This is Act 9 in my Israeli Election 2019 Circus Act diary series.
I realized that perhaps one reason people don’t tune in to the series, is they feel like they must read all prior Acts first… well, you don’t!
Anyway, this diary is fairly pure schandefreunde. Or however you spell this word. Details below the Salmon.
Since 1967, Israel has controlled the lives of the Palestinian people living in East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza, without giving them citizenship; the vast majority have been forced to live as stateless, rightless subjects under military rule. Even now, as Occupation-tolerant advocates often deny and discount this basic reality (or are shamefully ignorant of it), Israel controls the freedom of movement of these territories' residents, in particular their ability to go abroad and return; controls their residency status; their airspace, currency, water supply, fuel supply, most of their electricity, and their ability to import and export products. All the while, deeply exploiting their day labor and natural resources — and further controlling their social and intimate lives via a secret police that extorts an extensive network of collaborators. THIS IS A VERY PARTIAL LIST.This Occupation regime has continued unabated for nearly 52 out of the Israeli parliament’s 70 years of existence, covering the last 14 15 out of Israel's 20 21 general elections. Apart from a couple of elections in the 1980s-90s, no major Israeli party has campaigned on ending it.
As long as this continues, the Israeli elections cannot be considered really democratic. That said, elections sometimes open the door to the Law of Unintended Consequences, in a good way.
Besides, it’s one of the world's most entertaining electoral circuses. So I'm writing this series.
Back in April’s dud elections (a.k.a. “2019 Round I”), early on election day, multiple polling stations in Arab towns reported that observers on behalf of Likud were “caught” with hidden cameras. Very quickly it turned out that over 1000 Likud operatives, organized by the party’s campaign contractor upon Bibi’s order, had either carried or deployed hidden cameras at Arab-citizen polling stations.
The idea, very transparently, was not to remain hidden, but to be discovered and thus send a chill through would-be Arab voters, keeping them at home.
You might recall that in the election prior to that, in 2015, Bibi running narrowly behind in the last polls and receiving reports of insufficient turnout at his strongholds, issued a racist election-day Facebook video tirade (coupled with text messages to pretty much every voter’s phone, so my family there attested) claiming that "The Arabs are being bussed to the polls in droves”, and begging his supporters to drag everyone out to vote. The race-baiting worked. 2015 saw a historically high day-end turnout in Jewish towns — in Israel unlike the US, the late vote skews right — giving Likud a come-from-behind victory by a surprising comfortable margin.
Now in April 2019, Bibi’s camera trick attempted the converse: suppress Arab vote and perhaps even cause one of the two main Arab-led Lists miss the 3.25% threshold. Both still squeaked by, and Arab voters had other reasons for their low turnout besides this intimidation — but surely the cameras too had done some damage. The pretext for all this was of course, that “The Arabs” are known cheaters and “we” must stop them from “stealing” the election.
The RulingThe Election Committee chair, a High Court judge named Meltzer, issued a midday ruling in April to remove any and all cameras. However, Likud was not brought to account for this, not even fined let alone any criminal proceedings.
Fast-forward to Round 2 coming up next Tuesday. In late August Meltzer issued a final ruling that cameras deployed by parties are illegal and should not be used in September’s elections; that eventually some neutral cameras may be acceptable, but only after an orderly legislation process. He did approve that independent national monitors working for the Committee can use cameras even now, but openly and without targeting any particular sector of society.
End of story? Not in our Circus.
The Ploy, Part IIUndeterred, Bibi decided that “an orderly legislation process” means rushing a law within barely 2 weeks, through a formally Lame Duck parliament. A law allowing any party that so desires, to deploy cameras inside any polling station, and then keep the collected data to use (and store) as they see fit.
Besides the public uproar against this ridiculous blitz initiative, judge Meltzer himself, in contrast to his milquetoast response in April, now came out swinging against the law, and in particular the rushed ram-it-down process.
Then Israel’s attorney general, the one supposed to defend the law in the inevitable court challenge, issued a detailed and forceful statement that the law is illegal. Mostly because of the flawed process for such a constitutional-level issue (Israel has no constitution, but there are privileged constitution-like laws).
Then the next in line to defend the law, the parliament’s attorney, also came out with an equally forceful yet different argument against the law: given the very little time remaining, it will give an unfair advantage to Likud and its thousands of ready-to-deploy cameras. Bottom line, he too seemed poised to refuse to defend the law.
Yet Bibi pressed on. On Sunday the “Cameras Law” was the only item on the Cabinet’s agenda. That bunch of bootlickers approved it unanimously.
Bibi’s political gambit was leaked to the media, potentially on purpose: even if the law is defeated in court on the eve of election, the heated parliament debate and the 3 votes to pass it, then the court discussion, will dominate the narrative and fire up the Likud base — instead of, say, Bibi’s pending indictments for multiple corruption scandals, or his failed attempt to set up a government in April, or his ongoing failure to achieve quiet on the Gaza border.
And among Arab voters, even if the law is defeated in court at the last moment, the intimidation factor will have done its job in suppressing turnout.
DENIED!!! Once upon a time Bibi’s right-hand man, Lieberman has now become his political tormentor.One hurdle remained before a full-plenum discussion and votes on the law: a vote in parliamentary committee to allow a rush process. The coalition has 13 seats there, the opposition 11, and one seat is held by the party of Lieberman, a far-right politician who has recently discovered a taste for centrism (or at least for playing kingmaker), and whose effective brinkmanship vs. Bibi has brought us 2019 Round 2.
The vote was held Monday. Earlier, Lieberman publicly said he supports the Cameras Law. But Monday morning he mixed it up, stating that he too opposes the process by which it’s passed, and instructed his party member to vote no. Still one vote short; but a stray coalition member from a centre-leaning Likud spinoff that got re-absorbed into Likud, but himself not a Likud man and not running anymore, has decided to not show up in protest.
The vote went down 12-12, and ties go to the defense, thus derailing the rush process. Technically the law can still try and make a zombie run, passing the night before polls open; but if Likud attempts that, it is likely to be pre-empted by the courts for not allowing time for appeal and causing way too much election-day confusion. Besides, it doesn’t seem they have majority for it anymore.
Not only has Bibi lost control over the narrative a week too early, he’s earned — Boris Johnson style, one might say — yet another humiliating tactical loss in the game he’d thought he’s invincible at: dirty wheeling and dealing in Israeli politics. Ouch.
Even worse for Bibi and Likud: his attempt to slander and harass Arab voters seems to have fired up the Arab base, and has also achieved the near-unimaginable: all opposition leaders, including the centre-right general competing with Bibi for the premiership, have united in their support. General Ganz is no friend of Arab voters and politicians; but Bibi in his over-the-top antics, have brought them closer than ever.
And it has also highlighted the Arab vote’s importance like never before, and — despite Likud’s shrill and predictable painting of all the law’s opponents as “partners of the Arabs” — has made this vote a more legitimate player in Israel’s political scene than ever before.
And so the circus continues…...with little more left up his sleeve, Bibi is now trotting out his best and most trusted pals: the Iranian Nuke and stirring up some military escalation shit at random spots.
As I said 1000 times, it’s a circus. Stay tuned :)