On October 30, 2018, Israel will hold municipal elections in which Israelis will vote for mayors and local councilors.
Unlike previous elections, which were held on a normal workday, this time it was decided to declare an official all-Israeli day off. It is assumed that this will increase the activity of the electorate, as people will not have to look for strength after a twelve-hour work day to crawl to the polling station. In connection with this, a sharp increase in the number of Russian-speaking voters is also expected.
Voices on the Russian Street
Two months before the election, the “Russian street” became the target of campaign efforts by candidates for both mayoral and local councils because it could influence the results of the election, especially in cities with a high percentage of Russian-speaking residents.
Professor Ze’ev Hanin, chief scholar at the Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption, published the results of a 2017 study, “The Russian Cities of Israel,” in which he stated that the last wave of Aliyah, beginning in 2013, would be more properly called “Haifa,” than confirming Haifa’s status as the “Russian capital of Israel.” In Haifa, according to various estimates, about a quarter of the nearly 300,000 inhabitants of the city are Russian-speaking Israelis, and the voice of the “Russian street” can significantly change the course of the elections.
At the moment, three candidates stand out in the elections for mayor of Haifa:
The incumbent mayor, Yonah Yahav, who has been in office for 15 years, and who many citizens and politicians believe it is time for him to go. It is supported morally and materially by the Yesh Atid parliamentary party and by ultra-religious parties such as Shas and others.
Einat Kalish, positioning herself as the leader of the opposition in the City Council and a non-systemic candidate not affiliated with any financial-industrial group. It has signed an agreement of support with Avoda, a party of the political left.
David Etzioni is a lawyer and former head of the Haifa youth branch of the Kulanu party, who worked as a senior advisor to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon on municipal financing issues. Etzioni has so far refused party support.
If we talk about the styles of candidates’ work with the “Russian street,” there are different approaches.
- Joining Yonah Yahav is Yulia Straim, who for years has been working with repatriates in Haifa for budgetary reasons.
- David Etzioni opened a Russian-language headquarters, by the way, the only Hebrew-speaking candidate, and included a Russian-speaking candidate in his list of deputies to the city council.
- Einat Kalish also claims a “Russian street” and speaks of a “glass ceiling” for Russian-speakers and discrimination against “Russians” at the local level.
It was the head of the city’s opposition who published an analysis showing the almost complete absence of Russian-speakers in the municipality of the “Russian capital of Israel. This analysis has already provoked a strong reaction from Julia Streim, the curator of the “Russians” for the incumbent mayor, and a lively discussion on social networks among supporters of the various candidates.
The situation with the candidates and the political disposition may change on September 27, when the filing of the final lists of candidates for mayor and deputies to the City Council is completed.
However, when analyzing the use of the “Russian street” in local elections in Haifa, one cannot ignore the upcoming 2019 Knesset elections. In Israel, municipal elections are preparations for parliamentary elections, and the main electoral intrigue of 2019 is whether leftist and pro-Arab parties can bring down Benjamin Netanyahu by taking votes and Knesset seats away from the Likud party that he leads.
“The Doomsday of Israeli Sociology
In the 2015 Knesset elections, the bloc of left-wing parties renamed “Zionist Camp” (Avoda + A-Tnua) had already triumphed over the right-wing Likud.
On March 13, a few days before the vote, Yediot Ahronot published a poll showing that the center-left Zionist Camp bloc would receive 26 seats, while the center-right Likud party would get only 22.
But after the elections, Israeli sociology’s “doomsday” was over – none of the predictions came true. “Likud received 28 mandates, six more than the bloc created by Avoda.
And now, in the 2019 elections, the Left wants revenge, using any opportunity to “kill Netanyahu’s rating. Especially since, according to a sociological survey conducted by the Midgam Institute in April 2018, Likud is losing seats in the Knesset, while Zionist Camp is strengthening its position.
“Russian Footprint”
In addition to the fight against corruption, there is another instrument to fight the right-wingers: the “specter of a Russian trail” in the Israeli elections, especially in view of the active cooperation between Israel, represented by Benjamin Netanyahu, and Russia, represented by Vladimir Putin. Right-wing “arguments” are already in full swing in the left-wing electronic media.
For example, a few days ago an article with a significant title appeared on the “Details” portal, which positions itself as a mouthpiece for leftist ideas in the Russian sector: “How Russia Influences the Political Views of Israelis. Its author, Vladimir Idzinsky, who defends the values of the left-wing political spectrum, is also an active author of another mouthpiece of the Israeli Left, the Relevant portal.
