Benevolent Democratic Dictatorship

[eumelia]

On Tuesday February 10th the State of Israel will be voting for it's 18th General Election (and our 5th in a decade, seriously, "Third World" stability) and it is slim pickings.

I'm obsessing a bit on the decision because it will actually be the first time I vote for the country's Knesset and PM. This isn't so surprising when one realised that I turned 18 two weeks after the 2003 elections and was out of the country in 2006, so... didn't get to vote.
Add to all that, that I'm actually politically aware and that my own politics seriously do not align with... anything that's on the electoral market.

I've no faith in the system.

Even the small parties that are voted in have very little power and generally produce bills to do with social welfare which is always good, of course, but with the way this country is going in that regard it looks as though even the Communist Party (the forerunners in social welfare laws) will be losing it's footing.

The whole election process is such a crock. We, the citizens, know that each and everyone of the politicians is corrupt, that every single move they make is in their own self-interests, that none of them have any intention of creating change (other than increasing the change lining their pockets) and that any ideology they have is used for nothing more than for pushing an agenda that will give them more power.

The main election issue floating around in the media isn't social welfare, or even the mush hailed Peace Process (which has been a joke for many a year).

It's how "we're" going to deal with Gaza.

There's no talk about... talking.

The word Occupation hasn't been mentioned anywhere, leaving the conciousness of the masses who are gearing to vote for a government that will continue streaming money into an Army that is being trained in policing a population while calling it "Defence".
Indeed, the whole "Only Democracy in the Middle East" myth doesn't live up to the standard of Israel believes itself to emulate.
We are of the British parliamentary method.
The fact that there is a vote doesn't a Democracy make.
When it is your ethnicity that dictates whether you are a citizen or second-class citizen...
When your religion dictates who you can associate and marry...
Well, I don't see any Western ideal there.

One of my friends mentioned that she will be voting for Tzipi Livni.
I asked her why, genuinely curious.
She said she can't not vote for a woman, because even if she doesn't do anything different (which she won't in the event of her being elected) there is still something symbolic in having a woman Prime Minister.
And in general I would agree.
But the idea of voting for someone which the only difference between her and the other candidates is Livni being a woman (it's a big significance difference), when her politics are just atrocious as Netanyahu's and Barak's.

I'm seriously considering blank-balloting.

Comments

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

If you're going to vote based on symbolic gender representation, why not support the party that's guaranteeing a third of its spots to women (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3641296,00.html)?

As for feeling like there are no political options that challenge the mainstream Israeli discourse on Gaza and therefore being unsure of how you want to vote, I don't know what to tell you. In the U.S. context I very much support strategic voting, but that's a winner-take-all system; a vote for a third party is truly symbolic and doesn't even help elect someone who will push for social welfare and maybe also occasionally rail against the worst of the state's discrimination. In your previous post on this subject you said that you might consider voting for Livni simply to try to keep Bibi from office - have you decided you don't want to do so, or are you waiting to see what the polls do closer to the elections before speculating further?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I don't want to vote symbolically. Symbols by their very nature are hollow and there for being seen and not to be used.
Also I'm not going to vote for a different national party, when I dislike voting for "mainstream" national parties.

Just talking and reading more info about the Top Three has pretty much convinced me that voting for one is as bad for voting for the other (Bibi being particularly heinous, but still, the other two don't have much to offer in alternatives).

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Isn't voting a blank ballot a symbolic choice? Does it have a different concrete impact than choosing not to vote at all? If you're not going to vote for either a different or a "mainstream" national party, then you've answered your own question :).

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Three years ago people voted for the Senior party in protest and it actually got madates!

Now imagine if all those people blank-balloted. That's not a symbol, that's a big effing statement.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Is it possible we're using national party in different ways? I assumed you were using it to refer to a party large enough to have had municipal candidates nationwide. Were you using it to refer to a party tied with a particular "nation" (so you don't want to vote for the Arab party any more than you do a Jewish one)?

