Fear indicator

Israelis choose weak coalition with harsh rhetoric

Tomorrow, February 10, for the eighteenth time in the 60-year history of Israel, parliamentary elections will be held in the country. According to polls, the gap between the leading parties is so small that politicians will not be able to create a strong ruling coalition following the election results. The Israeli parliament is elected for four years, but due to the instability of coalitions, Knesset members rarely manage to complete this term. “The day when members of the new cabinet of ministers come to President Shimon Peres to take a commemorative photo will be the first day of the next election campaign,” local journalists sneer.

Since Friday, February 6, the country has banned the publication of new results of pre-election polls. According to the latest of them, two forces are vying for the role of the party in power: the right-wing Likud, led by 59-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu, and the centrist Kadima, headed by 50-year-old Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The gap between these parties is a maximum of three seats in the 120-seat Knesset. But some analysts have already awarded victory in the race not to Kadima or even Likud, but to the Our Home is Israel (NDI) party, founded in 1999 by 50-year-old Avigdor Lieberman, a native of Moldova. Her rating has now grown so much that she can compete for second place and enter the future government.

Lieberman built his campaign on harsh rhetoric towards Arabs, including those who are Israeli citizens, proposing to deprive them of citizenship. Just over 7.4 million people live in Israel, of which 1.495 million are Arabs. There are even 12 members of Arab origin in the Knesset. “Without loyalty there is no citizenship,” is the party slogan. In election videos, “Israel is Our Home” cites public statements by Arab deputies on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I am ready to become a martyr,” said, for example, former Knesset member Abdel-Malek Dahamshe, a Palestinian by origin.

“Only Lieberman understands Arabic” is another party slogan. This does not mean that its leader has learned Arabic, but rather tells the Israelis that only he can resist the "destructive influence" of the Arab population on the Jewish state. On the eve of the elections, the politician spoke out sharply against the Arab parties BALAD and the joint list of RAAM-TAAL. But they will participate in the elections, despite Lieberman’s attempts to prohibit them from doing so through the courts.

Israeli political scientist, professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Alon Peled, in an interview with Vremya Novostey, named the reasons for the popularity of Our Home - Israel: “The right-wingers, disillusioned with the Likud, which to some increasingly resemble the party of the center, vote for this party. January The military operation in the Gaza Strip showed that society is more inclined to support the right, that is, the “security forces” who declare an uncompromising fight against terror.” According to Haaretz, "Lieberman's popularity is an indicator of the state of panic in which our society finds itself."

But there are parties in Israel that criticize the loud political slogans of a native of the former USSR. “Today Lieberman will create discord between Jews and Arabs, and tomorrow we will have to reconcile the population of Israel. His slogans have nothing to do with reality,” said Ofer Pines, a member of the left-wing Labor party. True, according to polls, this party is unlikely to win more than 14 seats in the Knesset.

But about 30% of voters have still not decided on their preferences, and party functionaries continue active campaigning. Over the weekend, the authors of this article received several calls from members of the Likud party, campaigning for themselves. They say that the leader of another party, Labor, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, even calls voters himself. But he hasn’t called the VN authors yet.

Maria GRISHINA, Dmitry DUBOV, Jerusalem