geomancer
01-25-2013, 09:53 AM
[This is from Haaretz, which is paywalled - the Google link gets through. Interesting to read about their election from an Israeli perspective and how clueless their hard Right has become. Also, good old Sheldon Adelson, Romney's BFF, shat the bed with his billions to no avail. War with Iran now seems less likely.]
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=Throughout+Election+Israel+Became+Anti-Netanyahu+Country&oq=Throughout+Election+Israel+Became+Anti-Netanyahu+Country
Throughout election, Israel became anti-Netanyahu country
‘I used to be Bibi, now I’m Lapid,’ Likud politicians kept hearing.
By Yossi Verter (https://www.haaretz.com/misc/writers/yossi-verter-1.671) | Jan.25, 2013 | 7:51 AM
Throughout the election campaign Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was fed erroneous, unreliable, unprofessional survey results. This is the clear conclusion emerging from Tuesday’s election results.
On Sunday Netanyahu was still convinced his party would obtain 36-37 Knesset seats. While most of the experienced pollsters like Camil Fuchs, Dr. Mina Tzemach and Rafi Smith discerned Likud-Beiteinu’s slide toward 30 seats, Netanyahu and his partner Avigdor Lieberman were intoxicated by groundless figures with at best a flimsy connection to reality.
A Likud minister who met veteran party members in a south Tel Aviv neighborhood on election day was astonished to hear they had considered voting for Bennett, but had decided to vote for Lapid.
“Wait, what about voting Likud?” he asked.
“Forget about it. Bibi is going to be prime minister anyway. At least let there be someone who cares about us beside him,” one of them said.
“Since ‘99 I haven’t encountered such intense hatred for Bibi,” a municipal official in the north told a veteran Likud man. “Our people, whom we gave free education from age 3-4, whose cellphone prices we reduced by hundreds of shekels a month, can’t stand that man. They’re convinced he’s against them, that we’re against them, against the middle classes.”
This, in a nutshell, is the story of election 2013. Experienced, battle-scarred Likud ministers and MKs received the shock of their lives at meetings with people in the last few days before the election. They discovered not a new country, but another country ? tough, hostile, bitter, vindictive.
“I used to be Bibi, now I’m Lapid,” they heard again and again, like a spit in the face.
The anti-Likud sentiment started with the social protest in the summer of 2011. Then it seemed to fall and disperse. But under the surface it bubbled and fermented until it burst out in the mass vote for Lapid like lava. The youngsters fled from the ruling party. Hardly any young people were seen in conferences Netanyahu held. A minister’s son, a soldier, told his father there wasn’t a single Likud voter in his platoon. Everyone, with no exception, was voting for Bennett or Lapid.
“Something very profound has happened,” a central Likud figure said. “It was an anti-Bibi vote in the sharpest sense. But beyond that the Israeli mainstream was saying it has had enough of us. That’s Netanyahu. He always kicks the mainstream. Fourteen months ago he was in the ideal position for elections, after bringing Gilad Shalit back. Last summer he again had a golden opportunity to win the working, tax-paying Israeli’s heart, when he added Kadima to the government. If he had gotten rid of the ultra-Orthodox and enacted the draft law, there would be no Yair Lapid today and Bibi would be king ... but instead he frightened himself and ran into Shas and United Torah Judaism’s arms.”
At their Sunday meeting, Likud ministers talked about what they saw and heard at political gatherings over the weekend. Minister Yisrael Katz said people spoke to him not about Israel’s economic situation, which was supposedly fine, but about their own economic hardships, their bank accounts, the water and electricity bills and the dream of buying an apartment.
“People complain that they keep hearing about the macro [economics],” another minister said. “But they have nothing to put in the micro [oven].”
A warning to Lapid
One outgoing minister, experienced in coalition talks and political ups and downs, sent a warning to Lapid via the media. “First of all, don’t believe Bibi and his men. Don’t be fooled by their flattery, don’t be lured by the jobs and positions and perks they’ll shower on you. This is your time, it will not come again. You hold great power ? there’s no government without you. Unless you use this one-time, rare power, you’ll rapidly become a doormat,” he said.