I never meant to suggest that blank-balloting is comparable to voting for a "different national party". You said in the original post that you're "seriously considering blank-balloting" and then in your comment that you don't want to vote symbolically, and I wanted to be sure I understood the significance of blank-balloting in the Israeli system. Blank balloting seemed like a pretty symbolic choice to me, but guessed that maybe blank balloting has some potential concrete result (i.e. if enough people do it they have to re-do elections).

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I'm really genuinely curious where such a statement, with blank ballots, would lead though? Because, supposedly the most it would lead to would be... another election? With the same candidates? Choosing the senior party was an actual choice, a suggestion for a course of action. A blank ballot is sort of like saying "I don't like this" and not actually suggesting anything as an alternative? Which, realistically, isn't likely to get things to change from whatever they were before? And that's assuming there's even enough for a "statement" to be made, whereas in every election where blank ballots are not an overwhelming % of the vote (every election so far, ever, if I'm not mistaken?) they're just more blank paper to be tossed int eh trash and more votes that didn't contribute to whatever solution ended up being acheived?

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Again, I was just trying to make sense of what I read as a differentiation between blank balloting and not voting. Maybe I just misunderstood the post/comment and the OP wasn't trying to distinguish the two. At no point did I say that I thought voting for a non-mainstream party (like the senior party) was comparable to blank balloting.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

We need another woman prime minister. Because I think we have forgotten that the Palestinian people doesn't exist as such.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

And the Black Panthers are not nice.

Golda references FTW!

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

an Army that is being trained in policing a population while calling it "Defence".
Indeed, the whole "Only Democracy in the Middle East" myth doesn't live up to the standard of Israel believes itself to emulate.
We are of the British parliamentary method.
The fact that there is a vote doesn't a Democracy make.
When it is your ethnicity that dictates whether you are a citizen or second-class citizen...
When your religion dictates who you can associate and marry...
Well, I don't see any Western ideal there.
I think pretty much every one of those statements is a gross exaggeration. I'm just stating that, for the record.

But the idea of voting for someone which the only difference between her and the other candidates is Livni being a woman (it's a big significance difference)
I totally feel on you this, I haven't decided how I'm voting yet, but I just wanted to point out that although a precedent of a woman PM is better than no such precedent, a disasterous female PM is... well, I'm not so sure that's better than nothing. Honestly, I just don't know. And it's not that anyone's going to look back and say "well, she was no worse than any of the other candidates", or at least, it's possible that no one will. So, I think I might prefer to hold out for a better precednt and hope it comes along one day. though, again, haven't really decided yet.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I think pretty much every one of those statements is a gross exaggeration. I'm just stating that, for the record.
Okay. Why?

As for the second part of your comment:
Yes, this whole thing is a big moral dilemma, at least for me, though I'm inclined to believe that it's a dilemma for anyone with a brain!

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I think your statements are very general, and use muddled language. I don't know what you mean by "policing a population", I know my defenition of policing a population, the IDF does not train soldier to do this anymore, in reality. Perhaps you have your own defenition that's different from mine, but you never elaborate so it's unclear. I don't think your religion dictates who you can associate with, I also think it's an oversimplification to say it dictates who you can marry. Saying "we are" the British parliamentary system and saying we are not a democracy, I'm not even sure what you mean there. We ARE a democracy by the very basic defenition of what a democracy is, you can bring up aspects that you think are undemocractic but simply saying that Israel isn't one is just factually, by-the-dictionary untrue, and your statements make it sound as though it is just that plain and simple.
So, yeah, I think every statement here is either an exaggeration or an oversimplification or both. I'm all for talking about complicated, multi-faceted issues, but I'm uncofortable with reducing them to 10 word statements that read more like, well, propoganda. I'm not trying to argue the points, I'm just saying the way you present them is, imo, through oversimplication and exaggeration. Which you're free to say was your intended method of delivery! There's nothing wrong with that, as long as it's acknowledged.

