My Potential Choices: Pros and Cons

These are the parties I might vote for on March 28:

Labor

Pros:

1. They have some excellent people on their list, including a few people I wouldn't mind seeing in the prime minister's office one day (Avishai Braverman and Ophir Pines-Paz).
2. Their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the closest to my own: we need an agreed settlement, not more unilateral steps.
3. I support their stance on education.

Cons:

1. Amir Peretz is too much of a socialist. As head of the Histadrut, the big labor union, he did a lot to stop economic progress in Israel. He didn't take care of workers rights, but made sure certain strong unions retain their extra privileges. It is also said that he used the Histadrut to force employees to join his previous party and then Labor, winning the primary election that way.
2. Labor does not promise to work for greater separation of religion and state. There is nothing in their platform about civic marriages.

Meretz

Pros:

1. They support civil marriage and greater separation of church and state.
2. Number 6 on the Meretz list, Dr. Zvia Greenfield, an ultra-orthodox woman who supports a secular state, is very impressive. She won't be in the next Knesset if the party doesn't get at least 6 seats, and the polls show them at between 4 to 6 seats right now.

Cons:

1. They are too left-wing on both the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and economically. They support high taxes and are pretty gullible when it comes to negotiations.
2. I dislike Meretz's chairman, Yossi Beilin.
3. They say they won't support a civil marriage bill that would not include same-sex marriages. Though I support gay marriage, I don't think the "all or nothing" approach would do any good. Leaping from a backwards state of only religious weddings to a liberal state of same-sex marriages may be impossible now. For now, the focus should be on allowing a man and woman to get married any way they choose, while protecting the rights of same sex couples.

Hetz (ultra-secular, majority of Shinui's Knesset members)

Pros

1. Someone needs to protect the secular majority - though Meretz is secular it isn't its top priority, but it is Hetz's.

Cons

1. More than they are liberal, they are anti-religious. Actually, they are not quite liberal in that sense.
2. They got 15 seats last time (under the Shinui banner), and were in the government, but achieved very little.
3. They probably won't pass the 2 percent threshold, thus voting for them would be a waste of a ballot.

The Retired Pensioners (Ha'Gimlaim)

Pros:

1. We all want to reach retirement age some day.
2. I support their stance regarding protecting pensions.

Cons:

1. The 2% threshold thing again.
2. They're a one-issue party.
3. I'm more than 40 years away from retirement myself.
4. My main interest in them would be as a protest vote, but who'll notice the protest?

Tags: Israel, Israeli Politics, Politics, Israeli Elections