Blogs and Stories
Yes, Israel Can!
)
Leon Neal, AFP / Getty Images
How do you win Tuesday’s Israeli elections? Steal Barack Obama’s slogans. Pilfer his talking points. And assure voters you just can’t wait to work with him.
If it seems that the campaigns for next Tuesday’s election in Israel are turning out to be something of an echo of America's recent presidential elections, it's because they are. Candidates from both the right and the left have begun to fashion themselves and their campaign messages after Barack Obama.
“There is absolutely no embarrassment on the part of Israeli politicians to model themselves after Barack Obama,” says one political consultant.
While most parties haven’t been as blatant in their cribbing of Obama’s message of hope and change as the right-wing Shah Party, which has as its motto “Yes We Can,” overtones ring across Israel. Web banners and fliers for the centrist Kadima Party candidate, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, proclaim “You have a chance to make history.” Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu has broken a long-held party tradition of hiring Republican advisers and instead signed up two former Obama campaign strategists.
“There is absolutely no embarrassment on the part of Israeli politicians to model themselves after Barack Obama,” says Mitchell Barak, a prominent Israeli political consultant and pollster who has worked as a close adviser to Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, as well as for a number of Labor and Kadima leaders. “Whether it's talk about change or to talk about hope, everyone wants to be like Barack Obama, and everyone wants to say that they can work with Barack Obama.”
Obama’s influence on Israel’s election runs deeper than mere visual symmetries. Far more than just a source of borrowed slogans and talking points, Obama has become a political weapon. The Kadima and the left-of-center Labor parties have campaigned on the notion that “Bibi” Netanyahu simply won't be able to get along with Obama. In the Israeli media, the portmanteau “Obibi” is used to describe Netanyahu's rise to front-runner against the backdrop of a liberal American president who might be less than sympathetic to his positions.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Likely Obama Appointee Had Ties to Bin Laden Family
Ashley Rindsberg is an independent writer and researcher who focuses on media and politics.
By "Shah" I assume the author means Shas, which is more accurately described as a religious party representing Jews of Middle Eastern origin. Shas' policies may be described as right-wing in so far as their security policy goes, but their social policies are essentially liberal.
Also, it's worth noting that settlement construction froze under Netanyahu and swaths of territory in the West Bank were turned over to PA rule, including half of Hebron. Under Barak, the purportedly liberal candidate, settlements expanded at a rate of 300% annually.
There's a saying in Israel that only a dove can make war and only a hawk can make peace. For all his tough rhetoric, it's my hope that Netanyahu will again show himself to be more of a realist than an ideologue.
Gaza conflict is ongoing, Ash. Armed drones continue to fly over Gaza and air strikes are hammering tunnels and Hamas buildings , too, in spite of the simulataneous unilateral ceasefires. No one will be surprised when the violence ratchets up again...and Lieberman (a fascistic socialist who is anti-Arab and voicing the concerns of many) is on the rise and may split the rightwing vote. I am gonna look to more informed blogs in future!
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.