March 2006

The Jewish Newspaper, the Forward, picked up on the NYTimes Sudan Story first reported here on BoZ–and even used the picture we posted of the front page of the Sudan section of the NYTimes, though without crediting BoZ.

Just a recap on the chain of events:
1. BoZ reported on the NYTimes insert Monday, March 20, 2006, at 11:10pm
2. Shamir of Jewschool and Esther of Jewlicious both posted the story a short time thereafter. (Others too–Ruby K, and more, helped spread the word).
3. The story ever spread overseas, to such places as the Atlantic Review blog, and the picture was posted on Flikr…though we seem to have misplaced the URL…and picked up by the Save Darfur Coalition (which took down the picture eventually. I assume they found it due to the fact that Aaron Cohen, their founder, reads Jewlicious).

And the rest is history.

It feels good to know that blogs can make a difference.

New Media: 1. Old Media: 0.

There has been an interesting debate going on in my campus over the last few days about this guy Fadi Kiblawi. Mr. Kiblawi is going to be running a session at the GW Law school on the new GW Divest From Israel campaign. Needless to say, many of my friends are very pissed off and we are all going tonight to be there to speak up.

What has only added fuel to the fire is an email from the director of our Hillel to the Hillel listserv. The email was this:

We apologize for clogging your inboxes, but we received the following information that we think will be of interest to the GW Jewish community. Please consider attending.

Thank you,
GW Hillel

On Thursday March 30 from 8PM- 10PM at the GW law school (2000 H Street room 202), 3rd year GW law student Fadi Kiblawi will be speaking about the new GW Divest from Israel campaign. Kiblawi is considered a terrorist by the state of Israel, and has been convicted of crimes in both Israel and the United States. He advocates for the destruction of Israel, and in its place, the creation of a Palestinian state. He has also openly admitted to associating with suicide bombers and has made comments in the past about his desire to become a suicide bomber. Kiblawi also has led chants “Death to the Jews.” I strongly recommend that Jews show up to this event to show Kiblawi that this campus will not tolerate his antics.

Today in our student newspaper, The Hatchet, they had the following story about the entire incident.

Now while the email from our Hillel director might have gone too far, the information in the email is not that far from the truth about this guy. I looked him up and hes a very shady guy, is a big fan of Hamas, has advocated for the destruction of Israel without a doubt. All of the claims listed, are from what I can tell true with the exception of the one about being convicted of crimes here and in Israel, as well as the one about him being considered a terrorist. I am not sure where they came from because I could not find them anywhere yet.

My issue with this whole thing is not the fact that hes being allowed to speak, of course he should be, it is the fact that people are censoring the director of our hillel in what he is saying. This guy Fadi says stuff that is completely off the deep end sometimes and does he get threatened with legal action for it? Of course not. Rob Fishman, our Hillel Director should be able to speak his mind on the listserv to the Jews on campus without fear or repercussions. This whole article and argument is so stupid for people to be concentrating on. How about the paper concentrates on the real issue of this guys anti-semetic rhetoric about divesting from Israel as opposed to the possibly slanderous comments made by our Hillel director. If you guys agree with me, email Kyle Spector, the opinions editor of the Hatchet, and actually a good friend of mine and brother in AEPi with me, at kylespector@gmail.com. Tell him you know me. If you don’t agree, thats ok too!

Food for Thought: Haaretz brings together two interesting articles today, one on the opposition in the Knesset to a unilateral withdrawal, and a second on Labor/Shas coordination.

On opposition to the withdrawal, Nadav Shragai reports:

The parties opposing any unilateral withdrawal straddle the right-left line, and they are as follows, with their Knesset seats: Likud 11; Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu 12; National Union-National Religious Party 9; Shas 13 - party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has not reversed his rejection of unilateral measures; United Torah Judaism 6.

This comes out to 55–and, when Labor is added (it rejects withdrawal without negotiation supposedly), 75. And a 75 seat opposition is…not an opposition, because there won’t be a government to oppose.

