Israel’s electorate has spoken — or, at least, 63.2 percent of them, the lowest voter turnout for a Knesset (Parliament) election in Israel’s history, according to the Ha’aretz Web site.
The result apparently will be a government of the center-left, headed by the new Kadima party, which is projected to have won a plurality of 28 seats in the 120-member legislative body.
This also makes history, in that this is the first time that a brand new Israeli party in its first electoral run has received the mandate to form a government.
No matter how pundits and political scientists parse and analyze the results, Milwaukeeans who have moved to Israel have their own thoughts. Interestingly, the handful who responded to The Chronicle’s e-mailed requests for their reactions skewed to Israel’s political right, which sustained significant losses in this election.
Brothers Barry and Kenneth Cohen both said they voted for the National Union/ National Religious Party joint slate. This list won nine seats in the coming 17th Knesset, maintaining the number the parties have in the current Knesset.
Barry Cohen, 47, is a biologist who came to Israel about ten years ago and lives in Rehovot. He only became a naturalized Israeli citizen in 2004, making this his first vote in an Israeli election.
In an e-mail, he said he voted for the National Union-National Religious Party slate because “I feel [this group] is most likely to stay true to the traditional ideology of the right.”
He said he feels disillusioned by Likud, largely because of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “complete negation of the platform he campaigned for prior to the election,” which had opposed the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip that Sharon later carried out.
‘ Too many scandals’
To Cohen, the most important issues were “to stop more unilateral forced evacuations of Jews and destruction of their communities,” and “restoration of our military deterrence.”
Naturally, he has “mixed feelings” about the results, as he hoped for a stronger showing by the right wing parties. However, “I’m pleased that Kadima … will have to make compromises on their platform issues with its potential coalition partners; hopefully one will be that unilateral withdrawals are not a given.”
Kenneth Cohen, M.D., is a family practice physician who made aliyah in 1994. He lives in Efrat, a town in the Judea region of the West Bank.
To him, “This election is mainly about who in Israel wants to make unilateral territorial concessions or not,” he wrote on March 24, before the election. Kadima and the left-wing Labor Party “would like to make further unilateral retreats, for which we would gain nothing economically, militarily or strategically.”
At press time, Kenneth Cohen had not sent to The Chronicle his reaction to the election results.
Miriam Gressel (nee Safer), 67, and a retired physical therapist in Rehovot, is the only one in this group who voted for Kadima. “I felt they had the better candidate for prime minister [Ehud Olmert] and most likely it is the party to best implement removing settlements in the West Bank.”
Gressel said she felt “hopeful” about the results, but “it upset me that the percentage of voters was low. People do not have confidence in the governments any more, so they say, ‘Why vote?’ There are too many scandals among the politicians.”
Hershel Safer also lives in Rehovot. He “manages the bioinformatics core facility” at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has lived in Israel for about eight years. He, too, wrote before the elections that he would vote for the National Union/National Religious Party slate.
“To my taste, the major parties range from unimpressive/crooks (Kadima, Likud) to downright destructive (Labor, especially Amir Peretz, its leader). My vote won’t help elect a prime minister, but I hope that it will strengthen a small party that at least partially represents my interests (religious Zionism).”
His reaction to the results was not available by press time.
Donald C. Schaum, 57, is a self-employed gardener and painter. He has lived in Modi’in for more than two years. He wrote that he voted for the Likud Party and its leader, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Schaum believed that Netanyahu would have been “tough in any negotiations with [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas or with Hamas [the Islamic fundamentalist and terrorist organization that now runs the P.A.], if there are any.”
Likud only won 11 seats, according to projections, down from 27 in the current Knesset. “In my life, I’ve only voted for one winning president [in the United States], so the results [of the Israeli elections] are not necessarily disappointing to me,” Schaum wrote.
“My hope is a government of the people, for the people and by the people. And that’s all the people,” Schaum wrote. “And believe me, with all the different people and concerns that are here, it had better be a government formed with the help of G-d.”
Homemaker Sara Layah Shomron (nee Fruchtman), 45, has lived in Israel 17 years. She had been a resident of the Gush Katif area of the Gaza Strip, but now lives in the Nitzan caravilla site.
She voted for the National Union/National Religious Party slate “because it is the only religious Zionist party that will pass the voter threshold,” she wrote.
Her most important issues in the election were “stopping further land concessions by the Kadima Party, strengthening Jewish settlement throughout the Land of Israel, strengthening Jewish education in both religious and non-religious schools, strengthening Israel’s response to terror, and addressing the Arab demographic threat.”
“I am extremely disappointed” in the election’s results, Shomron wrote. “There is not getting around the fact that the majority of the Israeli electorate wants to give half of Jerusalem and the overwhelming majority of Judea and Samaria to the Arabs.”
“The result of this will be the expulsion of more than 100,000 Jews from their homes and our Land within the next few years,” which will be a “tragedy to be inflicted upon my fellow Jews by a Jewish government,” she wrote.
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