The Election Blues

I hate election season. I did my best to ignore all politics and election propaganda for as long as possible. Which is difficult when you’re receiving a constant stream of spam from parties who think that if they send you 20 messages a day, you will want to vote for them. I thought about voting for whatever party DIDN’T spam me, but that really only left the chareidi parties whose constituents mostly don’t have texting capabilities on their kosher phones. Even I’m not willing to go THAT far for my principles.

I took the whole “ignoring the elections” thing so far, that I went to work that day like normal. Actually my entire lab showed up (besides the boss), cuz we’re nerds. Granted, being the only lab working means you get to use ALL of the departmental equipment without having to wait or sign up.

I have an intense distrust of all politicians (based on life experience) and don’t usually vote for a party based on their platform (which they’re not going to carry out anyway). I vote for the person I think most likely to leave the country in one piece at the end of their term. Which is why I didn’t vote in the last American election. I kind of figured that both candidates were just as likely to leave a burning wreck behind them as they sailed off to Tahiti in their private yacht 4-8 years later so I wrote the country off as a loss and jumped ship.

Honestly, it’s absurd that this country can’t go an entire term without the coalition collapsing. What is wrong with us that we can’t make it an entire 4 years between elections without some catastrophe resulting in the entire knesset falling apart? It’s even more irritating when you realize how much elections cost. Someone has to get paid for sending out all that spam. And guess who ends up paying for it. If you think about it, we’re being forced to pay for our own spam.

I had a very difficult time deciding who to vote for. In fact, I didn’t decide until the morning of election day.

I obviously wasn’t going to vote for the Chareidi parties. And frankly, I don’t know what self respecting “religious” Jew would vote for a convicted criminal heading a political party (Shas).

I obviously wasn’t going to vote for the Arab parties either. Although, neither was anyone else seeing as young Israeli-Arabs had called for a boycott of the elections in response to the Nation-State Law, clearly not understanding how democracy works. Not voting on principal, especially for the only parties working to strike down the law, is cutting off their nose to spite their face.

I wasn’t going to vote for the left wing parties. Though I agree with Meretz on many social issues, I don’t agree with them on issues of security and am disgusted by their apologist attitude and self-recrimination as Jews in a Jewish state. The labor party encourages a welfare state. Although the country was built on socialist values (and probably couldn’t have succeeded any other way), we have thankfully progressed to a point where the same socialist values that built the country would only be detrimental to further advancement.

The New Right (Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked’s break off party) seemed to tout changing the justice system as one of their main agendas after Ayelet Shaked’s tenure as the Justice Minister. Which makes me wonder what Naftali Bennett was doing all that time as the education minister, since I didn’t hear a word about changes in that arena, and the education here certainly isn’t getting any better.

Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party was an interesting party. Half of his platform I agree with strongly (reducing government intervention, increasing competition, and restricting the Rabbinate to a licensing) but the other half is completely insane (building a synagogue on the Temple Mount after removing it from Wakf control???). Apparently many of his voters were younger people who are in favor of legalizing marijuana, which was a huge part of his campaign. Aside from the apocalyptic visions he induces in me, my personal principle is not to vote for the guy all the potheads are voting for. Although it may help to explain why his party didn’t make it in to the Knesset even though many polls predicted him passing the minimum percentage of votes. It’s entirely possible that his all potential constituents just forgot it was election day and spent it playing video games instead.

I wasn’t going to vote for Kahlon’s Kulanu party, since they have proven themselves to be effective in their last term in the Knesset only as human seat warmers. Their election posters stated that they were “the only party to choose YOU.” I don’t know what they chose me for, but I certainly didn’t volunteer for anything.

The United Right shot themselves in the foot when they decided to join together with Otzma Yehudit, the self admitted Kahanist party whose leader was banned from running for Knesset on the grounds of “incitement of racism.” I don’t vote for racists or extremists. It’s a thing I have.

That leaves the largest parties- the Likud and Blue and White. And frankly, after watching the frequent cat fights between them, I wasn’t particularly impressed by either. If your platform consists of bashing the other guy, you haven’t actually given anyone a good reason TO vote for YOU.

I’m quite tired of being embarrassed by Netanyahu and the scandals that seem to follow in the wake of his family and everyone unfortunate enough to be around them. And his capricious politics and fickle decisions make it difficult to know what he actually stands for. I’m not sure he even knows at this point.

On the other hand, I hold Gantz responsible for the disaster that was Operation Protective Edge, in which 67 Israeli soldiers were killed, and another 469 were injured. Incidentally, Moshe Ya’alon, the Minister of Defense at the time, is number 3 on the party’s list. While much of the party’s platform seems worthy enough, I would absolutely not want to see Benny Gantz as the Prime Minister.

And so you understand the reluctance with which I walked into the voting station and cast my ballot. I’m still not sure I voted for the best party, but frankly, it probably doesn’t matter that much since the Israeli government is set up in such a way that it is almost impossible to change anything, especially when the ministers have no idea what they’re doing, and the MKs are just as likely to vote against a law proposed because the person who proposed it insulted their mother the day before as they are because their party is voting that way to blackmail another party into giving them what they want. So at least I have peace of mind that no one’s vote really counts for anything and it’s all a farce anyway (a very expensive one).

So here’s to hoping that the next however many years until the next election go smoothly and don’t cost the taxpayer TOO much money.

