WESTERN FRONT:Young Israelis Increasingly Turning Right
Published: Arutz Sheva - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 9:35 AM
Bayit Yehudi is draining Lapid and Shas, not Likud anymore, says the writer.
Daniel Greenfield
Arutz Sheva frequently posts op-ed column by this popular New York City based writer and freelance commentator, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He blogs at sultanknish.blogspot.comThe children of a nation are its future and Israel is one of the few First World countries where the youth trends conservative. This may be in part a demographic issue. The Israeli left is identified with the upper class bohos who don't have many children, while the Israeli working class and traditional religious populations do.
But it's also the consequence of generations coming of age in the shadow of terror.
Current polling shows that the conservative Likud (think Republicans or Tories) has the support of 16 percent of Israelis aged 18-34. Bayit Yehudi/Jewish Home (think third party conservative split) is close behind with 15 percent. And the Labor Party, (think Democrats/Labour) is a distant third with nine percent.
Israel is a young country in more ways than one and these voters make up 37 percent of registered voters. And more interestingly, secular young voter support for Jewish Home has ticked up by 20 percent.
That's not the only good news on the table. Bayit Yehudi isn't draining Likud votes anymore, it's draining votes from Yesh Atid, the fake left-wing party fronted by an idiot anchorman, the son of a famous leftist with delusions of grandeur. And in even better news, it's draining votes from Shas.
The corrupt Shas Mafia enabled the left to pull off the Peace Process, siphoning votes from Middle Eastern Jews in various manipulative ways. Its evil genius, Aryeh Deri was locked up and a law was passed specifically to prevent him from returning to politics, but he's back and cheerfully announcing that he intends to move Shas way to the left calling for a long-term interim agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
"Shas is not right or left," Deri announced, which means it's left. But Deri's genius plan of class warfare and soliciting Arab votes has not exactly taken off.
Shas ads claim that the party is here for "the Have Nots", which is a laughable joke. And Deri went to campaign in an Arab village.
The Galilee village of Abu Sanan became an unlikely host to a campaign, event held by the haredi Shas party one Wednesday night.
Shas leader Aryeh Deri insisted during the event that he "feels at home here," and called for a joint Jewish-Arab fight for equality
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who was in attendance as well, said that "Inshallah, God willing, we will have our victory party right here."
One sure vote comes from Muhammad Taha of the Manda village, who has been faithfully voting for Shas for the past 20 years. "Some 500 votes in the village are already guaranteed," he declared with confidence. "This time I promise a surprise for Shas."
It's a wonder that Yediot actually published this with a straight face considering that votes in many Arab villages are "bought" beforehand, both in party primaries and general elections. These votes have nothing to do with party merit or actual support. Guaranteed votes are actually "guaranteed", signed, sealed and delivered. This was how the Israeli left stayed in power for so long and how it still manages to win far more than its share.
Shas pulling stunts like these is a sign of desperation and the party has something to be desperate about. Ovadya Yosef is 92 and without him, the party will lose much of its influence and split between conservative Sephardic elders and apparatchiks like Deri.
Current polling shows Shas pulling in only 8 seats, suggesting that many of its voters are disregarding its holy app and amulets and looking for real change and security.
But all this would not be sufficient without a dumb stunt by the Israeli Anti-Israel Left and this one is a real doozy.
On December 26, 2012, a new Facebook page was created, called "Real Democracy." The basic idea behind it is that Israelis "give up" their vote in the upcoming elections to any of the millions of Palestinians under Israeli rule who have no right to vote. It's all done on Facebook. The Israeli posts a status saying he/she's willing to do it, the Palestinian tells him/her who to vote for.
Some of them took part in a similar campaign called "Give your vote" in the 2010 elections in England. In that campaign, thousands of Englishmen gave their votes to people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana "who are directly affected by UK policies."
Setting aside the moral and ethical issues with this, not to mention the common sense problem that Palestinian Arab nationalists claim to want a state, not a vote in Israeli elections, that could have been achieved if they had agreed to annexation, here's the practical result.
