The Revolution has been Postponed Due to Rain: Post-Elections

Spotted in Tel Aviv this morning.

March 18, 2015 

Dark day to wake up to. King Bibi has claimed his throne yet again. The adrenaline of hope & elections has given way to disenchantment and a cathartic release leading to depression. Many young Israeli friends of mine are posting statuses asking if anyone knows of an apartment in Berlin to rent, or if people want to join them in the establishment of a third state for the rational left. They say they feel as though they don't belong here.

I'm in shock and awe that a large enough majority of voters in this place supported Netanyahu after the campaign he ran. He ended with fireworks of declaring that there will be no Palestinian state under his leadership. He posted a video on Facebook that didn't even try to disguise his racism as he pleaded with his voters to vote because "Arabs were being bused in droves" to polling stations. His exhausted and wild expression showed his desperation. And yet. It worked. Results say majority who voted for him were from the West Bank settlements, whereas the communities living near the Gaza border voted for the Zionist Camp. Shows you the isolated, divided and delusional world this country lives in.

It's hard not to ignore my American notions that elections equals democracy and that the people have spoken and now we have to remain quiet as he leads this country down the dark path it's been heading. It's hard to feel like anything has changed.  But that overlooks the fact that this is not a true democracy. 4 million Palestinians living under the military rule of this government do not have a say in the decisions being made. That does not represent the voice of the people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. If we try to look for a silver lining to the day, the Joint Arab List snagged 14 seats and is now the 3rd largest party in Knesset. They could wield a lot of power and cause a great headache for Netanyahu. And at least now he had reveled his cards and the international world cannot shy away from the fact that with Bibi at the realm, the peace negotiations are dead. 

Results of the Election can be found here and here.

Elections

March 16, 2015 

Elections are upon us. Polls open tomorrow at 7am, close at 9pm. Results begin to come in at 10pm tomorrow. The battle is being fought until the end: tonight in a move to court Bayt HaYehudi voters, Netanyahu officially stated that he is against the establishment of a Palestinian State. Herzog and Livni also dropped a political plot twist and announced that while they said that they would rotate the Prime Ministership in 2 years, they will no longer rotate. This is a huge deal; I know from many conversations that many people on the left were hesitant to vote for their united left-center party if Livni was the PM. Meanwhile the Joint-Arab Party has changed the face of politics here; if they manage to convince enough Palestinians to vote instead of boycott the election, they could have upwards of 14 seats in the Knesset. And the Haredi women party is pushing for acknowledgement of women's rights within the religious communities.

If this sounds complicated to you, just know, it's a soap opera here. Dramas play out, lovers are crossed, and someone wakes up from a coma.

But it's so much more than that. This little place garners so much attention worldwide and the decision of a vote impacts so many lives. Especially the lives of Palestinians living in the territories under military law who are not eligible to vote. (The biggest contradiction being the Palestinians who work in the printing shop that prepared the materials for the ballots for tomorrow who are themselves unable to vote.) Gaza has barely been mentioned at all during the campaign cycle, this summer was swept under a rug. Israelis are more concerned with economic redistribution and the expensive cost of living here, yet the mainstream conversation barely touches the grim realities of occupation or the connection between high food prices in grocery stores to the subsidization of settlements. According to +972 mag, 60% of Israelis polled believe that there will be no progress on the peace process regardless of who forms the next government, "because there is no solution to the disputes between the two sides."

Yet, there are some fireball politicians. Notably Stav Shafir, 29 year old and 2nd seat on the Labor party's list. She made a name for herself as part of the social movement protests in the summer of 2011. But I noticed her after she made this incredible speech during an impromptu session of the Knesset. 

She called out the right and their financial corruption, ideological corruption, and perversion of political ideals. She'll be assured a seat tomorrow in the next session of Knesset. And for that, I'm grateful. I'll be voting tomorrow for the first time, let's hope that the results leads to something changing.