Hamas War

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Report Card: The Israeli Government, Ministers and MK's, Knesset Members

This week when I visited my grandkids I got to see my eldest grandchild's report card.  No surprise that her grades were excellent. This is about a different type of report card. 

The criteria in elementary school isn't the same as for politicians.  The politicians are elected to promote the policies they campaign for.  Unfortunately, most politicians consider getting elected as their top aim and therefore say and sign anything that they think will give them the votes.  Israel has multiple parties, each with a distinct ideology and history.  Governments are made of coalitions, various parties that agree on basic policy and are willing to work together.  That's the theory. In practice the only basic policy seems to be MK's ambitious enough to accept whatever ministry the Prime Minister-hopeful can invent to glue him/her to the government coalition.

The result is that regardless of what the party and MK-hopeful proclaims when campaigning, we can be very surprised by them in office.  A perfect example would be Ariel Sharon's rather Right, pro-Jews in the Land of Israel campaign and then springing Disengagement-the destruction of Jewish communities and creation of homeless Jewish DP's refugees.

Mattot Arim has done a fantastic job in tracking and grading the activities of our Knesset Members and Ministers.  IMRA has posted it, and it's worth the read.

And just to give you what I consider the highlight and reminder that the most reliable Israeli political party is Ichud Le'umi, National Union.  Compare it to the NRP Bayit Yehudi.  Of course it's a no-brainer to recognize that the Likud is not Right, pro-Jews in the Land of Israel.  Likud PM Binyamin Netanyahu has made it very clear that he's promoting a Center friendly to the Left government.

Ichud Leumi
Professor Aryeh Eldad 12
Uri Ariel 17
Dr. Michael Ben-Ari 14
Yaakov (Ketzele) Katz 9

Bayit Yehudi
Uri Orbach 2
Zevulun Orlev 6
Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz 9
Take this as a serious guide to know how to vote next elections.

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