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BBC Monitoring Quotes From Israel's Hebrew Press 28 Mar 06

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 06:00 CST

The following is a selection of quotes from editorials published in 28 Mar editions of Hebrew-language Israeli newspapers available to BBCM.

Election day

"For the first time, the tradition of a Likud-Labour duel for power will be broken in favour of a third party [Kadima], whose identity and future unity are still largely unknown. However, these elections create a golden opportunity to change Israel's political history. Anyone who misses this opportunity - by putting an invalid slip in the ballot box or by abstaining - has essentially absented himself from the intricacies of Israeli life\ The choice is between the continued occupation of territory and annexation of millions of hostile Palestinians, with ghetto-like communities dispersed among the Palestinian population - as Likud and the right-wing parties propose - versus trying to loosen the Gordian knot and despair of educating the Palestinians. But mostly the choice is whether to end the amorphousness of the lack of borders and create a clear Israeli identity, as Kadima and the left-wing parties are proposing\" [From editorial in left-of-centre, independent broadsheet Ha'aretz]

"Today is the day of the voter\ We are not out of our minds to recommend in these mad hours the worthy party, the people who will lead. Had it depended on us we would have liked to see in that building in Jerusalem [Knesset] people who know how to change their ideological opinions by force of the circumstance like [Acting Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, who appear on TV like [Likud Chairman] Bibi Netanyahu, the warm and carriers of the social flag like [Labour Chairman] Amir Peretz and the honest like [Tafnit leader] Uzi Dayan however the poet has already asked: `Where can people like that man be found?'. We do not have the answer, certainly not today." [From editorial in centrist, largest circulation Yediot Aharonot]

"The election campaign has yielded four central messages. First, there is a need to continue the disengagement from the [occupied] territories, to continue evacuating settlements. Second, the social gap must be narrowed. Third, the state is ripe for a new, civilian leadership. Fourth, corruption cannot go on. These are healthy messages in all. It began with a dream about a `big bang': the creation of a party of elders led by [Likud leader Ariel] Sharon, [Labour leader Shimon] Peres and [Shinui leader Yosef] Lapid. One was hospitalized, the second wins great honour but has no real influence [Peres] and the third was disgracefully thrown out of the political system [Lapid]. They say the revolution eats its sons. In this case it ate the fathers. Right now the sons feel totally not bad." [From commentary by Nahum Barnea in centrist, largest circulation Yediot Aharonot]

"We have been living for many years in an on-going, bloody, complicated and twisted drama characterized by political and security zigzagging, economic crises and their painful solutions, dazzling successes in new technological spheres and difficult problems of adjusting the economy to the age of globalization. The Israeli voter, who tends to complain about all these and about zigzagging politicians who find it difficult to provide complete solutions stands today before the opportunity to shape his future and fate with his decision at the ballot box. It is forbidden for the voter to belittle this opportunity. It is forbidden for him to feel helpless and that his vote lacks influence. He must feel the mighty charm of democracy in which the big power of a single slip is in this that it is never alone but joins another and another slip that in the wonderful alchemy of elections turn from thin slips of paper to a big force capable of moving mountains, altering world orders and shaping a new reality\" [From editorial of centre-right Ma'ariv]

"This is not the time and hour to settle accounts, no matter how justified, that reduce the turnout and weaken the hand of public delegates who work for Israel's sanctities, the wholeness of our sacred Torah, the wholeness of our sacred land\ We must all act also among our acquaintances and friends and each and every one to increase the power of Judaism and this way be partner to the acquittal of all, on the one hand, and preventing as far as possible further possible erosions in matters that concern religion (marriage and divorce issues, preserving the sacred Sabbath, the wholeness of our sacred land, religious education and all the Torah values that include caring for the families of Israel). The truth is that he who does not participate in electing religious representatives in the Knesset in fact gives his vote and power to those who want to narrow the religious influence in the struggle over the Jewish character of life systems in the Land of Israel\" [From commentary by Shaul Schiff in National Religious Party affiliate Hatzofe]

"It's all over. Just look at those eleventh-hour surveys. In Monday's final pre-election poll published by The Jerusalem Post, Kadima and the parties potentially willing to support it mustered a staggering 95 to 97 seats in the 120-member Knesset\ Except that there are other ways of building blocs, and arranging the parties according to how it was traditionally assumed they would prefer to align themselves provides a very different picture\ Except that those traditional preferences can no longer all be so confidently assumed\Except that the turnout among those not on the ideological Right is expected to be lower than ever in Israeli history; that, on the other hand, some of those Israelis most aggrieved by disengagement may not vote either, and that account must be taken of both the last-minute decisions of the undecided and the complex redistribution of the tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of votes cast for parties that fail to clear the 2-percent Knesset threshold. All of that, and all manner of pollsters' potential errors, could certainly yet make a mockery of all the arithmetic." [From commentary by David Horovitz in English-language Jerusalem Post]

Sources: as listed

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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