A little while ago the US showed the world that it can reinvent itself just when we thought we knew everything about them. A black man was elected to president. I still remember the Eddy Murphy comedy show Delirious where he makes fun with the notion of a black president. A president that would have to make his speeches while running to avoid getting shot… And yet, there he is. Obama is the President.
Now in Israel it seems like we are not quite there. Yes, this is a generally forward thinking society BUT (insert big but here..) there are actually political figureheads/political parties that feel that politics is no place for a woman. This is to the extent that if you were to look at the election posters in Jerusalem where all three candidates are showing, the face of Tzipi Livni has been erased.. To remind you the year is 2009!
Now this goes beyond the religious parties which like there Iranian counterparts are fanatics. This extends to the mainstream. When it comes to discussing the issues and facing a woman in the race, the gender card will ultimately be used by any of the “modern thinking” leaders as well. It will just be better disguised.
Given that we are a testosterone driven society. We are faced with 10 flavors of death in any direction, but still. Wouldn’t the job of a good prime minister be putting together the right team? Would it not be possible for a woman to run Israel?
Livni recently went for the young vote with her campaign. She did the Tel Aviv bar/club circuit trying to get the young vote. She recently has invested more in getting the undecided women vote and sounded good in front of the women’s conference in Herzelia. I heard some of the speech and she sounded comfortable and energetic. I didn’t like the way she sounded when she was in some of the other venues and in Knesset. She got a heavy, old political guy tone to her that just sounded tired and almost forced. Like someone who has to make them sound like an old experienced political horse, something she isn’t and shouldn’t be. I think sounding like a modern, smart, leading woman in this election is the way to go.
I don’t think Tzipi Livni will win this election although she seems to be moving forward in the poles. The assumption is that Bibi and the Likud will take it and then form a coalition with one of the top three mainstream parties, maybe the religious as well. I would like to see her in there though and wish her the best of luck. It would be nice…
This is Livni on the Lior Shlein show (Night Show)
February 9, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Kadima
Livni Livni
Maybe you meant one of these.
February 13, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Livni Livni
Ä°kinci doÄŸumun seni bekliyor.
Kristal prensinin sarayından seni alacağız.
February 22, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Ey Ä°blis
Ortada ne prens kaldı ne de kristal saray Livni yi hiç arama,bulamazsın.
Zafer Allah ındır.
March 7, 2009 at 1:30 am
An Israeli friend sent me a photo of a Gaza Palestinian holding up a poster that read as follows:
YOU
take my water
burn my olive trees
destroy my house
take my job
steal my land
imprison my father
kill my mother
starve us all
humiliate us all
BUT
I am to blame:
I shot a rocket back
The old man holding the poster, the Israeli who sent it to me and myself are all old men from a recent history of the last century that was more brutal than any other in the industrial way in which it made sausages of people. Now we are old and helpless and no matter how much we love or hate Israel, its people and what they stand for, we cannot come to terms with our morality lest we assuage the grievances of this Palestinian fellow helpless geriatric. It is because I despise and denounce everything Israel has done to Palestinians in the name of Zionism that I support Netanyahu. He is free of the doom and gloom East European psychosis from which genetically suffer Israel’s leaders. I know it well for I too am an East European. But today’s Sabras are different. They want Israel integrated into the region rather than as a finger on an EU/NATO colonial hand. Only the young Sabras have the sci/tech know-how to liberate the young Arabs from their untenable one crop (oil) banana republic economies. This Netanyahu realizes and has decided that only by integrating the Palestinians into the Israeli economy can Israel be integrated in the Middle East. So he would lay aside political issues in order to provide the children of Palestinians everything the children of Israelis have. Only then can Israel economically integrate into the Middle East; and only after that can Israel and the Arabs resolve their political differences. Netayahu, when Finance Minister under Sharon, swore he would stop Israel’s status as a 60 years old fetus of a state on an American $ placenta. With the US now totally broke he knows that his solution urgently vital to survival and that it depends on Israel becoming, in the words of its founders: “A LIGHT ONTO THE [ARAB] NATIONS.” That’s why he is putting politics aside to focus on economic integration. That’s Sabra chutzpah instead of that old East European Holocaust fixation doom and gloom mentality of the old Ashkenazims. So it is with a heart finally full of hope that I support Netanyhu for the modernization of the Middle East family of Jews and Arabs. Go to it PM Bibi!
Daniel E. Teodoru
March 21, 2009 at 12:45 am
the first