Israeli Elections: The Left Wins the Blogosphere

My Hadash contacts are passing around an article from the British Guardian about the Israeli left wing blogosphere.:

Assuming the polls are accurate – and they have been quite consistent – Israeli voters are poised to elect a rightwing government in next week's elections. But if bloggers were representative of the mainstream, Israel's next government would probably be a Jewish-Arab coalition of socialists, social democrats and environmentalists.

The disparity between the polls and the blogosphere is quite remarkable – especially in Tel Aviv, Israel's liberal heartland, where the two parties vying for the votes of hipsters and leftist intellectuals are the Green Movement-Meimad, an environmentalist–religious partnership headed by a liberal rabbi; and Hadash, a Jewish-Arab socialist party.

The Hebrew-language blogger Ori Katzir made a survey of 92 prominent political bloggers. According to the final breakdown, the Green Movement-Meimad leads with 30 supporters, while Hadash comes in second with 27. It is the polar opposite of the opinion polls, which show Likud leading and Avigdor Lieberman's hardline Yisrael Beiteinu poised to tie with Labour.

For those who don't know, Hadash is the Hebrew acronym meaning The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. In Arabic it's called a-Jabha, the word for front. It was founded in 1977 with the Communist Party of Israel as the main component. My unscientific observation is that the communists are in charge, but non communist forces are central, and exert signicant influence with the coalition. Hell, the communists aren't as communistic as they were before 1991. The world has changed, and they know it.

What sustains them as a relevant part of the Israeli political scene is their status as the only true Jewish-Arab party. All the party institutions are dominated by Palestinian Israelis, but Jews are represented disproportionally in the leadership. In other words, this kind of an Arab party practicing affirmative action on behalf of it's Jewish minority, to ensure that it remains binational in practice and spirit. One of its three parliamentarians is Dov Khenin, a Jewish communist from Tel-Aviv who recently came in 2nd place in the mayoral elections. He is respected as an environmental leader across the political spectrum.

Check out some of the videos from Hadash that went live recently. Unfortunately, they are in Hebrew without translation.

This video shows a conversation about the war. The man on the right is saying that the war was wrong. The man on the left was for the assualt, but against the invasion. For the initial invasion, but against the disregard for civilian life. For doing something with the army, but against what actually happened. In other words, he is confused, and unable to articulate a clear point of view. The point of the video is that Hadash is clear; others parts of the peace camp in Israel are unreliable, always tempted to be silent when the guns are roaring, only to come back afterwards claiming once again to be the 'peace camp.'