“Netanyahu, Gideon Sa’ar and Zeev Elkin will make a laughing stock of you. They’ve forgotten more than you’ve ever learned. If you don’t secure a clear, airtight, foolproof coalition agreement that will bind Netanyahu, you’ll soon lose your voters, who are like shifting sands. Today they’re with you, four years ago they were with Tzipi Livni and next election they’ll find another comet,” he said.
“Once you’re in the cabinet there’s no way out. You’ll be portrayed as a clown, a rookie, a second Shaul Mofaz. So the coalition agreement with Netanyahu is critical. What you don’t achieve in the coalition agreement negotiation, you will never get. Once the government is formed, no matter how much you insist and threaten, you’ll be up against a brick wall,” the minister said.
“Although your campaign was socioeconomic and about the draft, if you don’t insist on opening peace talks and stopping the construction in the West Bank settlements, you’ll have achieved nothing . ... Israel’s isolation will grow, sanctions are on their way and our greatest stumbling block is the construction in the isolated settlements. It must stop. If you soften, if you tire, if you give in, nothing will happen. Israel will continue galloping toward the abyss and you among others will be responsible for the fall.”
Foreign labor
Shelly Yacimovich is willing to admit she made one mistake in her campaign ? the timing of her announcement that she wouldn’t join Netanyahu’s coalition. She made the statement about three weeks ago, as an emergency remedy to stop the bleeding in the polls from 19 seats to 18 to 17. Not only did it fail to slow the losses, it seemed to increase them, judging by the election results.
The simple explanation is that Yacimovich’s voters and those fluctuating between her and Lapid were convinced she wasn’t part of the coalition game. They preferred to give Lapid the power to navigate the state beside Netanyahu and counter-balance him, when necessary.
Yacimovich said this week she should have made the announcement two months ago, immediately after the union between Netanyahu and Lieberman. Then it would have been seen as ideological, rather than a tactical act of desperation.
Something bad happened to Labor on the way to the polls. The party’s campaign was misguided, uncreative, unchallenging, unexciting. It was too general. Nobody understood the pretentious economic plan. Yacimovich worked alone, with three and a half advisers. When a Knesset candidate on Labor’s list, high-tech entrepreneur Erel Margalit, suggested setting up a staff committee for the middle class to answer Lapid, she wouldn’t listen.
Yacimovich says 15 Knesset seats isn’t so bad compared to Labor’s position two years ago, or to the time it was part of Netanyahu’s government and the polls predicted it would get 6-8 Knesset seats in the election.
A day after the elections Yacimovich discovered the party had reverted to its old custom. The usual suspects started spinning scenarios on the radio and television of joining Netanyahu’s government.
“That would be suicide,” Yacimovich told her associates. She said there was more chance of Tel Aviv’s coastal waters going up in flames than Labor’s joining Netanyahu and Lieberman.
“Anyone who can speak like that doesn’t know me or the faction or the new party convention, most of whose members oppose such a move,” she said.
“Does anyone think I could vote for cutbacks in billions of shekels to education, health, social services? This government is going to slaughter the middle classes. How could I be partner to that?” she said.
‘Noni Mozes party’ vs. Bibi/Israel Hayom
Afraid of angering anyone, senior Likud figures speak in hushed tones about another party that ran in the election and also contributed to Netanyahu and Likud’s defeat ? the Noni Mozes party.
Mozes heads Israel’s biggest media conglomerate, Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet, whose consistent, one-sided, negative coverage of Netanyahu influenced the public and many voters, claim Likud sources.
In the past few years Mozes, by means of Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet, has been conducting a war against American business magnate Sheldon Adelson and his newspaper Israel Hayom, the prime minister’s mouthpiece. Adelson has been flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of free copies of Israel Hayom, wreaking havoc in the advertising industry and print media.
