Spinning Israel’s election results beyond recognition

Aryeh Deri (left), leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, seen with head of the Yisrael Beytenu political party Avigdor Liberman at the “Sheva Brachot” of Deri’s daughter. December 23, 2015. (Yaacov Cohen/FLASH90)

In case you really believe one of the following spins, just assume that I don’t know what I’m talking about there and then move on to amuse yourself with all the others that deserve qualifications between ‘How can anyone believe such nonsense?’ and ‘This is just laughable.’

Spin 1: Israel is in great danger and something drastic needs to happen quickly. Rather, we’re all doing fine, thank you. We could do with many more months of a caretaker cabinet. Now we’ve voted, our job is to stay calm and laugh at all the falsely generated anxiety. And say no to war.

Spin 2: Bibi won. Rather, he lost three times in a row. First he lost Lieberman. He deemed a 61-majority too small and went to the polls. His coalition shrank to 59. ‘Great victory.’ But that was ‘still’ not good enough. Elections again left him now with some 56 rightwing seats. ‘Bibi will head the next rightwing government; he has already 56 seats for it.’ That is three less than the last time and five less than the time before.

Spin 3: Gantz won. No, he didn’t. The only ones who really won were the Joint Arab parties and Lieberman. And on the left and on the right, some played some musical chairs. So, there are various new party names but basically, the non-Lieberman Right shrank and so did the Jewish Left.

Spin 4: This leader hates that one/those voters and that leader hates them. This one will not sit with that one and that one not with those. These false sentiments will all disappear as snow for the sun as soon as political opportunities will come into sight. Don’t forget that in the Knesset cafeteria, almost everyone chats with almost everyone. The animosity in front of the cameras is make-belief.

Spin 5: We have a stalemate. No! Stalemate means lack of negotiations. There are so many ways to hammer our a coalition that it’s dazzling. Probably, Gantz is going to try first and succeed. Bibi now says that the whole of the Right is one political block. But saying it doesn’t make it so.

Spin 6: Lieberman is either a liar or incompetent. A political scientist wrote this recently in his TOI blog. He can’t be serious. There is an easy third option. In a democracy, one can’t always get what one wants.

Spin 7: The Bibi era is over. Well, that depends largely on him and on how much he is willing to compromise. But soon, he can become President. Nice job for a political leader at the end of his carrier. Compare Peres. But he could also be PM again. We’ll see.

Spin 8: There is no likely coalition of any group of parties that can form a majority. None of the elected Members of Knesset are glued to their parties’ seats. Reasonable people from any party can sit together in a gigantic unity coalition while all the extremists huddle in the opposition. Across party lines. Don’t forget, most of these parties are young and contrived. And also older ones have irreconcilable sections within them.

Spin 9: Israel has voted for a broad national unity government. No, it has not. The only way to form a coalition is by combining some of the leftwing and rightwing seats. But only seven percent voted Lieberman and that’s what he stood for. Most voters wanted something else.

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BTW: I don’t believe everything the media say about Bibi. That’s why I’m shocked at how racist he spoke even after the elections. Every Arab is an anti-Zionist and every Arab vote encourages terrorism? Even Trump was smart enough to insert a lifeless: ‘Not every Mexican is a rapist.’ A man who always was a proud Zionism morphed into just an Arab-hater?

First, he came out against Iran. He was right. They’re a mortal enemy. Then he opposed Hamas and Hezbollah. Right again. But then he dropped Ethiopian Jews, the PA, the Bedouin, and all Israeli Arabs for no good reason at all. His attempt to make an exception for the Druze, only made him sound more racist. All in all, an unworthy exit for a once great leader.

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The award for the most embarrassing election report goes, hands down, to the Jerusalem Post. It wrote that Blue and White each received 32 seats.

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. 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When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. 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