By Michael Regenstreif
Back in November, just after the Canadian election and just before the American, I wrote that those elections, plus the upcoming one in Israel, make this a fascinating time for those of us interested in politics.
Looking ahead to the Israeli election, I asked a couple of questions: “Will Israelis choose Kadima’s Livni or Likud’s Netanyahu?” and “Given Israel’s proportional representation system, to whom will the next Israeli prime minister be beholden when it comes to putting together a governing coalition?”
Opinion polls leading up to the February 10 vote suggested Benjamin Netanyahu was headed to a substantial victory. But things changed as the campaign drew to a close. Ehud Barak’s collapsing Labor Party bled support to Kadima and the extreme right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu, headed by Avigdor Liberman, drew substantial support away from Netanyahu.
In the end, Livni squeaked ahead with 28 seats to Netanyahu’s 27. But both claimed victory: Livni because she had the most seats of the 30-something parties who ran in the election and the dozen that garnered enough votes for representation in the Knesset, and Netanyahu because the right-wing and religious parties could come together in a majority coalition.
There are a number of possible scenarios for coalition building that will play out in the days and weeks – and possibly months – to come. Some of the likeliest possibilities are detailed in Leslie Susser’s JTA report on Pages 1 and 2.
Of all the scenarios, Israel’s best hope for stability would be a national unity coalition that would bring Kadima, Likud and Labor together – perhaps with the rotating-prime-ministership model that followed the 1984 election. I wouldn’t expect either a Livni or Netanyahu coalition that’s beholden to Liberman’s support to last more than a year or two, if that.
After our fall election, there were calls for proportional representation to be introduced here and, in that same November column, I expressed some reluctance to the idea based on what I’ve observed of Israeli politics over the years where the leading party has always had to look for support from single-issue or narrowly focused parties in the Knesset.
I think these latest Israeli election results will only reinforce that reluctance. The day after the election, I got an email from an Israeli friend, Menachem Vinegrad, who lives in the Upper Galilee, commenting on the results. “No clear winner has emerged,” he wrote, “and the stronger parties must now bargain, barter and bribe in order to put together a ruling coalition. It’s altogether a rotten system.”
In the days after the election I read many editorials and columns in Israeli newspapers – from Ha’aretz to the Jerusalem Post – that pretty much agreed with my friend Menachem’s assessment and spoke of the need for a massive overhaul of a system that just doesn’t work very well.
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The Batsheva Dance Company from Israel performed at the National Arts Centre (NAC) earlier this month.
A few days before the performance, someone forwarded a letter to me that was being circulated by Diana Ralph of Independent Jewish Voices encouraging a letter-writing campaign aimed at NAC management demanding cancellation of the event because Batsheva is “funded by Israel’s government, its performers include none of Arab extraction, and it is ‘proud to be considered Israel’s leading ambassador.’”
Independent Jewish Voices also demands that the NAC commit to boycotting all “Israeli-funded artists and cultural exchanges.”
I think back just a few decades to when the lives and livelihoods of many on the left were destroyed by McCarthy-era blacklists and boycotts. Now, it’s some groups on the left and a labour leader, CUPE Ontario’s Sid Ryan, who are engaged in McCarthyism.
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In the Federation Report on Page 6, Linda Kerzner and Alana Kayfetz mention the daily challenges faced by students on campus who are engaged in Israel advocacy.
Disturbingly, there have been growing numbers of reports of anti-Israel incidents on Canadian campuses that have crossed the line into antisemitism, including several disconcerting reports of antisemitic violence at York University in Toronto and UBC in Vancouver.
While it is important that our universities remain venues for freedom of expression of all points-of-view, it is unacceptable that anyone be subjected to any form of hatred or violence.
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