Reliable sources say Netanyahu is already regretting this escapade. He realizes that Israel Hayom - a newspaper many read but few take seriously - is causing him more damage than good, in view of the free media’s influence on the Israeli public.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=Throughout+Election+Israel+Became+Anti-Netanyahu+Country&oq=Throughout+Election+Israel+Became+Anti-Netanyahu+Country
Throughout election, Israel became anti-Netanyahu country
‘I used to be Bibi, now I’m Lapid,’ Likud politicians kept hearing.
By Yossi Verter (https://www.haaretz.com/misc/writers/yossi-verter-1.671) | Jan.25, 2013 | 7:51 AM
Throughout the election campaign Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was fed erroneous, unreliable, unprofessional survey results. This is the clear conclusion emerging from Tuesday’s election results.
On Sunday Netanyahu was still convinced his party would obtain 36-37 Knesset seats. While most of the experienced pollsters like Camil Fuchs, Dr. Mina Tzemach and Rafi Smith discerned Likud-Beiteinu’s slide toward 30 seats, Netanyahu and his partner Avigdor Lieberman were intoxicated by groundless figures with at best a flimsy connection to reality.
A Likud minister who met veteran party members in a south Tel Aviv neighborhood on election day was astonished to hear they had considered voting for Bennett, but had decided to vote for Lapid.
“Wait, what about voting Likud?” he asked.
“Forget about it. Bibi is going to be prime minister anyway. At least let there be someone who cares about us beside him,” one of them said.
“Since ‘99 I haven’t encountered such intense hatred for Bibi,” a municipal official in the north told a veteran Likud man. “Our people, whom we gave free education from age 3-4, whose cellphone prices we reduced by hundreds of shekels a month, can’t stand that man. They’re convinced he’s against them, that we’re against them, against the middle classes.”
This, in a nutshell, is the story of election 2013. Experienced, battle-scarred Likud ministers and MKs received the shock of their lives at meetings with people in the last few days before the election. They discovered not a new country, but another country ? tough, hostile, bitter, vindictive.
“I used to be Bibi, now I’m Lapid,” they heard again and again, like a spit in the face.
The anti-Likud sentiment started with the social protest in the summer of 2011. Then it seemed to fall and disperse. But under the surface it bubbled and fermented until it burst out in the mass vote for Lapid like lava. The youngsters fled from the ruling party. Hardly any young people were seen in conferences Netanyahu held. A minister’s son, a soldier, told his father there wasn’t a single Likud voter in his platoon. Everyone, with no exception, was voting for Bennett or Lapid.
“Something very profound has happened,” a central Likud figure said. “It was an anti-Bibi vote in the sharpest sense. But beyond that the Israeli mainstream was saying it has had enough of us. That’s Netanyahu. He always kicks the mainstream. Fourteen months ago he was in the ideal position for elections, after bringing Gilad Shalit back. Last summer he again had a golden opportunity to win the working, tax-paying Israeli’s heart, when he added Kadima to the government. If he had gotten rid of the ultra-Orthodox and enacted the draft law, there would be no Yair Lapid today and Bibi would be king ... but instead he frightened himself and ran into Shas and United Torah Judaism’s arms.”
At their Sunday meeting, Likud ministers talked about what they saw and heard at political gatherings over the weekend. Minister Yisrael Katz said people spoke to him not about Israel’s economic situation, which was supposedly fine, but about their own economic hardships, their bank accounts, the water and electricity bills and the dream of buying an apartment.
“People complain that they keep hearing about the macro [economics],” another minister said. “But they have nothing to put in the micro [oven].”
A warning to Lapid
One outgoing minister, experienced in coalition talks and political ups and downs, sent a warning to Lapid via the media. “First of all, don’t believe Bibi and his men. Don’t be fooled by their flattery, don’t be lured by the jobs and positions and perks they’ll shower on you. This is your time, it will not come again. You hold great power ? there’s no government without you. Unless you use this one-time, rare power, you’ll rapidly become a doormat,” he said.