Yes, this whole thing is a big moral dilemma, at least for me, though I'm inclined to believe that it's a dilemma for anyone with a brain!
The verdict is still out on whether or not I have a brain ;) but I don't really see this as a moral dilemma. I see this as a political and social dilemma, my morals have nothing to do with it, if that makes sense.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I would assume she's using the fairly straightforward definition of policing as, "the regulation and control of a community", for which the hundreds of checkpoints and road blocks in the West Bank certainly qualify.

Until extremely recently, non-Jews couldn't buy (to the extent that anyone in Israel can buy; I'm referring to the 100 year lease with the option to renew) land owned by the JNF, which seriously restricted their ability to live anywhere that didn't exist prior to the founding of the state and therefore also to choose to live together with the Jewish population. Even today, non-Jews are regularly blocked from living in Jewish neighborhoods, particularly when they don't already have a Jewish associate to sign as guaranteer for them), which is a case of religion dictating with whom you can live (the simplest form of association). This restriction on association is compounded by the fact that where one lives determines the school one's children attend.

As for the democracy issue, the argument that Israel isn't really a democracy is made in much more depth by Yiftachel in his book Ethnocracy: Land and Politics in Israel/Palestine. I have to say that I think that all so-called democracies have ethnocratic/racist elements so personally take issue with the dichotomy Yiftachel creates between democracy and ethnocracy, but that doesn't mean that some nominal democracies aren't closer to enacting democratic principles than others.

If you have a choice between supporting a group with which you agree but that has very little chance of changing policy that you find immoral or supporting a group that may change some aspects of that behavior but actively supports other aspects, how is it not a moral dilemma? Obviously that question is based on the assumption that you find any of the policy supported by the "big three" but not by some of the smaller parties to be immoral.

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Since, like I mentioned in the comment, I wasn't arguing the issues but rather discussing their delivery with the OP, I... don't really see the point of discussing with someone else what she might or might not have meant, unless you're officially speaking for her, on her request?

I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just honestly saying - I was really talking to the OP about her meanings and intentions, and it so it's kind of strange to instead discuss that with someone who isn't her.

[(Anonymous)]

Feel free to discuss with the OP directly if that's what you prefer. To explain why I responded to your comment, I took your saying, "I think pretty much every one of those statements is a gross exaggeration" to be arguing the issues/what was stated and therfore shared some arguments that agreed with the some of the statements you said you thought were exaggerated.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I got an error message on this so assumed it hadn't gone through - sorry for the redundancy!

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

You do a really good job of explaining what you were getting at in your later comments. I was speaking for myself in response to your first comment, and specifically your statement that, "I think pretty much every one of those statements is a gross exaggeration. I do think that there's a solid case that the OP's statements aren't exaggerations at all. That being said, in your later comments you make it clear that you're wondering why she chose to make such strongly worded statements, so will leave you to it.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Ooof! I want to answer you point by point, but I have to go and don't have time.

I just wanted to let you know that I will reply to this comment and that you haven't been forgotten :)

But as for your last statement: I find it strange that you would separate the trifecta of morality/politics/societal. Every political decision that ones makes becomes a personal and one and because it has far reaching affects that don't only include you, it is very much a moral and/or ethical decision.

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I actually wasn't looking for a point-by-point explanation! I mean, I can't stop you from giving one, but I think that would be missing my point? I know you can explain in comments 3 pages worth of your opinions and feelings and whatever on these subjects. What I was saying was that in the entry, reduced to simple statements, it sounded like what I explained. If you feel the statements were clear and exhaustive of the issues, and disagree with how their delivery felt to me, that's of course totally your right. If you feel I have a point about the delivery, you're free to of course elaborate on every point here, but my intention was just to bring it to your attention that this was the case. So I'm saying, what I was talking about weren't so much the issues themselves, as how they were put, my statements about the "issues" were just to give a few examples rather than delve into them.

