Israeli Elections: Part Two

Final Outcome...

Kadima: 28
(Former party of Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister until he suffered a stroke and slipped into a coma. He defected from the Likud party last fall. Ehud Olmert, acting Prime Minister as a result of Sharon's ill state, is now the legitimate leader of the country. Most people seem to think he's as boring as humanly possible. Kadima was originally polling at 44 seats and although still the winner, 28 knesset seats is pretty pathetic.

Labor: 20
Headed by Amir Peretz, the Labor party represents the main-stream left wing of Israel. Peretz is mostly known for his Stalin-like mustache and most people don't seem to take him too seriously. Of course, he now heads the second biggest party in the knesset, so who knows?

Shas: 13
As I understand it (which by no way means it's true), Shas is a quasi-religious party founded by Sephardic Jews who thought they were being discriminated against by Ashkenazi Jews. No, that does not mean Germans. If you're really confused, just email me.

Israel Our Home: 12
The party of the Russian Immigrant. Originally supporters of the National Union party, then supporters of Likud when Sharon was still a member, then supporters of Kadima when Sharon was still conscious, these former USSRers are new to the scene and their strong showing was quite a shock. No one has any idea what to make of it.

Likud: 11
The disaster party. After Sharon's defection this party had trouble keeping its pants from falling around its ankles and tripping on the stairs at the entrance to the Knesset Prom. Lead by former Prime Minister Bebe Netanyahu, Likud was once one of the most powerful parties in the country. Now, they're sort of the right-wing red-headed step child the whole family enjoys beating to a bloody pulp.

National Union-NRP: 9
National Religious Party. If you like God, a lot, cast your ballot here. Or so I'm told.

Pensioners Party: 7
Never before have the old people held a Knesset seat and here they are with 7 of them. Some say it was a protest vote. If so, it seems that the geriatric crowd was protesting an early death by boredom brought on by lousy candidates from other parties.

United Torah Judaism: 6
Ultra-Orthodox party. To vote here you not only have to like God a lot, you have to be willing to wear an all black suit and black hat every day. In the desert.

Meretz: 4
By far the party with the best posters, this party featured the leaders of other parties and the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys. Classic! Oh yeah, and they're left-wingers...

Arab parties:10
Funny, I couldn't really find any information on this party. Seems they represent some group of dissaffected individuals who aren't thrilled with the current state of affairs in the region. Other than that, your guess is as good as mine...

So, 120 seats filled in a Knesset that now has its work cut out for it. Good night & good luck.

Israeli Elections: Part One

With Israeli elections taking place tomorrow I've been looking for an article, a story, an angle, anything to convey the way I'm perceiving the general atmosphere of the country during this time. I never thought I'd find it in a New York Times Op/Ed, but I did, so here it is.

Stupor in Our Time

By ETGAR KERET

Published: March 27, 2006

Tel Aviv

THE parties my father votes for never get into Parliament. One year he'll vote for some economist with thick glasses who promises a revolution in tax law, the next year for an irate teacher with a ponytail who advocates a revolution in the school system, the year after that for a restaurateur in Jaffa who explains that only a new culinary approach can bring peace to the Middle East.

The one thing these candidates have in common is a genuine desire for fundamental change. That and the naiveté to believe such change is possible. My father, even at the age of 78, is naïve enough to believe this, too. It's one of his finest qualities.

In the last elections, my brother, a founder of the Legalize Marijuana Party, asked my father for his vote. My father found himself in a quandary. On the one hand, it's not every day that your son founds a political party. On the other, my father, who had a taste of the horrors of fascism during World War II, takes all his civic duties very seriously.

"Look," he said to my brother, "It's not that I don't trust you, but there are all these serious people who claim that grass is actually dangerous, and as a person who's never tried it, I can't really be sure they're wrong."

And so, about a week before Election Day, my brother and one of the senior members of the party rolled my father a joint. "What can I tell you, kid?" my father said to me that evening during a slightly hallucinatory phone conversation. "It's not half as good as Chivas — but to make it illegal?" And so my father became the oldest voter for the coolest party in the history of Israel's elections. From the minute he said he would vote for it, I knew it wouldn't get into Parliament.