So, the more likely coalition seems to be hinted at in this post-election report, which tells us that,

The leaders of Labor and Shas on Thursday afternoon formulated “a social package” they will present to Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as part of their joint demands during coalition negotiations with the Kadima party victorious in Tuesday’s election.

Ok–so there is a social-welfare alliance there worth 40 seats if one adds in the Elders of Zion, ripe for Olmert’s picking, giving him a 68-seat majority to carry out economic restructuring…if you’re into that sort of thing.

So what’s an Acting Prime Minister to do? On one hand he was elected specifically for security reasons, I would argue. On the other hand, he’s pretty much a free-market-guy I gather, something that is an anathema to Peretz and Shas. So–which will win, Weber’s ‘politics of responsibility’ or his ‘politics of ultimate ends’?

Sorry to change the subject, but I almost fell out of my chair when I read this:

IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps] will begin massive naval exercises in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman on Friday by firing a Shahab-2 missile “to show Iran’s desire for peace and friendship with neighbouring countries” IRGC said…

The biggest winners of this Israeli election, of course, are the Elders of Zion. No, not the Elders that everyone outside of Israel is talking about. (No matter how much I read about them in non-Jewish publications I have yet to meet the guys).

I’m talking, of course, about the Elders that matter: those older folk who fought and worked and built the State of Israel with their own hands…or those who came later, but are of the same age of those who fought and worked and built the State of Israel with their own hands. I’ve been of the thought for some time now that the Western world does too little to respect and honor our Elders, so, although I wish Labor or Atid Echad might have gotten more votes to seal the coalition, I am actually quite happy the Elders (or the Pensioners according to the Ha’aretz translation–but I like saying Elders) won 7 seats. They seem to be happy too:

“We’ll achieve our goals within one year,” Pensioners Party Chairman Rafi Eitan said Tuesday after television exit polls gave his party six to eight seats in the next Knesset.

“We’ll sit in a coalition only if it will care for pensioners,” he said.

“Naturally I will back the head of the largest party for putting together the coalition, but I will also join a Likud-Labor coalition,” Eitan said Monday.

“Our political viewpoint is not elaborated on because it is not part of the reason why the party was established. We established the party because of the public’s disappointment in the large parties that have not taken care of pensioners until today,” the sources said.

Much luck to them–it’s not often a party actually thinks it will accomplish its goals. Then again, it’s not as if they have all the time in the world.

And for all of you who have been dying to know who actually made it into the Knesset–because, as we know, it’s the people and not the party that votes, right?–here is a complete list from Jpost.

Ha’aretz reports:

With the vote on 99.5 percent, Kadima had a less than expected 28 seats. Labor held at 20 seats, and Shas rose to 13, making the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party the third largest faction in the Knesset.

Full breakdown according to Ynet:

תוצאות אמת: 28 לקדימה, הליכוד במקום חמישי. העבודה עם 20 מנדטים, ש”ס עם 13 וליברמן עם 12. 9 לאיחוד הלאומי-מפד”ל, מרצ ירדה ל-4. הפתעת הבחירות: הגמלאים עם 7 ח”כים, בתל-אביב כמעט כל תושב עשירי תמך בהם. בירושלים ניצחה יהדות התורה, שדרות הלכה עם פרץ. בחלוקת הגושים: 52 למרכז-שמאל (בלי הגמלאים), 51 לימין-חרדים

And for non-Hebrew speakers/readers:

• Kadima: 28 seats
• Labor: 20
• Shas: 13
• Israel Beiteinu (Avigdor Lieberman): 12
• Likud: 11
• National Union-National Religious: 9
• The Elderly: 7
• United Torah Judaism: 6
• Meretz: 4
• Chadash (commies): 3
• Ra’am: 4
• Balad: 3

As I see it, Olmert is basically boxed in. A center-left/secular coalition is basically impossible: Kadima + Labor +Meretz coalition would only have 52 seats…and the Elderly can’t close that gap. The Arab parties could, but all political parties have tended to avoid having an Arab party as the critical voting members of a coalition that might lead to territorial concessions.

(And no, I don’t think that is racist–forming a coalition with anti-Zionists, whether they be Arab or Jewish, to decide on policies that affect the Zionist dream simply doesn’t make logical sense).

