the communists are coming!

Three things to watch in the municipal election this Tuesday:

1. Tel Aviv: Mayor Ron Huldai is running for a third term after 10 years in office, backed by both Kadima and Labor parties. On the previous election Huldai won in a landslide without really campaigning, but public opinion of him has changed in the last two years. Huldai has failed to address the problem of raising rent and further worsened the situation for himsels by declaring that this was a normal result of the free market. Tel Aviv during his time in office became so attractive, he claimed, that everyone wanted to live in it. Huldai, a former pilot for the Air Force, who became a national figure as the successful principal of one of the city's most prestigious high schools, has also made some unpopular decisions, such as taking down the legendary Osishkin basketball arena, home of Hapoel Tel Aviv, the second most popular team in the city.

   His surprising challenger is MK Dov Khenin of Hadash, the radical left wing party. Khenin has built an Obama-like coalition of representatives from the poor neighborhoods in the south of the city, and the young students, journalists and bohemian crowd from the city center. Khenin is the grandson of an important Chabad rabbi, and was the former chairman of the “Environment and Life” organization, which amalgamates most of the environmental organizations in Israel.

The polls gave Huldai a 20 plus points advantage just a month ago, but the race has tightened since and the margin is considered to be in the high single digit area. Still, even the slight chance that a communist like Khenin will lead Israel's cultural and financial capital is surprising, to say the least, considering the current political atmosphere.

My prediction: Huldai, by a margin of 15 points or more.

2. Jerusalem: Israel's bankrupt capital presents its next mayor with too many challenges: the population is poor, most of the secular elite and business people have long fled the city, and the Palestinians on the east side are getting more and more hostile (it's no surprise: Israel has made everything in its power to make their lives miserable). Still, being the mayor of one of the worlds most holly and well known cities carries some prestige; so three men are actually running for the post.

   Reb Uri Lupoliansky, the city's first Hasidic mayor, is not running for re-election. The front runner in the polls is the secular right-wing leaning businessman Nir Barkat, who had until recently a 15 points advantage over ultra-orthodox MK Meir Porush. It was supposed to be an easy one for Barkat, since some important rabbis have opposed Porush's candidacy publicly. But Barkat has alienated the few liberal seculars left in the city with his anti Arab rhetoric, and Porush has gained some momentum. The eccentric millionaire Arkady Gaidamak is also running, and might hurt Barkat even further with the secular vote.

   My prediction: Porush will turn out to be the surprise of this election, winning the capitol with a narrow margin.

3. The Green Party: The municipal election in Israel is a split vote: you cast one vote for the mayor and another for a party to be elected for the city council. The ecological ideology, once totally foreign to Israeli discourse, has continuously been gaining ground, and the Greens are now expected to get 2-3 MK for the first time in the general election. Could the Green Party be “the default vote” for the city council this Tuesday for those interested only in the race for the mayoral position?

   My prediction: The Greens will have a good day, especially on the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv (though not in Tel Aviv itself, where Khenin's party, “city for all of us” – the name doesn't sound better in Hebrew – will carry most of the ecological vote). It will be also interesting to watch Avigdor Liberman's “Israel Beitenu” performance tomorrow. The party chose to go with a national campaign, presenting only Liberman's picture and non of the municipal candidates. I think Liberman might perform well in the mixed cities.

   As for myself, I will vote for Dov Khenin for mayor of Tel Aviv and Meretz for city council.

An Obama Effect?

Most Israelis were just waking up when John McCain conceded and Barack Obama was officially declared the next president of the United States. On Monday you could still find articles predicting [in Hebrew] that in the end “The Real America” will have the last word and McCain will win. On election day there was an ugly article on Ynet by Naomi Ragan, the right-wing religious novelist, who quoted most of the rumors about Obama as if they were facts (for example: Obama's campaign was funded mostly by rich Arabs, some of them from Gaza). Reading this article again this morning was particularly fun.

As for myself, I guessed a 318-220 victory for Obama and 52-48 on popular vote, which was not that far-off.

We will have to wait for tomorrow's papers to see what the pundits have to say about the outcomes effect on Israel and the middle east. Meanwhile, here are some of my thoughts.

The US support of Israel– both diplomatically and financially –will remain the same. Assuming Israel will continue asking the US for permission to use military force (like it probably did before the attack on the nuclear facility in Syria) we will not see major change in security issues. The million dollar question is what will happen if Israel wishes to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. My guess is that for as long as the US is in Iraq, nobody in Washington will care to open a third front (this goes for W as well on his two remaining months in the White House).

So what difference does the presidential election make? Well, the US has direct influence on two key issues here: the peace negotiations and the settlements, especially those around Jerusalem.

In his eight years in office, George W. Bush didn't do much to reignite the peace process. Instead, he supported unilateral steps taken by Israel, such as reoccupying the West Bank cities and the withdrawal from Gaza. The result was an increase in the power of all extremist groups in the region, most of all the Hamas. Lately, there have been signs of a change in policy, the result of Condoleezza Rice's efforts. As I wrote before, there is a learning period for any new administration, so it will take some time before we can evaluate if there is a real change in policy.

During this time, Israel will build settlements. We have been doing it for more then 40 years, regardless of the identity of the guy in the oval office – or in the PM office in Jerusalem for that matter.

All settlements are harmful, but some are worst than others. Even the neo-cons and neo-Zionists around Bush didn't allow Israel to build in the area called E1, east of Jerusalem. The Israeli plan is to build there a Jewish neighborhood, an industrail park and even a few hotels, that will eventually be part of Jerusalem, thus diminishing the last option to divide the city into Israeli and Palestinian capitals. And if Bush didn't allow it, nobody else will. Hopefully, Obama's people will also keep a closer eye on other construction project in the West Bank, which only serve to to prevent the two states solution.

Finally, there has been some talk on the influence of an Obama victory on Israeli politics, and especially on the results of the general election in February. Some people, both here [Hebrew] and in the US, think that the “Change” massage coming from America will help those candidates who are perceived as “fresh” (aka Tzipi Livni). It has also been speculated that Netanyahu will be considered as someone who will find it harder to deal with the new president, given his hawkish stands. However, one might also claim that some voters will move to the right, in hope of a government that will stand up to American and international pressure towards concessions. But most importantly - in order to have an Obama-like spirit of change, you must have an Obama-like candidate. We don't.