The author’s logic in describing the Kremlin’s influence on the “Russian street” is very revealing. In his opinion, the importance of Israel in Russian strategic plans determines the attention of Russian special services to the “Russian street. The author states that “the vast majority of Russian-speaking Israelis vote for right-wing parties, and this is strange “for secular people. The Kremlin’s influence on the political agenda through the Israeli Russian-language media is further suspected. And then suddenly the attention shifts to Yevgeny Satanovsky, PhD in economics and president of the Middle East Institute, who has never made any secret of being a Russian propagandist. Vladimir Idzinsky begins to describe in detail his influence on the “Russian street” in Israel, citing quotes by Satanovsky specially selected for the ideological task: “Today Netanyahu understands that the beaner is dead. The peace process has exhausted itself, by any means. All the experiments have been carried out and ended in failure.
A simple manipulation introduces the idea that the Israeli right is dependent on the will of the Kremlin, and Netanyahu already becomes, at best, a victim of the pro-Russian secret services that “try to support forces opposed to a peaceful solution to the conflict,” “…Russian propagandists promote extreme rightist and anti-Palestinian views…”, namely the views of Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.
Note that “Our House Israel” and Avigdor Lieberman were never mentioned in this article. Perhaps the reason is that, according to the latest opinion polls, the Likud would gain less money if it merges with NDI into an electoral bloc than if it were to run alone. Obviously, the unification of Likud Beiteinu party lists, which worked in the 2013 19th Knesset elections, is no longer relevant in 2019. In the global confrontation between the Left and Netanyahu, Lieberman plays on the side of the Left when he takes the votes of the Russian street away from Likud.
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But back to the Haifa elections. Some sources claim that up to 70% of native Israelis know exactly who they will vote for. Among the Russian-speaking population, it is 30-40% of those who are “determined” and who basically participate in the elections. It should also be noted that the majority of “determined” Russian-speakers vote for right-wing and far-right parties. The remaining “fluctuating mass” (60-70%) is the target of campaigning by leftist parties such as Avoda or the candidates it supports.
How can the official confirmation of discrimination against Russians by the leader of the opposition in the city council, Einat Kalish, help Avoda and the Left in the upcoming Knesset elections and the overthrow of the Netanyahu “regime”?
There are several ways of rocking the situation before the Knesset elections and consolidating the protest electorate against the incumbent prime minister, which require the active use of the “Russian street:
- social demands on the liberal government by Russian-speaking retirees, professional groups (such as security guards or caregivers) currently actively working with leftist trade unions to try to protect their social and labor rights;
- Increasing confrontation between Russian-speakers and both the Arab and the religious and ultra-religious sectors, with NDI playing an active role in shaking things up;
- Consolidation of protest sentiments in Russian-speaking groups on social networks through their devirtualization and the development of a joint platform for protest actions;
- Throwing radical demands regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict into the right-wing Russian-speaking electorate to discredit the government’s security policy.
“The Assembly Point.
It should also be taken into account that the current aliya from Ukraine has considerable practical experience in implementing protest campaigns to overthrow the government and organizing small, aggressive groups to sway the situation in one direction or another.
In my opinion, the study by the Einat Kalish team on the discrediting of “Russians” in local government, widely disseminated by the Russian-language media, could become an “assemblage point” for the implementation of the above-mentioned activities of leftist parties and organizations. After all, it looks like practically an official statement by the leader of the city’s opposition, with which you can start working with Russian speakers in the right direction.
A few days ago, Donald Trump said in an exclusive interview with “Hill.TV” that he had ordered the release of secret FBI documents concerning “Russian interference” in the U.S. election, on the basis of which the Democrats began proceedings and investigations against him. We remember the “Vagina March” and other actions and provocations that Democrats have organized and are organizing in an attempt to bring down Donald Trump and weaken Republicans in Congress.
It is obvious that the leftists in Israel, led by Avoda, are planning to use the “Russian trail” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Avoda’s seizure of the “Haifa bridgehead” will help to spread these developments to all of Israel fairly quickly.
Whether the “March of the Vaginas” is successful in the Haifa elections, and whether it creates a basis for a swing before the Knesset elections, will be seen in the near future.
Igor Kaminnik for carmelmagazine.info
Collage by Anna Utkina