Sorry I left you hanging on that last post. I know you’re all breathlessly wondering how the election event went, so get settled in, because it was an interesting night! To begin, the event was designed for young olim, and was to be conducted in English. Each of the 7 major parties would send one representative to basically sell their party’s platform, answer our questions and essentially put a face to their contingent. The event was held in a hip Tel Aviv bar and the room was divided into tables, so as to create more intimate environments with which to connect with the candidates. Every fifteen minutes, the candidates would move on to the next table, kind of like a “speed-date your politicians” event. My table was made up of some liberals, some left-wingers, some smolanim and some progressives. What I’m saying is- everyone was a Leftist. If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, I am not a Leftist. But I was prepared for this eventuality, so I brought one of my favorite fellow right-wing olim, Ilan, as a partner-in-crime for the night (no crimes were actually committed, not to worry.) Ilan and I agree on almost all issues, so it was good to know that when I asked a question where every person disagreed with my point of view, someone had my back. And it was fun to make fun of the outlandish Leftist stuff people said with a fellow “crazy right-winger.”
For purposes of easy reading, I’ll give you a synopsis of each party’s representative: What was once Labor is now some “unity party” called “the Zionist Union.” Essentially, neither of the 2 biggest left-wing parties could get enough seats, so they have formed the Zionist Union party to pool all their support, in hopes of taking the prime ministership. I will reiterate, I think the name of this party is unintentionally hilarious, as I do not see how fundamentally changing the Jewish character of Israel and giving away land to Arabs piece by piece has anything to do with Zionism, but I digress. The woman chosen to speak was a Russian immigrant who seemed, quite frankly, like she had better places to be. I asked her why someone like me (ie- a crazy right-winger) would be interested in her party in any way. I have to hand it to her- she valiantly gave me reasons (unconvincing, but still) why the Zionist Union would work for me, too. Oh, and also- Bibi is the worst. This became a running theme by every single party (except Likud, obviously, and Bayit Yehudi) so for purposes of summation: everyone hates Bibi (not me, of course- just everyone else.) Next came Yisrael Beiteinu who had to spend most of their time defending themselves from reports of scandal and their party leader, Avigdor Lieberman. I personally don’t mind his fiery brand of nationalism, but you know who does? Tel Avivians. They were not on “Team Yisrael Beiteinu” and it showed. YB also sent 2 representatives- one of whom apparently had all the answers and struggled with English, and another who spoke as beautifully as the Prince of England, but had to defer to the Israeli for all the answers. It was kind of a cumbersome presentation, but still informative.
Likud sent their #32 delegate to represent them. Weird choice, huh? Even in the absolute best-case scenario, this guy isn’t MK-bound. So why was he the rep, you may ask? I don’t know for sure, but he is Likud’s only openly gay candidate. His goal is to make Likud more gay-friendly and the LGBT community more Likud-friendly. Worthy goals all, but let’s face it- Likud knows their audience. A bunch of young people from Tel Aviv will obviously respond best to this specific representative, especially considering their almost visceral hatred of Bibi. It was a good move. I thought he spoke well, except at one point he said he was atheist and in the next breath said the Jewish claim to this land was biblical and Torah- based. It may make sense to more enlightened people, but to a G-d- believing, Torah-thumper like myself, I didn’t how those 2 ideas worked together in his brain.