A Lesser Of Two Evils?
There are two parties vying to make the coalition and become the ruling party til the next election; Kadima and Labor. I really don't know which scares me more. Kadima's main platform is withdrawing from the West Bank. (Since we withdrew from Gaza, they elected Hamas to be their leaders, daily have been shooting rockets at us, and now have started shooting Katyushas. The people who were evacuated are for the most part jobless, homeless, with little or no help coming from the government that threw them out. After such a "success story", who wouldn't support another withdrawal?) In addition, Kadima is being run by Olmert, a man strongly disliked in Jerusalem where he was mayor (at least by my in-laws and everyone they know), a man who has said he used to be right wing til his leftist wife wore him down (direct quote from an article in Maariv), a man who has said he is "tired of fighting and tired of being courageous". How could a man who is tired of being couragous become our Prime Minister? On the other hand, his coalition will almost definitely have to include a right wing party, probably Shas or UTJ, and if they don't entirely sell out (which is very possible) Olmert won't be able to fulfill his dream of self destruction. The government could then continue running as it is now, with a strong hand against terrorists (while everyone complains how we dont do anything, we are in the middle of bombing the hell out of Gaza, we've closed down Shechem, and Thank God we have been catching suicide bombers before they can do any harm almost every day [with the exclusion of the bombing on Thursday night, more on that later]), with further privatization of governement companies, and getting rid of more monopolies.
The other possible leader is Amir Peretz. In terms of withdrawal, the Labor party is against the concept of one-sided withdrawal, and wont negotiate with Hamas (at least not yet), so meantime that is not an issue. They will probably evacuate most small outposts, but any elected government would have to do that. Peretz's platform was purely a social one. Socialist to be exact. You know, that failed experiment that disencourages competition, lowers motivation, doesnt think that doctors should earn more than burger-flippers? Which I guess is expected from a man that finished his education at high school. the scarier part is that his coalition would consist of Shas (more exponential benefits for every child), Pensioners (more money for pensioners) , maybe UTJ (more money for yeshivot and kollel people) , all of which are parties looking for more socialist benefits. Which of course translates into higher taxes. And raises the question, why get a job when you can make more on welfare? This is also the same man that was in charge of the strikes that struck this country over the past years, sometimes totally crippling it. Most notorious was a strike right before Sukkot that shut down the airport. God forbid that tourists should come here for the holiday and spent their dirty capitalist money! It might even help the economy! The only positive part of him being Prime Minister is that it stops Olmert. Then Kadima may fall apart, since the only common denominator amongst its candidates is a need for power. But that may just be wishful thinking.
Point of this all is, there's no coalition I support, and I'm just going to wait for the next elections and hope whoever is in charge now doesnt do irreparable damage.
The other possible leader is Amir Peretz. In terms of withdrawal, the Labor party is against the concept of one-sided withdrawal, and wont negotiate with Hamas (at least not yet), so meantime that is not an issue. They will probably evacuate most small outposts, but any elected government would have to do that. Peretz's platform was purely a social one. Socialist to be exact. You know, that failed experiment that disencourages competition, lowers motivation, doesnt think that doctors should earn more than burger-flippers? Which I guess is expected from a man that finished his education at high school. the scarier part is that his coalition would consist of Shas (more exponential benefits for every child), Pensioners (more money for pensioners) , maybe UTJ (more money for yeshivot and kollel people) , all of which are parties looking for more socialist benefits. Which of course translates into higher taxes. And raises the question, why get a job when you can make more on welfare? This is also the same man that was in charge of the strikes that struck this country over the past years, sometimes totally crippling it. Most notorious was a strike right before Sukkot that shut down the airport. God forbid that tourists should come here for the holiday and spent their dirty capitalist money! It might even help the economy! The only positive part of him being Prime Minister is that it stops Olmert. Then Kadima may fall apart, since the only common denominator amongst its candidates is a need for power. But that may just be wishful thinking.
Point of this all is, there's no coalition I support, and I'm just going to wait for the next elections and hope whoever is in charge now doesnt do irreparable damage.
1 Comments:
I'm suspecting that that next election will be coming pretty soon.
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