Labour will thus be to the right of Kadima and could become a coalition partner with the Right. But if you add up the seats as polled you get about 52 seats between Kadima, Labour and Meretz. Throw in the Arab parties and they have a majority.
By J.J. Goldberg, The Forward
The Israel Labor Party chose a new leader in a primary runoff on Tuesday. The winner, Shelly Yacimovich, is a former television news anchor whom polls show to have the most realistic chance of leading the battered party back to major-party status after a decade of what has seemed like terminal decline.
Yacimovich (ya-khee-MO-vitch) is a fiery, sometimes abrasive personality best known for her strong economic populism. She’s considered a moderate on the Palestinian issue, especially after an August Haaretz interview in which she infuriated the left by opposing boycotts and demonization of the settlements.
The latest polls show that Labor under her leadership would win 22 seats in the 120-member Knesset right now, up from the 13 seats it received in the last elections in 2009 (five of which bolted with Ehud Barak in January to form the pro-Netanyahu Independence Party). Most of those gains would come at the expense of Kadima, which would drop from its current 28 to 22, bringing it down to parity with Labor.
She is the first woman to lead Labor since Golda Meir in the early 1970s. She is also the first realistic contender for the Israeli prime ministership with a non-Hebraicized Galut family name. That sounds trivial, but it’s actually a serious moment of passage for Israel in its confrontation with the Jewish past, on which there will be more to say down the road.
Pundits say Yacimovich’s strong poll showing is due to a combination of her own media savvy, the timeliness of her economic message, her cautious stance on settlements and the lackluster performance of Kadima chair Tzipi Livni as opposition leader.
A Knesset member since 2006, Yacimovich has been one of the most vocal supporters in the political establishment of the housing and social protests that have filled the streets this summer. The runoff followed an inconclusive five-way race a week earlier, which ironically pitted her against the former party leader who first recruited her to leave journalism and enter politics in 2005, Amir Peretz. She beat Peretz by a convincing 54% to 45%.
Her conciliatory stance toward settlers is a sharply divisive issue on the left. Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy, a thundering moralist for Palestinian rights, wrote after her August interview that she had “revealed her worldview: social democracy without ethics, chauvinism just like that of the right — a distorted, disguised and laundered left.” Avirama Golan, another Haaretz commentator, wrote after her victory speech last night that the candidate was offering “to become the ‘social-oriented’ tchotchke of the Likud.”
On the other hand, Haaretz’s star interviewer Ari Shavit, who leans toward the center, wrote after the first round of primaries earlier in the month that her non-confrontational stance toward the settlers could bring peace sooner than her critics concede:
Shelly Yachimovich should not have said what she said about the settlements. It would have been better had she spoken more assertively on diplomatic issues. But if Yachimovich has a real chance to make real peace, she will do so. Precisely because she does not hate settlers, she will do well at evacuating them.
Moreover, he wrote, her abrasive style and centrist instincts could do something that other Labor candidates can’t promise: get her elected.
It’s true that Yachimovich is not really nice. She knows how to tear her opponents to pieces. She knows how to practice politics, even in polluted waters. She is not a purist, nor is she patient or tolerant. She is opinionated, critical and belligerent. She is a lone wolf, arrogant and ambitious. But Shelly Yachimovich is the woman for this Israeli moment. Yachimovich is the one and only promise of contemporary politics.
Shely is not longer controlling microphones with the help of her associates. It is true that most of the unJewish media in place since Oslo remain there, yet they are not longer leading but desperately reacting and as usual, conspiring.
She has now in her hands the shell of a former failed and split party, filled with many sub groups of harsh competitors.
Bottom line. She still has at best 7 other MK’s with her. That is her throw weight for the next one and half years.
The REAL polls give the former MAPAI now painted as a “social democratic” ensemble, about 15 mandates. As expected, the Livni despised by an ever growing number of people, will fade to a couple more than that. Even if combined… a doubtful probability, they are still unable to do much.
Furthermore. A number of the Livni-Sharon mandate thieves gang are actively trying to return to the Likud.
Shely is going to face true open ground battles.
Shely’s major journalist career was anchoring the morning news,interview show on public radio’s Channal Bet. Private radio was in it’s infancy then, and her program had the highest rating.
During the “joyous” Oslo period, 95% of the press was preoccupied with brainwashing the public, which polls showed were by a significant majority opposed to Rabin and Peres’ gamble. Rather than asking the difficult questions that responsible journalists on both sides should have been asking, all that they fed were festvities and demonizations of the Settlers. The anchors of all 5 of the morning news shows, on both Channal Bet ande the Army radio (close to all of the Hebrew language listeners) were completely in support. All of the others and their editors, just produced propoganda and censored any doubtful voices.
Despite Shely’s own Leftism, she was the sole voice of open, fair journalism.
Despite her own Leftism, Shely, has never been embarassed to declare her own Zionist commitments, even in the most “Progressive” circles.
And Shelly is viewed by her political adversaries as being an honest, worthy opponant. Quite unlike Livni, who is viewed as an opportunistic, opinionless nobody, who inherited her possition by default.
The fabrication of polls is a major tool used by the unJews and their media folk.
Never forget how they piped to the four winds that Peres would beat Netanyahu way back then It did not work then and will not work now.
The following are numbers crunched within the LIKUD experts circles and other parties.
LIKUD 28
Livni’ites 19*
Israel beitenu 18
Labor 15
Shas 11
Islamics 11
NEW NRP Union 7
Torah 6
meretz 5**
* It may drop a point or two
**It may gain one point
Mr. Barak does not seem to pass the threshold.
Threat to the Jews (the Israeli right) from the Israelis (the Israeli left):
The poll showing how Israel would vote was done just before the Labor Party election. It was taken in two ways: if Peretz won or if Yachimovitz won. Yachimovitz was the eventual winner.
The poll is detailed in IMRA
. It indicates that almost all of Yachimovitz’ support comes at the expense of her fellow leftists (Livni and Barak), with little loss to the right.
Accordingly, Netanyahu’s rightist majority coalition remains stable. The Knesset balance is roughly 65-55. The 55 consists of about 45 Jew-hating Israeli “Jewish” leftists and 10 Jew-hating Israeli arabs.
There does not appear to be any major desire on Netanyahu’s coalition partners to call for new elections. It would appear that Netanyahu would win a new election anyways, and given the demographic trends (religious Jews have children, while atheistic leftists do not), the right seems to be on the upswing, and the left diminishing. (As the left gets more desperate in their desire to destroy Jewish Israel from within, they are calling on Obama and the EU to help the muslim savages in their quest.)
Everything in the above article is totally Bull. None of JJ Goldbeg’s characterizations bear any semblance either to the personalities or contexts which he portrays…The polls he cites seem on the mark, if anything they were overly generous to the Likud and Kadima who might have to merge to compete with a rejuvenated Labor party under Shelly. How I grew to hate her as a broadcaster…. 8)
Shelly reminds me of our sage Hillel who said: “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” She even looks manly! 🙂
I admire these qualities but she is too liberal.
I wouldn’t want a candidate that will evacuate the settlers and surrender territory to enemies.
That’s a very reassuring start… Seriously.