The Israeli Postal Disservice

I have been ordering things online for many years now, and a good 95% has made it to me intact and on time. But either I offended the postal gods, or the post office is currently being operated by 5 year olds, because I have had a spate of mail related “incidents” recently.

I ordered two books from the Book Depository in October. 50% of them made it successfully all the way from the British post office to the Israeli post office 3 weeks later. By 3 months later, I had given up that poor second book for dead and wrote a message to the Book Depository’s customer service in which I stated that although two books had allegedly been shipped on October 23, only one had made it. It’s already a bit strange that they would package and ship two books separately on the same day (why not just stick two books in one box?), but I have given up on asking these questions because rarely do I get a satisfactory answer. The nice lady who replied to me within 24 hours (less than 24 hours later, can you imagine???) alleged that there had been issues lately with the Israeli postal system due to structural reorganizations of the system. Not being Israeli, she didn’t understand that “reorganizations” means that someone’s cousin Moishe has been hired to head the post office branch, but don’t worry, he’s totally qualified, he used to be a tank driver in the army, so he can totally handle sorting a few packages. She said it was possible that it might still come. I replied that it seemed quite unlikely if it hadn’t arrived after 3 months, but that in the unlikely event that I did receive the book after they had refunded me my money or resent the book, I would just send it back. She acquiesced to my not unreasonable demands, and two weeks later I went to pick up the book.

You’ll never guess what showed up at the post office two weeks later. Now keep in mind, this was already 4 months later. The book had clearly been though some traumatic events, judging by the package (or what was left of it). After letting it rest a bit for a few days to regain its bearings, I dutifully gave it to my parents to ship back (who generously footed the shipping bill since the Book Depository was unwilling to lose more money over the Israeli postal service’s incompetence).

A few weeks after my original book order, I had ordered a sweater from AliExpress. After 2 months, the seller inquired whether I had received it or not. I was able to confirm that it had made it to Israel via its international tracking number, but was unable to learn its subsequent fate (which is apparently impossible to do without an Israeli tracking number). I let them know that I had not received the package despite the fact that it had arrived in the country a month before. The seller told me he’d try to track it down and update me on his progress. Which he did the next day. Apparently my package got “destroyed” in transit. How you can possibly “destroy” a sweater in a package is beyond me. You can literally drop it repeatedly on the floor and nothing will happen. IT’S A SWEATER. So unless it got attacked by a pack of wild animals (possibly the same ones that got to my book?), I am quite flummoxed. At this point it seems likely that the main postal sorting center does in fact keeps a pack of German shepherds on the premises to ravage all packages sent to Natania Casden.

At some point after reordering the sweater (and an additional sweater for back up), I noticed a bunch of papers on the floor next to our mail box. A few days later, I was annoyed enough about the litter on the floor to pick them up. Lo and behold, it was two second notices from the post office about two packages I had not picked up yet and that were still waiting for me. This was confusing since if these were the second notices, where were the first notices? I found them. In my neighbors’ mailbox. They had been sitting there for about a week and I had been wondering why the neighbors weren’t collecting their mail. It’s because it WASN’T their mail. The reason it didn’t reach the correct mailbox is because the post office had neglected to jot down the small detail of the apartment number when they wrote my address on the notices. So the mailman stuck them in 'a' mailbox, any mailbox, hoping it would eventually get to the correct person. The post office then sent out second notices, and again did not write an actual address. Considering the main job of the post office is to make sure people get their mail, they don’t seem to be taking this job very seriously. I guess Moishe’s getting paid whether or not Natania Casden gets her packages.

The real kicker is the phone call I got last week from a number I didn’t recognize. The voice on the other end sounded like a teenage boy.

"Hi, this is your neighbor. I have your package.”

"…...What?”

"Yeah, the mailman delivered your package to me by mistake. I opened it. It’s underwear.”

"……….. Why did you open my package?!”

“I dunno. I got a package so I opened it.” At this point I could hear some kid in the background yelling, “it’s underwear! It’s underwear!”

"Where do you live?” Said I, slightly apoplectic but trying to controlling my rising anger.

"At number 7.”

“What?! How did the mailman get confused between number 22 and number 7?!”

"Wait, is this a man or a woman?”

"It’s a woman! Would you please just return my package to me?! Just stick it in the mailbox for apartment 6.”

"Ok.”

Honestly, it’s probably unnecessary to state at this point that I did not get my package back. I did try calling back a few days later but the guy insisted that he had put the package in front of my door that same night, said “I have to go,” and hung up. I don’t know what this kid is doing with women’s underwear, but at this point I don’t think I want them back.

To summarize, this circus of a postal service is doing a pretty atrocious job at getting people (or at least me) their packages. Which is quite problematic, as soon many online international suppliers are going to get tired of refunding people’s money and resending packages to Israel and are just going to refuse to sell things to Israelis. This will then be seen as a political statement both by Israelis and internationally, potentially sparking a commercial war where countries will refuse to engage in trade with each other, leading to a financial crisis, and a downsizing of the Israeli postal service, and who knows what’s going to happen to Moishe then?! Actually he’ll probably be the last one standing at the post office after all the other workers have been fired, and then there’s absolutely NO chance whatsoever that anyone’s going to get their mail.

So the message for the day is to stop ordering things online in order to prevent WWIII.