Shocking: Likud Wins Big

Results of yesteday’s Israeli elections took all political pundits by surprise. From being the underdog and all the polls predicting he will lose, Benjamin Netanyahu managed to turn the tide with a stunning victory. Despite what he called ‘outside money’ trying to defeat him, he will remain prime minister.

Two days in Israeli politics is like a year in American politics. Since our last analyses two days ago, the political landscape in Israel shifted dramatically. How did Netanyahu do it?

The momentum started turning at a Sunday night rally at which Netanyahu gave a rousing speech to the crowd of tens of thousands and infusing a sense of urgency. ‘The Jewish spirit is gathered here, the spirit of our nation, our spirit’ he said to the constant applause.

Netanyahu then pointed to the denigrating attitude the left has toward the majority of Israelis ‘what exactly is the problem with kissing a Mezuza? When did that become a sin?’ He asked, referring to the hate-filled speech by left wing artist Yair Garbuz at a rally a week before. ‘How could it be that the ignorant Mezuza kissers rule? How could those idiots who pray at the Tzadikim graves govern?’ Garbuz said.

‘We follow Jewish tradition, we believe in the eternal g-d of the Jewish people’ Netanyahu declared to a thunderous applause. He further warned the large crowd what would happen if the left came to power, saying huge sums of money from overseas was pouring in to topple his government. ‘Because they know that as long as I am prime minister, we will not divide Jerusalem, we will not give up land’.

The energy on the right was immediately picked up in internal polling, sending the left into panic. In a frantic move Tzipi Livni announced that she would forfeit her turn to be prime minister if the left won the election.

Livni’s announcement sent shockwaves throughout Israel and was seen as desperate. Voters started flocking back to the Likud and all predictions were off.

A negative side effect from the sudden shift toward Netanyahu is the draining of support from the Yachad party headed by Eli Yishai, and which many Lubavitchers supported, causing it to just miss the voter threshold.

With 99% percent of the actual votes counted:

Likud: 30 seats;
Machane Tziyoni (Labor); 24 seats;
Arab Party 13 seats;
Yesh Atid 11 seats;
Kulanu 10 seats;
Bayit Yehudi 8 seats;
Shas 7 seats;
Yahadut Hatorah 7 seats;
Yisrael Beytenu 6 seats;
Meretz 4 seats.

israel-election-results

7 Comments

  • Larry

    I think the only reason why he was the underdog is because the media putraded it that way

  • Y. Postelnik

    My initial thoughts – this is very good and we see the Rebbe’s hand directly in it:

    27th of Adar and the Israeli Miracle

    Hashem’s direct hand in the election results is not lost on any of the political operatives in Israel. In the past two elections, the left outperformed the polls by 5 seats. All predictors were adding 5 seats to the left on top of the last polls.

    Picking up something to go to the airport last night, the take out owner, an older Israeli lad, was quite happy with the results and said that she felt a day before that things were G-d forbid hopeless, but then quickly realized that Hashem would save the Jews and make this ok (am not saying that any one person or party is a savior, but there’s a difference between defenders of Jewish security and callous dreamers who engage in dangerous appeasement as a principle.) I explained to her that tonight (it was already night in Israel) was the 23rd anniversary of the Rebbe’s stroke and that this meant something:

    Hashem designed the world in judgement and added mercy to creation so that the world would stand firm. Chassidus explains that this “mercy” comes out in Hashem having placed righteous guides in each generation and the miracles done through them.

    The Rebbe spoke of Bibi, who was not yet the leader of a party at the time, in ways that he probably didn’t speak of any other leader (the only possible exception being President Shazar – and that was generally limited to matters of child education).

    It was clear in this election that Israel’s security was at risk and those funding an alternative were really pushing for the type of appeasement that only caused spikes in the terror related death rate in the past, may Hashem save us all.

    A month before the stroke (Tu BShvat 5752), the Rebbe stopped the dollar line for 17 minutes when a then more junior minister, Moshe Katsav, passed by. The Rebbe gave him a message to Shamir that:

    – he sees the negotiations as dangerous capitulation that risk all of Israel and that the Rebbe is ready to go “mesirus nefesh” (give his life) to prevent this. The only other Rebbe who said those words in such a situation was the Alter Rebbe about Napoleon (who sought to spread hedonism throughout Europe, etc.). At the time of his passing, the last of Napoleon’s soldiers retreated out of Russia.

    – it’s a disgrace to G-d’s name and it’s better that there would have never been a Jewish government there than to engage in such things and that he’s supported Shamir until now (was especially pleased with the religious coalition that Shamir had in place from about 2 years before) and that Shimon Peres was the only one against Shamir until now. But if Shamir, who has so many merits with regard to Jews in Israel, folds, then he’ll be the first against Shamir’s government.

    (The Rebbe mentioned Peres by name. Within months, Peres was defeated by Rabin, Shamir was then defeated in the general by Rabin. Years later, in the biggest upset of the time, Peres was defeated for the presidency by Katsav, who did not do all he could to stop the land concessions. I’ll refrain on commenting about Katsav’s innocence or not on other matters, other than the fact that both his trial and appeal were heard by panels of 3 that both consisted of an Arabic judge, a radically leftist judge and one other and that his accuser was someone who his office had reported to the police for extortion before she made the allegations).

    – The Rebbe relayed to Shamir that it doesn’t matter what he has in mind. It matters how the negotiations will be perceived.

    (This was a clear hint to Shamir. The Rebbe was saying, I know what you’re thinking. Shamir’s reaction on hearing everything from Katsav was “the Rebbe has always been right until now but this time is different. Two years later, ex-PM Shamir recanted, explaining that he had thought all along to build up the settlements while in negotiations with the PLO, so that no one could touch their security, but now sees how quick and disastrous the negotiations were).

    It is widely reported that the Rebbe stopped taking daily aspirin around that time.

    Two weeks before this event, the Rebbe gave a detailed speech about the Previous Rebbe’s speech being affected in his later years and the Kabbalistic and practical reasons for it. This was one of many hints that he was about to undertake a similar suffering. The suffering of the righteous causes salvation.

    Now, on the 23rd anniversary of this, a day that is dark, terrible and painful for us but, like all darkness, leads to even greater revealed good, the announcement came in loud and clear that Israel was saved.

    I did point out to the older Israeli lady that it’s too bad that Yachad (which is properly religious and still right on security) didn’t gain any seats. She said that she likes Eli Yishai (their leader) too, but that Hashem has plans and this is all good. When the actual results came in, we saw why:

    Israel has always been protected miraculously, in each of the wars over the past generation. Torah learning in Israel is Israel’s most powerful weapon. No military strategy could have saved Israel in the ’48 war. The Six Day War saw even greater miracles. While someone not learning Torah should do what everyone needs to, Torah learning cannot be disturbed and is the biggest act of protection for the land and its inhabitants (aside from the other considerations and military risks of integrating forced and less than motivated troops). The religious parties are not immune to the need for those not learning Torah to do their duty, but they will now seek to maintain the age old ability of those who want to learn Hashem’s Torah in Israel to be able to do so (just from a rational standpoint, this also has security advantages as the religious parties often find dampening the hatred of some of the Arabic leaders, who nonetheless respect Torah learning and has saved lives many times in very real ways).

    • lol

      #4 I see him in action and he writes about 200 words per minute. Life yes, filter no and sometimes hard to follow. But thank G-d for his work 100 times over.