That's why I'm really surprised that my father, an enthusiastic supporter of underdogs, is going to vote for Kadima, the party of Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The polls say Kadima is a shoo-in. "This is the most boring election campaign in the history of the country," he explained, "and I'm telling you this as a person who's been here since it was founded. I won't even turn on the TV on Election Day — well, maybe for the weather forecast, but that's it. These elections are one big sleeping pill.

"In past elections, there was always a little suspense, something to raise your blood pressure. And it didn't matter whether it was Menachem Begin burning up the town squares with his speeches, or the fuss over Ehud Barak and that brilliant remark of his: 'If I'd been born a Palestinian, I probably would have joined a terrorist group.' This time, there's nothing. Sure, Olmert's smug. But one look at his face and I'm already yawning. Forty years that man has been in politics and he hasn't done a single thing anyone can remember."

"That's not exactly a reason to vote for somebody," I said, trying to argue.

"The hell it isn't," my father replied. "Listen, we've had so many Rabins and Pereses and Begins, people who tried to galvanize everyone with their charisma and energy. None of them ever really managed to bring us peace. I'm telling you, what this region needs is Olmert — someone who'll bore us and the Palestinians so much that we fall into a kind of stupor. A stupor that's a kind of co-existence. A co-existence that's a kind of peace. Forget all that 'peace of the courageous' stuff Barak and Arafat tried to sell us. Even a child knows that courageous people go into battle, they don't make peace. What this region needs is a peace of the tired, and Olmert's the man to put us all to sleep."

On the way home from my parents' house, I began to think that maybe my father was right. And that it wasn't exactly good news. If, after all the hopes and disappointments, all the accords and intifadas, the best a whole country can wish for is a politician so nondescript that the pundits are still arguing over whether he's on the left or the right — if we want a non-event on Election Day — then we really must be exhausted.

Etgar Keret is the author of "The Nimrod Flip-Out." This article was translated by Sondra Silverston from the Hebrew.

Playing Catch-Up...

I am so far behind it's a crime. Truth be told, I have such an abundance of things to write about and pics to post, I'm simply overwhelmed. Gillian and I have been very busy the past few weeks, travelling all over the place and taking an insane amount of photgraphs everywhere we go.

Here is a quick overview of just one trip we took a few weeks back:

We visited an old friend of my parents named Dan Ziv. He is a teacher and former principal of several ORT schools in Israel.

Dan lives in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv. The picture above is not of Holon or Tel Aviv. It is of Ashdod. Dan took us there our first day staying with him. It is south of Tel Aviv and has lovely beaches.

Ashdod was only the first stop on our whirlwind tour of the southern coast of Israel. Our next stop was Ashqelon. On the way we passed this sign...

Ashqelon is very ugly.

Good thing Gillian is very pretty. Life always seems to have a way of balancing itself out, doesn't it?

Gillian looking through a man-constructed cave-ish structure. Ancient dwellings are everywhere in Israel. This place is old.

I guess, when I look back on it, Ashqelon wasn't all that bad...

Dinner took place at Dan's home. We met all three of his children. From left to right (not including Gillian & me): Asaf, Etai & Maya.

The next day started off with a trip to Mini Israel. As one might assume from it's name, Mini Israel is in fact a compilation of replicas of major sites around Israel, only mini. The pic above is of the mini BaHai Gardens in Haifa.

This is Tel Aviv. A mini Tel Aviv. Notice the giant green human Godzilla and his "Zilla-kids". This should inform your perspective.

After wondering around Mini Israel and a great afternoon hike, of which I have no pictures worth showing here, we were treated to a walking tour of Tel Aviv, guided by Dan's daughter Maya. While there were many wonderful things seen during our very long and ultimately painful tour, the most important stop for me was in Rabin Square (above).

