As Election Day draws nigh, Fringe Parties seek High Voter Turnout in Israel

It’s coming down to the wire in Israeli elections, to be held tomorrow. After all this Cast Lead bloodshed in Gaza, political energy inside Israel lurched to the right. Security is paramount and countering nuclear-armed Iran and justifying Israeli “defensive” overkill seems to be the constant drumbeat of politicians. Whatever happened to concern over economic freefall and official corruption?
Excuse me while I dodge this Qassam, maam.

Not many Israeli voters think cleanliness is next to godliness this time round. Tzipi Livni (aka Ms Clean) suddenly is scrambling, assuring would-be supporters that she is far more likely to charm cooperation from President Barack Obama than hard-ass rivals such as Bibi Netanyahu or Ehud Barak, the defence minister.

Funny thing is that , even this late in the campaign, at least 20 per cent of the voters have yet to make up their minds. And another 20 per cent—the Arab-Israelis—are unlikely to cast ballots at all.

Enter Avidgor Lieberman, the Soviet émigré and former nightclub bouncer who lives in a settlement. He appeals to youth and the intolerant by bashing Israeli Arabs and calling for their “transfer” out of the country. No loyalty, no citizenship, he mutters. And if this sounds like a mafia oath, more power to him, say his backers. When Lieberman underwent a police probe for a money laundering and bribery scam involving his daughter, his followers managed to put a positive spin on it. Surely, the ruling party Kadima, which is tainted with its own graft scandals, set up the man who dares to speak politically incorrect truths. What’s more, Lieberman makes Bibi look less hawkish and even more electable.

Lieberman’s message is gaining resonance.

"Israel is under a dual terrorist attack, from within and from without,"he says, "And terrorism from within is always more dangerous than terrorism from without."

It’s a slippery slope. Who next will have their loyalty questioned? The Ethiopian immigrants? Mizrahi Jews with Middle Eastern bloodlines?
Not everyone we know is resigned that the next leader of Israel will be Netanyahu, particularly if it’s a close-result and President Shimon Peres will have some discretion in naming the prime minister. Whoever wins will need to hammer together a coalition in order to rule.

The choice of potential political bedfellows is intriguing. Speaking of high office – get a whiff of the latest offshoot from the Green Leaf Party, now known as the Grown-Up Green Leaf. It’s a weird combo of cannabis users and death camp survivors, and emerged after the original Green Leaf party rolled out a controversial election advert featuring the party head, Gil Kopatch, toking up a spliff at the grave of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Some members disapproved and did not get the joke.
Of all the fringe parties on the ballot for Knesset, this new one, pushing pensioner rights along with penalty-free pot, has to be one of the quirkiest. Monster Raving Loony Party, it's not. They have a manifesto and some of the Pensioners were elected to Knesset seats in the last election.

This surreal alliance between Holocaust survivors and marijuana proponents undoubtedly is helped by medical marijuana , which has eased pain for some of the cancer-stricken elderly. But it doesn't necessarily cloud their judgment.

Yaakov Kfir, 74, who survived the Holocaust as a child in Yugoslavia, said he welcomed the party's embrace of Israel's estimated 350,000 survivors, who are often impoverished and side-lined in a society that extols military might. Kfir lost his parents at age 6 to the Final Solution. After emigrating to Israel, he became an air force officer and later an activist for the rights of survivors. Now the party is energized.

"They [survivors] know what it feels like to be persecuted for no reason. They can identify with us," party-head Shem-Tov said.

Here’s one of their campaign spots.