I'm sorry, I thought by "this whole thing" you were referring to the vote/not vote for Linvi because she's a woman issue, since that was what we were discussing before, I misunderstood. Of course the elections in general are a moral issue among other things.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Okay fair enough.
Point taken.

[thecityofdis.livejournal.com]

From what little I can gather in the news over here, Livni comes across as far more likely to and interested in continuing peace negoiations with Syria, amenable to talks re: the West Bank, and realizing that bombing every brown person is not the key to survival of any country. I'm sure the reality is different on the ground, but... it looks like a no-brainer from here.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I know it looks like a no brainer. Last week(!) I was thinking the exat same thing, but as time goes by and the voting approaches, I don't know if the glamour of "less evil than" can hold up.

*sigh*

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

You really have a choice between bad, bad and worse this time, but like thecityofdis says above, Livni looks like a lesser evil, though obviously international press is going to be biased towards "peace process" and ignore other intranational issues.

I stopped believing in the "symbolic woman" when I was about 8 and listening to Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands War. Some women truly believe in their own exceptionalism, and it does other women no favours. By that measure, I would have voted for Kevin Rudd (Australian Labor Party) over any woman leader the Liberal (centre right-wing) party put up, because his party is better for social justice and human rights overall, at the moment.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

See my reply to thecityofdis.

Yeah, Old Maggie really screwed things. It's so irritating that when we look back at women PM they weren't actually worse than the men, but because of them being women the criticism is just plain worse.
Because really, the men PM's have been just bloody fantastic, right?

[hemlock-sholes.livejournal.com]

5th in a decade
Fourth I think (2009, 2006, 2003, 1999). Since 3 seems to be about average for many European nations and less than that the average for many African countries, I wonder why you are comparing Israel to a third world country.

The word "Occupation" may not be bandied about much, but you'd find it difficult to read a newspaper without there being talk about "Peace Process", "Abu Mazen as a Partner", "Social problems", "Economic problems" and so on...

I would have thought that you'd be pleased to have the economy front and center for a change.

The media and politicians both seem to be "Settler-bashing" over the last few months. Obviously this is just talking and very little "walking", but one must start somewhere, wouldn't you say?

As for your points:
* In Hebrew, the ministry is called "Bitahon' - Security. I think that that's a fairly accurate description of the ministry's job description, don't you?
* What other democracy in the Middle East would you like to discuss?
* We do not use the British Parliamentary method. Nor do we use their (convoluted) election methods.
* Actually, the possibility of freely voting and affecting the country pretty much does a Democracy make :)
* There is always something which dictates what kind of citizen you are.
* Religion dictates your marriage in most countries, if not in all.

I don't argue with your premise or with your conclusion- I just think the points you use to get there are... vague.

But that's just me :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

The word "Occupation" may not be bandied about much, but you'd find it difficult to read a newspaper without there being talk about "Peace Process", "Abu Mazen as a Partner", "Social problems", "Economic problems" and so on...

This is what is called a מכבסת מילים - word laundering - so, what's your point?

The conflation of "security" and "peace" has caused a few pickles wouldn't you say. And "security" for who, exactly?

I'm not talking about other democracies, I think the whole ideal of Israel as democratic is wrong when we are occupying a people and appropriating their land.

Religion in other western countries, which Israel regards itself to be, doesn't dictate marriage unless you want it to. In Israel the parameters of who you are ehtnically and religiously creates different populations which cannot marry each other - at times within the same population, see פסולי חיתון.

[hemlock-sholes.livejournal.com]

I don't understand. Surely "word laundering" is all about the consciousness of the masses? Your original post said that no-one was talking about it, now you're saying they are talking about it.

So the United States, England, Spain, Russia, Turkey, France (in the 60s), Japan, Belgium and others I can't think of right now are not democracies?

What is the definition of a Democracy? What changes have to take place in order for you to define Israel as democratic?