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.