Crossing the Yarden – Election Special (Guest Post)

Yom rishon, Tu b’Shevat, 15 Shevat 5769.

If I were funny, I would be my friend, Yarden. 
But then I would have to drop a decade or so, work way too hard, be ridiculously athletic, and be married to my good friend, Stella.  You see the problem.  No WAY am I running a marathon.
Please read Yarden’s take on tomorrow’s elections.  You will have no more questions about anything.

Crossing the Yarden
By Yarden Frankl

I Get To Vote Again!

The American elections are very straightforward. They occur every four
years on the first Tuesday of November. There are only two parties.
Each candidate adopts a slogan which defines his party (“Yes, We Can”
or “Alaska is near Russia”) and whomever can answer difficult
questions out on the campaign trail (“How many houses do you own”)
usually wins.

The opposite of the orderly American elections is the balagan that we
engage in here every…. well that’s just it. We never know when the
next elections take place. That’s why most politicians start taking
bribes immediately. They just don’t know how long before they will be
voted out.

We can never predict who will be running. Every election small parties
come and go. My favorite one hit wonder from the last election was the
pensioners’ party. They achieved their goal in that all seven Knesset
members can now go back to retirement with really big pensions.

So who will win tomorrow? Well the polls show a really close race. Yet
poll numbers in Israel cannot be accepted. In fact, a recent Channel 3
poll found that 82 percent of respondents admit to regularly lying to
pollsters. The big question is whether to believe that people who
claim to be lying are telling the truth.

Since the Israeli elections can be so confusing, I now present the
second Crossing the Yarden Guide to the Israeli elections. If you just
take one minute to read on, you will no longer be confused and know
exactly which party you must vote for:

The Likud: Benjamin Netanyahu is today the most popular candidate
among those who considered him least popular when he was Prime
Minister. If elected, Netanyahu has promised to destroy Hamas, free
Gilad, end the Iranian threat, reform the economy, bring Moshiach and
tackle whatever the next three issues the polls are showing people
care about.

Kadima: Kadima is a one man party. Which is very interesting because
the man it is based on is not only hated by both the right and the
left, but also has been in a coma for a few years. I can only assume
that their impressive poll position is due to the many other coma
patients whose preferences were recorded. That and the really neat
looking Tzipi Livni posters plastered on all the buses.

Labor: Labor believes that they can make peace by strategically giving
in to every single demand made by Israel’s enemies. They are unfazed
by the recent polls showing that more people in Israel love drinking
beet juice than will vote for them. In a surprise move, Labor named
U.S. President Barack Obama as their leader and adopted the slogan
“Yes, can we too?”

Israel Betenu: (“Israel is my home, get out”) is led by Avigdor
Lieberman. He has received a great deal of notoriety for his
controversial plan to annex West Bank Settlements and give Arab
populated areas of the Galilee and Detroit to the Palestinians. This
has most alarmed Arab Israelis who although they want to help their
Palestinian brothers destroy the State of Israel, they really don’t
want to live with them.

The National Union of Jewish Homes. Since they realize that their
views are only shared by a tiny fraction of Israeli voters, the right
wing of Israeli politics is taking the sensible approach by…. dividing
into several even smaller parties. Their goal seems to be to sit in
the opposition and work on how to divide into even more parties after
the elections.

The Pot Smoking Holocaust Survivors. I’m not making this up!! The
small parties that represent Holocaust Survivors and those who want to
legalize Marijuana have formed one crazy party. Hey, if enough people
think this is a joke and vote for them, they just might win!

Shas and United Torah Judaism: Religious parties. If you are a true
believer you must vote for them because 1) they represent the “true
believer” population of Israel and 2) you really believe that voting
for someone else is a vote for the devil.

Now, I hope that has cleared things up. Go vote tomorrow and enjoy the holiday.

Chag Election Sameach from our crazy, blessed nation.

Yarden Frankl, Neve Daniel                                           
http://www.crossingtheyarden.com

       The sweaty guy is Yarden, the Stunt Man’s mentor.

I’m Number 40008. Join me, won’t you?

Yom chamishi, 11 Shevat 5769.

Sign the petition to put Hamas on trial for war crimes.

Okay, I can hear you saying, “What good does signing a petition do?  Everyone knows that the UN hates Israel.  After all, there have been more panic-stricken resolutions against Israel for the heinous crime of defending herself against terror than there have been for the mass slaughters in Darfur, Sri Lanka, and Kurdish Iraq combined.  So what’s the point?” 

Here is why this is important, and not irrelevant.

We are entering a new age.  The “bad guys” have been successfully using the weapon of propaganda all over the globe.  Otherwise reasonable people have come to accept the re-write of history that is as subtle as the change from the term “Arab-Israeli Conflict” to “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” and as blatant as a report by BBC’s Jeremy Bowen that the reason he only sees soft drink cans with Arabic writing on the other side of the checkpoint is that “the Israelis won’t permit foodstuffs beyond the checkpoint.”  (Uh, Jeremy — could it possibly be that Arabs prefer to support Arab businesses?  Just a thought…)

The grassroots voice of the internet is beginning to be noticed.  To sit back and avoid the media war is worse than rushing off to Canada used to be.  (Oops.  Ancient hot-button issue.  Sorry.  But then we had something of an excuse.  Did we really understand what that war was about?  We’re still trying to figure it out…)

And for those who want to deal with the situation in America with that slightly more antiquated weapon, the telephone, take a look at this suggestion:

Hey, look — my son swears by the FN MAG 240 as THE weapon of choice — even though it was produced by Belgium in the 1950s.  So if your weapon of choice in this media war is the telephone, be my honored guest.  As long as you’re involved.

While you’re at it, suggest to Barack “Change is Good” Obama that he could really throw those Jews for a loop by pardoning Jonathan Pollard (Yehonatan ben Malka) at the beginning of his term as US President.  Now THERE’S some change I could get behind.

Cheerful assistance with research provided by Yarden Frankel.  Refua shelaima, Yarden!