Auch wenn die Wahl in Israel schon vorbei ist, möchte ich auf dieses sehr …interessante Video hinweisen, das zumindest laut Lisa Goldman, wo ich es her habe, authentisch ist. Man mag es nicht recht glauben, aber bitte, seht selbst.

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Just a small correction (from a political scientist). You wrote “That means that the head of the party which wins the plurality of seats gets to be prime minister.”

There actually is no assumption that the head of the party with the plurality will become PM. Or even be given a chance. The president (despite being basically ceremonial otherwise) “invites” the leader who, in the president’s estimation (after consultations with all parties), is most likely to be able to form a majority-supported government.

Naturally, this invitation almost always goes to the head of the largest party. But it does not have to–and this leader might fail even if invited.

This may actually come to play this time. Livni could be the head of the largest party, but be unable to form a government (although I think she could, in the form of a ‘unity’ government with all four of the largest parties).

As for Lieberman – although I do not support him personally, I find your comments about him typical of your recent attitude – nothing to offer but hauteur and rudeness. I’m not sure what you hope to achieve by this. You are relegating yourself towards a choir-preacher position. You constantly espouse the virtues and necessity of dialog with others, yet you seem to have forgotten “others” might include Israelis with a more right-wing view of the conflict than yours; to them all you have to offer, it seems, is a general smug disdain.

@Daniel: “hauteur and rudeness” are, I think, rather more characteristic of your choice of expression. If you want to pick a fight, please go somewhere else. If you have a counter-argument based on concrete examples to offer, welcome. Lisa

But the Marijuana-Holocaust Survivors party takes the cake. I don’t think the best political satirists could have come up with that one. “It’s our moral obligation as Holocaust survivors to legalize marijuana.” Lordy lord.

I keep being amused, every single time, of how similar Israeli and Italian politics are.

Fragmented politics, govts falling at an almost yearly base, unclear relationship between Church and State, people yelling at each other like kids in the Parliament… neat.

anyway, we must credit Israelis for one thing: in Italy no major party would ever chose a woman as main candidate.

@Suzanne: This post is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of all the political parties; it’s just a sampling of campaign clips that I thought were interesting. But now that you mention HaIhud HaLeumi, I think it does deserve a mention. I’ll call the post: “Flirting with Fascism in Israel.” Thank you for providing the inspiration. Lisa