Israeli Elections or Living in a Banana Republic

My wife, our little baby, and I went walking last night to vote in our local Israeli Municipal elections: mayor and local council seats.

When we presented our identities my wife was told she could not vote; someone else had already voted under her name and identity number.

While I suspect fraud, and have some reasons for suspecting fraud, for the sake of argument, lets say it was an error of some sort. Mistakes happen in every part of life, including elections. However, the comedy of errors that followed have cemented in my mind the complete lack faith in the Israeli government as an elected government.

She was told she could not vote.

I asked the officials if she could have a provisional ballot, a vote that goes into a box with other discrepancies to be dealt with later, but at least not to deny her vote entirely. No. Nope. No you can't vote. Too bad so sad.

I asked if there was a form to complain or make a record of this event. No. Nope. No forms. Too bad, so sad.

I asked if there was someone, an official to speak with. No. Nope. No one you can speak with. Too bad, so sad.

We were advised to file a complaint with the police. The policeman in the hall would not take the complaint. The 2 policemen in the squad car outside would not take the complaint. We could go to the central station in the next town to complain. And you must go in person because they don't handle complaints over the phone. Because at 9 pm at night, with a baby that's what we're going to do, go to the next town to the central police station to file a complaint. I wonder how people without a car, or suffering mobility issues, seniors, how do they handle these issues?

Mistakes happen. But these elections reveal the truth of Israeli elections, they are not fair. There is no system of checks and balances. There are no official reports of discrepancies and no system in place to deal with these issues whatsoever. Israel is not a democracy, it is a banana republic.

Why Yair Lapid Disgusts Me

The USA has a long history of compromising with discrimination. They compromised on issues of slavery - The Missouri Compromise of 1820 - when the North and South agreed that states below the Missouri line would remain slave states and those above would be free. The compromise of 1850 - doing away with the line and replacing it with popular sovereignty - allowing new territories to vote on slavery when becoming a state. Even the great emancipator - Abraham Lincoln - did not run on an abolitionist - anti-slavery - message. He wanted to prevent the spread of slavery to any new territory but he ran on the campaign that he would not touch slavery in the south - a compromise which the South rejected in favor of secession.

Immigrants - Women - Homosexuals - America is littered with the corpses of compromise. Finally Finally, The US is approaching the time when discrimination and racism may be stricken from it's laws.

And in Israel the parties that claim the center -left, like Yair Lapid, want to continue the tradition of compromise.

Compromising on discrimination is not a compromise.

He claims that his plan is a reasonable compromise: that in 5 years the Israeli ultra -orthodox and Israeli Arabs will begin reporting to the IDF at which point the IDF will decide if the conscripts must serve in the army or  do some form of public service.

Hey Lapid - if public service is the same thing then have the Harediim and Arabs do the army and let the seculars do public service!

For reasons to numerous to get into, everyone winks and smirks at the idea of public service; joke of a program.

Lapid wants this compromised form of equality of service, but what about life equality? Civil Marriage? Gay civil marriage? Civil divorce? Public Transportation on Shabbat? You can't be a little bit pregnant and you can't accept just a little discrimination.

I admire the Ultra-orthodox parties, they have their issues and they fight for them with focus and determination. Lapid is fighting to be the next Stephen Douglas: the man whose great compromises won him the senate debates against Lincoln, but lost him the presidency.