If Olmert really intends on making real change he might have to go with big-poppa Avigdor, who, along with the Elders of Zion, are the big winners in this election…and who knows that Lieberman will demand during the coalition agreement stage.

Or there is always Shas and Agudas. And you know that they’re hungry for…power.

So yeah, this promises to be interesting. As if life in Israel wasn’t interesting enough.

Let the coalition-forming games begin.

The elections are done. Time to settle in and wait for the vote counters to do their job. The exit polls are more than discouraging to the right wing. A Likud with potentially less than 10 mandates? An underperforming Mafdal-Ichud Leumi? That isn’t going to make for a very powerful opposition. I can imagine that there’s going to be a lot of angst over the results from the Dati Leumi community.
So here’s what I’m trying to convince myself, now that the results are coming in: it’s a tough pill to swallow, but I hope it leads to more unity. If the Dati Leumi community, myself included, takes these results and goes nuts, life in this country is not going to get any better for us as a nation. If we, on the other hand, accept this as a defeat and start immediately figuring out how we, as a community, are going to progress with the nation, how we can continue to be influencial, how we are going to deal with the further pullouts that are now sure to come and not have them result in another Amona, than this can greatly strengthen our nation. Clearly going it alone isn’t working for our community, and I think we owe it to ourselves and to Am Yisrael to establish a solid opposition with Likud, but one that includes itself in the nation.
I know, a longshot, but here’s hoping. Meanwhile, I wish much strength to Otniel Schneller and Michael Melchior, who have the difficult job of standing tall within their respective delegations.

A friend who is connected to one of the political parties’ election machine just called and told me that he thinks there is going to be a surprise later tonight when the results come out. He’s been hearing stories all day of Kadima voters who switched to Labor or Likud inside the polling booth.

I venutred a prediction a few weeks ago. Hopefully we’ll know more at 10pm Israel time (the Israeli media agrees not to release exit polling, which they do by setting up almost exact replicas of the polling booth outside the polling station, until that time.)

Here is a summary of results from previous elections; you’ll see that center parties never do that well. Also, if you are interested, here are the surplus vote sharing agreements for the current election.

Seeing as election day in Israel is a national holiday I decided to walk around and take in the election pageantry. It turns out that election ferver is spotty in Jerusalem. Some areas looked like every day normal: when I asked a few restaraunts and bars whether they’d be showing election news on their televisions they looked confused and said they’d be showing the football game; one restaraunt that was planning on showing elections changed its mind, probably because management realized that everyone would be at the places showing HaPoel Jerusalem.

Other areas became free-for-alls, with gangs of youths running around slapping stickers on anything inanimate and police shooing them out of streets and off traffic signal polls as they tried to tie a Kadima or a National Union poster on an impossibly high streetlight.

The polls themsleves were calm. To vote you go behind a shoulder length screen and choose from a smorgasboard of party slips. You then put it in an envelope and step out into the view of the poll monitors and slip it into a box. Very third grade, but somehow more satisfying then pulling a lever.

This was my first Israeli election, and it was a great feeling to be participating in the Jewish State’s democracy. I felt bad for all the American Yeshiva students that flooded the coffee shops up and down Emek and Azza. If you are reading this Amerrican Yeshiva students, join on up! Put your ballot in an envelope and then go to Tal Bagels.

Overall, I found the whole thing to befar more sedate than I expected. Haaretz is reporting the lowest voter turnout ever, which is probably the reason.

I’m sure there isn o shortage of blogging coming out of Jerusalem today, but I’ll nonetheless try to drop another post about reactions to the early resulsts. In the meantime, check out Jewlicious’ on the scene explanation for the low turnout

Adding to the often backwards and sometimes Alice in Wonderland-like nature of this country, early reports say this will be the lowest voter turnout ever in Israeli history. Considering that this will in all likelihood be the government to decide the future borders of Israel, and that Israel has traditionally been a country that has prided itself on its high voter turn out, it seems a odd to me, but maybe there is a reason…

The reason will leave you laughing, at least.

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