bibi Netanyahu will be the Prime Minister of Israel and you can kiss peace goodbye. This guy’s solution to everything is bomb it out of existence. The only question for Palestinians is whether they subjected to apartheid under the Yisrael Beiteinu, or the National Union ethnic cleansing program be initiated.

The US gains nothing by being associated with this Israeli government which wants to get thousands of US military members killed in the reaction to the attack on Iran. It’s a good thing that people are used to getting by with lower levels of petroleum products, because the flow from the Persian Gulf is unlikely to continue normally after something that stupid.

Let me explain how stupid the Israelis are. There is only one thing needed to make a Qassam rocket that can’t be purchased at a Wal-Mart: a real, high-speed explosive for the warhead. That is one of the reasons all of the rockets fired by the Palestinians this century have only resulted in around two dozen deaths. As a result of the recent attacks on Gaza, the rocket makers now have tons of quality high explosives to work with – from unexploded Israeli bombs. The UN has been trying to gather up and defuse the munitions, but the Israelis have been blocking their efforts, so Israelis will get them back in the nose of a rocket.

There are always unintended consequences in life.