“Netanyahu, Gideon Sa’ar and Zeev Elkin will make a laughing stock of you. They’ve forgotten more than you’ve ever learned. If you don’t secure a clear, airtight, foolproof coalition agreement that will bind Netanyahu, you’ll soon lose your voters, who are like shifting sands. Today they’re with you, four years ago they were with Tzipi Livni and next election they’ll find another comet,” he said.
“Once you’re in the cabinet there’s no way out. You’ll be portrayed as a clown, a rookie, a second Shaul Mofaz. So the coalition agreement with Netanyahu is critical. What you don’t achieve in the coalition agreement negotiation, you will never get. Once the government is formed, no matter how much you insist and threaten, you’ll be up against a brick wall,” the minister said.
“Although your campaign was socioeconomic and about the draft, if you don’t insist on opening peace talks and stopping the construction in the West Bank settlements, you’ll have achieved nothing . ... Israel’s isolation will grow, sanctions are on their way and our greatest stumbling block is the construction in the isolated settlements. It must stop. If you soften, if you tire, if you give in, nothing will happen. Israel will continue galloping toward the abyss and you among others will be responsible for the fall.”
Foreign labor
Shelly Yacimovich is willing to admit she made one mistake in her campaign ? the timing of her announcement that she wouldn’t join Netanyahu’s coalition. She made the statement about three weeks ago, as an emergency remedy to stop the bleeding in the polls from 19 seats to 18 to 17. Not only did it fail to slow the losses, it seemed to increase them, judging by the election results.
The simple explanation is that Yacimovich’s voters and those fluctuating between her and Lapid were convinced she wasn’t part of the coalition game. They preferred to give Lapid the power to navigate the state beside Netanyahu and counter-balance him, when necessary.
Yacimovich said this week she should have made the announcement two months ago, immediately after the union between Netanyahu and Lieberman. Then it would have been seen as ideological, rather than a tactical act of desperation.
Something bad happened to Labor on the way to the polls. The party’s campaign was misguided, uncreative, unchallenging, unexciting. It was too general. Nobody understood the pretentious economic plan. Yacimovich worked alone, with three and a half advisers. When a Knesset candidate on Labor’s list, high-tech entrepreneur Erel Margalit, suggested setting up a staff committee for the middle class to answer Lapid, she wouldn’t listen.
Yacimovich says 15 Knesset seats isn’t so bad compared to Labor’s position two years ago, or to the time it was part of Netanyahu’s government and the polls predicted it would get 6-8 Knesset seats in the election.
A day after the elections Yacimovich discovered the party had reverted to its old custom. The usual suspects started spinning scenarios on the radio and television of joining Netanyahu’s government.
“That would be suicide,” Yacimovich told her associates. She said there was more chance of Tel Aviv’s coastal waters going up in flames than Labor’s joining Netanyahu and Lieberman.
“Anyone who can speak like that doesn’t know me or the faction or the new party convention, most of whose members oppose such a move,” she said.
“Does anyone think I could vote for cutbacks in billions of shekels to education, health, social services? This government is going to slaughter the middle classes. How could I be partner to that?” she said.
‘Noni Mozes party’ vs. Bibi/Israel Hayom
Afraid of angering anyone, senior Likud figures speak in hushed tones about another party that ran in the election and also contributed to Netanyahu and Likud’s defeat ? the Noni Mozes party.
Mozes heads Israel’s biggest media conglomerate, Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet, whose consistent, one-sided, negative coverage of Netanyahu influenced the public and many voters, claim Likud sources.
In the past few years Mozes, by means of Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet, has been conducting a war against American business magnate Sheldon Adelson and his newspaper Israel Hayom, the prime minister’s mouthpiece. Adelson has been flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of free copies of Israel Hayom, wreaking havoc in the advertising industry and print media.
Reliable sources say Netanyahu is already regretting this escapade. He realizes that Israel Hayom - a newspaper many read but few take seriously - is causing him more damage than good, in view of the free media’s influence on the Israeli public.