Israeli election update #20 - Like this post if you’re reading this so I have an updated view of how many people are reading these updates. Thanks. - Jewish Home held their primary yesterday, with 57% of eligible voters participating. That’s almost exactly the same percentage as the Labor primary from the day before, although Jewish Home has significantly more members, so the actual number of voters is about 20,000 more than in the Labor primary. Naftali Bennett was re-elected as party leader with over 90% of the vote. Ayelet Shaked won the most votes in the primary itself, so will receive slot #3 in the slate (#2 is reserved for Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who is the head of the Tekuma faction). The rest of the top ten include Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Eli Ban-Dahan, Knesset Finance Committee Chair Nissan Slomiansky, Pensioners Affairs Minister Uri Urbach, Yinon Magal (appointed by Bennett), Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli, Bezalel Smotrich (Tekuma) and Motti Yogev. Dani Dayan is in spot 21, which would according to current polls put him far away from becoming an MK. One person who got a lot of press but didn’t make it onto the list is Anett Haskia, the Muslim Arab activist whose children have served in the IDF. - The structure of the Jewish Home slate is very interesting, as it’s kind of a combination of the primary and party-head-chosen slate. For each ten seats on the slate, the party head (Bennett) gets to choose two seats himself. There are also two seats reserved for women in each ten seats. Some seats are, as mentioned, reserved for the Tekuma faction, which has its own method of choosing who gets each seat. - One last Jewish Home mention - they released a campaign jingle today called Together Brothers, recorded by two religious former contestants on The Voice (The Israeli version): youtu.be/zLaB5bWtCS8 “Jewish Home, the door is open” - Moshe Kahlon has announced the top 11 spots on the Kulanu slate. The first seven have already been announced: Kahlon, Maj. General Yoav Galant, Tsega Melaku (which might not be able to run), former US Ambassador Michael Oren, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Rachel Azaria, Eli Alalouf, and Dr. Yifat Sassa-Biton. The next four, newly announced, are Eli Cohen (VP Israel Land Development Company), Roy Volkman (founder of NGO New Spirit), Meirav Ben-Ari (Tel Aviv city councilwoman), and Shai Babad (former ZIM CEO). Kahn said The upcoming election is not between left and right. It is between leaders who care and leaders who dont care. - Yisrael Beytenu, headed by Avigdor Liberman, has released two new campaign slogans – “Ariel for Israel, Um al Fahm for Palestine” and “Bottom Line (Tachlis) Liberman”. Lieberman has said the party will reveal its list on Monday. - Shas has launched their own newspaper for the election period called Yom L’Yom (Day to Day). - Shas head Aryeh Deri was on a panel yesterday with UTJ MKs Yaakov Litzman and Moshe Gafni. during the panel the UTJ MKs showed support for Deri and criticism of Eli Yishai for not following the Shas Council of Torah Sages. They also made it clear that they don’t care who is Prime Minister, that they would join any coalition (even with ‘evil’ Bennett) as long as their needs are addressed. It’s interesting that Naftali Bennett, the Orthodox leader of Jewish Home received the most criticism, but then again he made it possible for the first time in a very long time to form a government coalition without any Haredi parties, so maybe it’s not surprising. - As if to drive home the point, Shas Council of Torah Sage head Rabbi Shalom Cohen, referring the Jewish Home at a different event, said There are those who call themselves Jews, but it is only a home without Jews. They are looking after the Land of Israel? - Supposedly supermarket king Rami Levi tried to arrange a meeting between Bibi Netanyahu and Moshe Kahlon at his home, but it didn’t happen. - Rumor has it that Rabbi Dov Lior, the former Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, is planning to launch his own party.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 20:07:32 +0000