Israel Votes For ??????

I spent voting day with my professor Hagit's family in the town of Arad in the Negev Desert, on the road between Be'er Sheva and the Dead Sea. Voting day, as it turned out, was stormy in more ways than one. The first and long anticipated storm of the season descended on the Negev on voting day morning. As rains broke across Israel, the winds built in Arad, sending dust swirling into every corner of every house and rattling the pretty nectarine tree in Hagit's garden against her roof of her husband's photography studio. We watched the winds send clouds of swirling dust whirling through the wadi behind the house as we drove around the block to the local poll, established like many in a local kindergarten.

Ben-Gurion University was closed for the day, and most of the students had gone home to vote in the towns that they had grown up in -- Israeli being small enough that this is typically preferable to re-registering in a new locale, and absentee votes I believe can only be cast from overseas, by soldiers, or by those in the navy. The scene at the local poll was cordial and orderly. A few campaigners had set up around the corner from the kindergarten, barred from erecting their last ditch efforts to close to the voting station. Interestingly, most of the visible campaigning has come from the minor parties. Occasionally, a giant Livni face will appear on a poster hanging above a road. But generally, Likud, Labor (Avoda), and Kadima posters and campaigners have been relatively rare or at least very subdued. The most vocal and visible campaigning has come from parties that barely made it into the Knesset or failed to do so at all - the new Green Coalition for instance (which came just short of sending a member to parliament) and groups on the right like United Torah Judaism.

Inside the polling place, families line up quietly and look over a poster containing the tickets of the various parties -- squares with a letter or two or three symbolizing the party, with its name written out in smaller letters below. One party name had been crossed out in black marker, apparently barred from competing at the last minute. I watched Hagit and her husband and eldest son walk to the registration table, where volunteers checked their names off a list. They each picked up an envelop of party tickets and walked one by one behind a polling booth, sorted through the party tickets shielded from view, picked one, and dropped it in the box in front of the registration table. It's an interesting system, requiring hand counting and accomplished with strict rules and no ambiguity.

Hagit and her husband had voted for the Labor party, which was expecting a particularly poor turnout, due in part to a general shift to the right in Israeli politics and in part to more left-wing voters consolidating behind Kadima to elect Tzipi PM over Netanyahu. Hagit's son claimed to have voted for the Green Leaf (pro-marijuana) party, which had interestingly joined forces with the Holocaust Survivors to try to garner votes. While many of the young or politically seem to say that they're voting Green Leaf, it's questionable how many actually do, as the party has still failed to put a representative in the Knesset.

We returned to Hagit's house in time for the storm to hit and spent the afternoon huddled inside working as the rains raged around us, gushing through the wadi behind the house and darkening the desert skies. By five o'clock, the rains had knocked out the power, and we spent the evening eating and talking by candlelight. Flood warnings had shut down many of the streets, so I spent the night in Hagit's comfortable little family home, getting Hebrew lessons from her sons, political lessons from her, and photography lessons from her husband. The first poll-based election results were due to come in at 10pm and initial counts just after midnight. We sat in the dark as the first results hit the tv's, unable to check the news and not wanting to call others to ask. It was a rather beautiful moment, the political fate of the country still undecided. We expected the worst (which for us meant a rightward political shift), but for the moment, anything was still possible and we quietly hoped (though did not expect) that we might yet still wake to world that would surprise us.

And the morning results -- decidedly undecided. Kadima (Livni's party) had won 28 seats over Likud's (Netanyahu's party's) 27. Kadima's shaky victory had surprised many, though what it means is yet to be decided. First, while 99% of the votes have been counting, the 1 remaining % will come from soldiers and electing the remaining 4 or so Knesset seats. While the majority of these soldiers are between the ages of 18 and 22, they're still soldiers afterall and tend to vote to the right of center. So whether Kadima will maintain its lead in the final count is questionable. Secondly, voting day had brought out a decided rightward shift in Israeli politics. Most of the left-wing parties have come out with disappointing losses. Meretz, a smaller though very popular leftwing party, had lost about half its previous seats and its party head, claiming responsibility for the poor showing, had turned in its resignation. Hadash, the joint Arab-Jewish party, came out with 4 seats, and labor fell to a rather tragic fourth place, with 13 seats compared to Yisrael Beitenu's 15 (Lieberman's far-right nationalistic party).

The results have left both Livni and Bibi scrambling to put together coalitions with the 60 plus ministers that will give them the necessary majority in the Knesset. Whoever manages to form a coalition and gain the approval of the majority of the elected ministers will receive the nod from President Peres to act as Prime Minister. So while Israelis have elected their ministers, the meaning of the government that they have put into power as well as its principle leadership is still far from clear. Both Livni and Bibi are courting Lieberman's party (Lieberman claims to have made up his mind but isn't telling), and Labor has committed firmly to being part of the opposition, where it can try to regain some of its previous strength. Likud has turned down a rotating PM option - a power-sharing deal between Bibi and Livni, which has occured in the past -- saying that the electorate has given a clear mandate for the right to lead the government. With both Bibi and Livni claiming victory and ultra-nationalist parties like Lieberman's and Shas looking like they will be part of coalitions formed, the only clear result is the rightward political shift.

Not a happy day for the Liberals but not so suprising to anyone. It's a subdued time in Israeli politics, with a rather depressing lack of leadership and a poor voter turnout reflecting the general malaise. I couldn't tell you the number of times I've heard people wishing they had an Obama. Someone who could actually unite across the deep social rifts rather than just say the words and court the votes. Several months ago I stood in a bar at 5am, surrounding by weeping expats as Obama's victory became clear. This week, I sat with an Israeli family in the dark, not really wanting to see the results that the light would bring in.

The schisms are widening in Israel, from within and from without. And the struggle to define what this country means and what its future will look like drags on.