The sort of people doing this would likely vote for Meretz, a leftist Jewish party that does form coalition with Labor. The Palestinian Arabs are likely to vote for Balad, an Arab/Jewish Communist party that does not enter into coalitions, making this entire exercise a wasted vote that further diminishes the influence of the left.
But this whole election is a case study in the diminishing influence of the Israeli left.
==============
Reposted with writer's permission: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/d greenfield/young-israelis-incr easingly-t urning-right/
Current polling shows that the conservative Likud (think Republicans or Tories) has the support of 16 percent of Israelis aged 18-34. Bayit Yehudi/Jewish Home (think third party conservative split) is close behind with 15 percent. And the Labor Party, (think Democrats/Labour) is a distant third with nine percent.
Israel is a young country in more ways than one and these voters make up 37 percent of registered voters. And more interestingly, secular young voter support for Jewish Home has ticked up by 20 percent.
That's not the only good news on the table. Bayit Yehudi isn't draining Likud votes anymore, it's draining votes from Yesh Atid, the fake left-wing party fronted by an idiot anchorman, the son of a famous leftist with delusions of grandeur. And in even better news, it's draining votes from Shas.
The corrupt Shas Mafia enabled the left to pull off the Peace Process, siphoning votes from Middle Eastern Jews in various manipulative ways. Its evil genius, Aryeh Deri was locked up and a law was passed specifically to prevent him from returning to politics, but he's back and cheerfully announcing that he intends to move Shas way to the left calling for a long-term interim agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
"Shas is not right or left," Deri announced, which means it's left. But Deri's genius plan of class warfare and soliciting Arab votes has not exactly taken off.
Shas ads claim that the party is here for "the Have Nots", which is a laughable joke. And Deri went to campaign in an Arab village.
The Galilee village of Abu Sanan became an unlikely host to a campaign, event held by the haredi Shas party one Wednesday night.
Shas leader Aryeh Deri insisted during the event that he "feels at home here," and called for a joint Jewish-Arab fight for equality
Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who was in attendance as well, said that "Inshallah, God willing, we will have our victory party right here."
One sure vote comes from Muhammad Taha of the Manda village, who has been faithfully voting for Shas for the past 20 years. "Some 500 votes in the village are already guaranteed," he declared with confidence. "This time I promise a surprise for Shas."
It's a wonder that Yediot actually published this with a straight face considering that votes in many Arab villages are "bought" beforehand, both in party primaries and general elections. These votes have nothing to do with party merit or actual support. Guaranteed votes are actually "guaranteed", signed, sealed and delivered. This was how the Israeli left stayed in power for so long and how it still manages to win far more than its share.
Shas pulling stunts like these is a sign of desperation and the party has something to be desperate about. Ovadya Yosef is 92 and without him, the party will lose much of its influence and split between conservative Sephardic elders and apparatchiks like Deri.
Current polling shows Shas pulling in only 8 seats, suggesting that many of its voters are disregarding its holy app and amulets and looking for real change and security.
But all this would not be sufficient without a dumb stunt by the Israeli Anti-Israel Left and this one is a real doozy.
On December 26, 2012, a new Facebook page was created, called "Real Democracy." The basic idea behind it is that Israelis "give up" their vote in the upcoming elections to any of the millions of Palestinians under Israeli rule who have no right to vote. It's all done on Facebook. The Israeli posts a status saying he/she's willing to do it, the Palestinian tells him/her who to vote for.
Some of them took part in a similar campaign called "Give your vote" in the 2010 elections in England. In that campaign, thousands of Englishmen gave their votes to people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana "who are directly affected by UK policies."
Setting aside the moral and ethical issues with this, not to mention the common sense problem that Palestinian Arab nationalists claim to want a state, not a vote in Israeli elections, that could have been achieved if they had agreed to annexation, here's the practical result.
The sort of people doing this would likely vote for Meretz, a leftist Jewish party that does form coalition with Labor. The Palestinian Arabs are likely to vote for Balad, an Arab/Jewish Communist party that does not enter into coalitions, making this entire exercise a wasted vote that further diminishes the influence of the left.
But this whole election is a case study in the diminishing influence of the Israeli left.
==============
Reposted with writer's permission: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/d greenfield/young-israelis-incr easingly-t urning-right/
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