Breakdown & Rehab insurance devised for blissed-out Israeli backpackers who vanish

It's become a rite of passage. Israeli youth, who are required to serve two to three years in the army, take time off afterward to backpack around the world and just "chill". You'll easily spot these fit young Sabras unwinding-- mainly in Asia or
Latin America. Often Israelis stick together during their months-long holidays and they are apt to bargain fiercely to save the odd rupee and turn up their noses at spicy local cuisine to insist on Israeli-style snacks. Budget guest houses in Goa, India or Ko Samui, Thailand cater to them with signs and menus lettered in Hebrew. Adventures and new freedom sometimes tempt Israeli youth to go astray, by experimenting with cults or drugs, and every year thousands bliss out or simply vanish, much to their family's dismay. The backpackers compound post traumatic stress syndrome from army service with sensory overload and culture shock. Adulterated drugs, bad company, and bad judgment play a role, too.
According to journalist Conal Urquhart,

Now an Israeli insurance company is offering a unique policy to parents to cover a professional search team, repatriation and psychiatric rehabilitation for their missing children.

About 50,000 Israelis a year go trekking after their military service and before university or work. The Israeli charity War on Drugs estimates that 90 per cent take drugs at least once on their travels. Some two-thirds go to the Far East and about a third to South America. The charity estimates that each year 2,000 travellers suffer
mental illness brought on by drug abuse or spiritual confusion and between 600 and 800 are admitted to psychiatric wards.

Phoenix Insurance Israel offers a £100 policy to parents to cover most of the costs of rescue and treatment over 90 days. Repatriation alone can cost as much as £8,000...

The new policy was initiated by Hilik Magnum, who has operated a search and rescue company for 13 years. 'We started by providing search and rescue services in the Himalayas and other mountains, but what started as a pure search and rescue operation became an intelligence operation,' he said. 'Young people get involved in some kind of drug abuse in their travels and they lose contact with their parents, they contact us and we help get them back to their family.'

Magnum says deals regularly with psychotics, and returns them to Omri Frisch's therapy center for off-the-rails Israelis, located in the seaside town of Caesaria. It's called Kfar Izun, or Village Balance.
'Most of our patients are well-educated or served in high-profile units in the army such as intelligence and combat. We offer treatment instead of hospitalisation. A recent study found that 94 per cent of our patients achieve some degree of improvement,' Frisch told the London Observer.

Last December, Israel's government announced plans to open its own drug rehab centre in Goa, India, to treat youthful budget travellers. Officials estimate that 2,000 out of the 40,000 Israelis who visit India every year dabble in illegal drugs, mostly hashish, ecstasy, opium, or heroin.

Annually, some 600 Israeli backpackers return from India with physical damage caused by drugs. A Goan centre called Beit Ha Haam (the warm house) now has backing from the Israel Drug Authority. Most families prefer to have their kids repatriated back to Israel, no matter what the cost.

Is cannabis Kosher?

In the lead-up to Passover celebrations, observant Jews are expected to ritually clean their households and give away offending foodstuffs. On their front page, the Jerusalem Post today highlights the current confusion over whether keeping hemp products in the house violates any religious traditions of kitnyot, practiced by most devout Ashkenazies. (Marijuana and hashish are clearly classified as illegal by Israeli police, although enforcement of this law can be patchy.)


Now, the Aleh Yorok (Green Leaf) Party spokesperson, Michelle Levine, wonders whether a seasonal prohibition of marijuana implies that during the rest of the year, cannabis is kosher. The party, activists for legalizing hashish, is awaiting a Rabbinical consensus on this quandary before its leaders issue a joint statement.

Weed-whiffers in Israel, after all, are not exactly enjoying high times these days. The Green Leaf Party did not fare well in the Knesset elections. Some Israeli potheads blame the problems on that nasty Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his minions: after the summer war destroyed prime croplands with rockets, mortars and tank treads and further blocked smuggling routes for any Lebanese Blonde which was harvested, prices surged 800 per cent. (Already, smokers were concerned that their indulgence might constitute high treason, since some traffickers' profits allegdly went to Hizbollah's coffers. Or should that be coughers?)
At any rate, tossing out such high-priced spliffs in order to keep kosher strikes some smokers as unfair. Others argue that it's just a token sacrifice.

Late addendum: Keeping kitnyot was effectively quashed when legume-eating was ruled kosher, according to Ynet news. This may give a whole new slant to the high holy days.