Just over ten years ago, on November 4th, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, then Prime Minister of Israel, was assasinated after giving a speech in this square. It has since been named after him.
On November 5th, 1995, myself and 27 members of my family traveled to Israel to celebrate my bar mitzvah. Dan Ziv picked my mother and I up at our hotel the night we landed and brought us to this square to witness the outpouring of emotions during that difficult time. It was a night that will stay with me forever.
To return 10 years later with Dan's daughter as my guide was quite an experience for me. Where once thousands of people stood crying, now is empty, only a few photographs of graffiti memorializing Rabin's death remain to remind an entire nation of one it's saddest moments in history.

After our fantastic visit with Dan and his family, we headed home. But on our way we stopped in Caesearea. An ancient roman theater still stands there and is quite an impressive sight.

This is the Caesearean coast. The site is home to many ruins and was lots of fun to explore.
Gillian and I climbed down to the shoreline and went shell-shopping. Not only did we find some beautiful shells but pieces of ancient pottery embedded in the beach wall almost out-number the shells.

So that's the low-down on only one of our recent excursions. I have so many more pics of this trip and lots of other outings to relay, but it's 4:30am and I'm gonna crash. I'll try and catch up some more as soon as possible. I promise.

David's House of Cards... Seriously...

I title this work, "Pure Boredom, Pure Bliss".

MySpace & other things...

I've only got a few things to post about this evening, the first of which is Gillian. My lovely girlfriend has decided that the blogosphere (I think that's what they call it) was only getting half the story from the holy land and has begun posting to her very own blog. Hosted by MySpace.com, her blog is accompanied by a personal profile, giving you a window into her mind.

Just a word about MySpace.com. If you have yet to browse the mindlessness that is this website network, perhaps you should direct your browser to it's url right now. No, wait, perhaps you should visit the site after you're done with my blog. Regardless, whenever you do check it out, you too will be sucked in and wake up days later wondering what happened to all of the hours you wasted away browsing people's profiles, creating your own profile, finding long lost friend's profiles, posting comments on their profiles and last but not least, posting bulletins to all of your friend's profiles. It really is an amazing site, much like friendster and facebook once were, but it should be noted that practically EVERYONE IS ON MYSPACE. Since joining I have managed to reconnect with a ridiculous amount of people, including my best friend from before nursery school. It's a frighteningly powerful tool...

Anyhow, back to Gillian's blog... you can catch up with her and check out her musings at the following address: http://blog.myspace.com/gilliansocks. Go there now. No, wait, go there after you're done here... but go there.

New info on the wire: We're going down to Holon this weekend to meet an old friend of my family. He used to be the principal of an ORT school here and knew my father quite well. He has promised to take us to "Mini Israel". When I know what the hell that is I will fill you in. Otherwise, we're just going to spend some time there and get out of Karmiel for a weekend.

Speaking of getting out of Karmi'el, wonderful plans are in the works for a great trip to the south of Israel. Another family friend here in Israel is a travel agent and he has been kind enough to go to work on our behalf. Let me tell you, it is good to have a friend with connections to the tourist industry. Especially when you're a tourist. The planned itinerary should be a lot of fun. For the first three days we will be staying at the Dead Sea. I'm not sure what we're gonna do there besides marvel at our inability to drown, but it is a beautiful place and some time in the sun with a good book is a welcome change. After the Dead Sea we're driving down to Eilat, the southern-most city in Israel. There we will stay for 5 nights, soaking up more sun and enjoying the resort city to its fullest. However, the highlight of the trip will be the one day we depart from Eilat and cross the border into Jordan. Once across the border we will meet up with a tour guide who will lead us to the ancient city of Petra. I was there 10 years ago when I came to Israel for my bar mitzvah and I desperately want Gillian to see it. I can honestly say that although it isn't the eight wonder of the world, it should be. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures when I go to explain what I mean.

Other than that, not much has been happening. I'm back to teaching and tutoring and still have no idea how to teach a class. I have no problem commanding a classroom and interacting with students, I'm just not so sure that I'm the most effective way to learn English. Oh well.

Hope things are well with each of you. Drop me an email so that I know you're all well.