Israel's News & Views BlogHad a chance to take a look at the election billboards out there, the following is a selection from the streets and highways.
I found Benjamin Netanyahu all over the place – same “scary” message everywhere. What’s interesting is that the Likud site is down for a while now, it just says “Closed for renovations”. Better hurry guys this thing is almost over !!! The picture in the billboard was taken 10 years ago and there has been some criticism of its use in this campaign.
The message out there is simple and I found only one message out there:
Strong Against The Hamas
Only Likud Netanyahu
So the idea is that we are all worried about the Hamas and that Benjamin will be strong against them and save us all. Did I mention that the public’s response and interest in these elections has been exceptionally low. ..Can you guess why?
Saw a bunch of the Meretz billboards and they have some good slogans. A little more to do with some sort of an agenda. They also had more then one type of message out there. To put it in context Meretz is accused of being very right wing and tolerant of anything really. In this campaign they are trying to hit on all the possible markets. The party has recently been accused by the Green Leaf Party (Aleh Yarok) of supporting the legalization of pot and kidnapping their political agenda. But that’s another story.
The second billboard has to with the corruption and scandals associated with the exiting government. This 16th Knesset had the highest accusation and conviction rate in Israel’s history.
Arab Lovers
and Homosexuals, and Lesbians, and Women, and Senior Citizens and StudentsMeretz
This is a hard translation but the idea is:
Bleeding Heart Liberals
Better then Corrupt and Soulless”
Now the Labour (Aavoda) Party took a whole different approach. I say Labour because I think that the billboards all over the place with the Kadima logo and Ehud Olmert on them are part of the the Labour campaign. This campaign is an all out personal offensive with no political message or agenda.
Peres: “Kadima’s Agenda is very similar to the agenda of the Labour Party”
Mabat News: 9.1.2006
Kadima (foward) to the 67 borders
Olmert: “We won’t be able to transfer (move forcebly) the Arabs so we will have to transfer ourselves”
Daily Telegraph 5.3.2004
Kadima (foward) to the 67 borders
And finally,
Ehud Barak: I got an offer from Olmert a proposal for the division of Jerusalem.
Haaretz 17.1.2001
Kadima (foward) to the 67 borders
I haven’t seen a single Kadima billboard out there, so I guess they are feeling extremely confident or they were thrown off track with Ariel Sharon’s unplanned departure from the campaign. Otherwise this is one of the most covert election campaigns ever.
Another problem and something that is symbolic of the perceived weakness of the party is the domain name. Kadima’s website is called KadimaSharon.co.il a bit of a problem with the chief in hospital and not likely to be the man in power when this election is over.
Last and not least is Shas, the religious party. I saw this on a bus in Tel Aviv today.
Family is Everything
Tradition and Jewish Education
Shas Wins
I guess that shows the elections are now in full swing. Still for a place where politics is a big deal its surprising to see the apathy in these 2006 elections. The polls so far show that Kadima will slide into government and that barring any major events we pretty much made our mind up.
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