JERUSALEM, March 31 — The driver of bus number 32 was voting for Likud and its chairman, Benjamin Netanyahu. As the bus waited in traffic outside Netanyahu's apartment building on election day, the normally staid area was unusually busy. On regular days, one guard, always dressed in suit and tie, casually stands out front.
On March 28, however, three guards were standing outside, a car was parked on the sidewalk with huge Likud banners attached to it and another man in a suit and tie, eagerly waving a banner, was shouting to passersby to vote Likud. My bus driver responded to his request with a big smile and thumbs up.
Just a little farther down the road — ironically named Gaza Street — the suited guards at the prime minister's residence, which has been without its primary occupant since Ariel Sharon entered the intensive care unit of Hadassah Hospital in January, were wearing Kadima party t-shirts on top of their suit jackets.
Despite the enthusiasm of my bus driver and the supporter outside Netanyahu's residence, the much calmer prime minister's guards were the ones who went to sleep smiling that evening. Kadima — which means "onward" or "forward" in Hebrew — the party formed when Sharon abandoned the Likud Party, easily won the elections for the 17th Israeli parliament.
All elections matter but last week's Israeli elections were all the more critical because of their timing. They were the first parliamentary elections following the end of the second intifada, last summer's Gaza disengagement — which was successfully implemented without a single shot being fired — and the recent victory of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority's elections. The immediate reaction here to Hamas' victory was the fear of increased violence between the two sides. This, thankfully, has not occurred, but the public's fears could have resulted in the election of a party on the Israeli right. While the debates over the coalition makeup continue, the results demonstrated the public's abandonment of the traditional rightist party, Likud.
After announcing the results of exit polls, the anchors of the three Israeli television networks proceeded to interview the victors. In interview after interview, members of Kadima were asked if they were disappointed with the 28 seats the party won after earlier expectations that they would win dozens more. Yet, as various members pointed out, it is hard to be disappointed when a party that did not exist a year ago and whose founder became gravely ill so soon after its establishment, climbs to victory over the two established parties, effectively destroying one of them in the process.
The talking heads' predictions and prophecies in the days leading up to the election seemed to be standard fare for someone used to hearing political commentary in a democracy. Unlike the United States, however, Israel has a parliamentary democracy and so watching and reading the analysis of how the future coalitions might be formed was interesting and led me to try to dig up everything I had learned in professor Joshua Tucker's introductory comparative politics class in sophomore year at Princeton.
What was particularly surprising was the degree to which leftist Israelis were unable to decide which party they wanted to support. Israelis are generally politically conscious to a degree unimaginable in the United States. Yet, at a dinner two weeks before the election with a relative and friends — including a bookstore owner, a restaurant manager and two travel agents — only the bookstore owner had decided on his vote: for Meretz, a left-wing party founded in 1992.
While one travel agent begged the other not to forfeit her vote regardless of what party she voted for, she admitted that she herself was waiting for anyone — a coworker, a friend or a family member — to sway her in a specific direction. At the movies with three Israeli friends two days before the election, all three had decided on their vote — two for Labor and one for Meretz — but at least one of the Laborites was not fully swayed by the party's platform and was simply voting in order to ensure that the future coalition would balance to the left.
The Hebrew nickname for the stereotypical Israeli is "sabra," named after a cactus fruit that is prickly on the outside and soft and sweet inside. Knowing this reputation, I probably should not have been surprised by the bluntness of the Israeli political ads.
From parties on both sides of the political spectrum came television, radio and bus ads that routinely challenged the status quo in a way unacceptable for even the most vicious American smear campaigns. U.S. campaign ads are meant to convince the opponent's supporters to change their allegiance. The ads here were apparently designed merely to strengthen a party's core rather than bring new devotees to the party and included depressingly negative depictions of Orthodox Jews and Palestinians by the left and right, respectively. The measure to which all attempts at political correctness were abandoned was a shock for someone who grew up in the '80s and '90s in New York City.
As much as the elections were a victory for Kadima, they were also a victory for Labor and its new party chairman, Amir Peretz. Peretz's priority was to bring social issues to the forefront of Israeli political dialogue, which is frequently dominated solely by security concerns. Peretz's party won 20 seats but some of its emphasis on social issues is supported by the socially progressive Meretz party's five seats and, in what commentators called the surprise of the elections, by the six seats won by the Pensioner's party. In other words, in elections that occurred the day before a government led by Hamas was sworn in as the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli public showed a determined preference for parties that emphasize social rather than security issues. Netanyahu ran his failed campaign primarily on defense issues.
The balance between social and security issues was demonstrated in another way: the low voter turnout. Late on election day, a visit to trendy Shenkin Street in Tel Aviv found pedestrian traffic so heavy that one needed to duck into the stores just for a breath. The Israeli public clearly appreciated the midweek vacation day as an opportunity to shop and sit in sidewalk cafes. While activists handed out the last bumper stickers and fliers for the various parties, they seemed to be less successful than the employees of Israel's largest chocolate company, which was handing out free samples.
Two days after the elections, a friend asked a cabbie what he thought about the results. His answer was that he had not voted, refrained from watching the broadcasts of the election results and refused to talk about the election. The 63 percent voter turnout mirrors the 60 percent turnout in the 2004 U.S. presidential elections, but it demonstrates both a degree of skepticism in the power of the ballot and a strong measure of apathy. For a country that will celebrate only its 58th anniversary in May, this is a troubling sign.
Israel does not have absentee ballots for non-diplomats, and in a country the size of New Jersey, election day meant an opportunity for students living in dorms and apartments across the country to travel home to vote where they were registered.
Indeed, on my final bus ride of election day, a student returning to Jerusalem was speaking to his mother on his cell phone. While they talked about the elections for a minute or two, the student ended the call by thanking his mother for the good food they had enjoyed and the leftovers she had packed for him.
Unabashedly listening in, I couldn't help thinking about my experience during the 2004 U.S. election. I lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and spent election day lunch break walking the city to see the goings-on in front of both the Kerry campaign headquarters and the White House. My walk yielded absolutely nothing. There was not a single protester or supporter in front of either building.
That night, I stood with a group of '04ers in a Capitol Hill bar and watched results come in that would determine who would be the future resident of a building I passed each day. Now that I live across the world, with a view of the Knesset building from my balcony (OK, there's a tree in the way) and the prime minister's residence a short walk away, I can at least be certain that there is more to observe when abroad.
Minda Lee Arrow '04 is a master's student in Islamic and Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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