Many say that the campaign spots on television are extremely boring. May Isuggest to them something much more interesting. Downright riveting!Instead of looking for what is shown, I look for and see only what is notshown. This is a whole lot more fascinating, because it attests to thenational state of mind, at least in the view of thepropaganda experts. For example:
Transfer. After the Israeli public saw with its own eyes what Transfer inKosovo looks like, it was decided by the “National Unity” partyhide this program. But the number two man on thelist has espoused and continues to espouse that very idea. It doesnot bother Benny Begin, the number one man, in the least. It must bethat famous honesty of his.
Benny Begin’s candidacy for Prime Minister. The “National Unity”party, led by Begin, hasn’t heard anything about it.
The Left. Quite a few parties are competing for the title of the Right.”The Wise Right” of the National Religious Party. “The Only Right” ofBegin. “A Strong and Reasonable Right” of Rafael Eitan. To say nothingof the Likud itself. But the Left? Noone wants to be Left.It is mentioned only in Likud broadcasts to brand its enemies.the .
The Wye Agreement — Never heard of it.
Settlements. The most burning issue in the country, the very cause of thehalt to the peace process. The heart and soul of the ideology of thenationalist and religious Right. But with the exception of somesplit-second mention in National-Religious and Begin TV spots, thesubject is entirely absent from the propaganda. Except forMeretz.
The candidates of the two big parties. The entire off-putting bandcrowding around Netanyahu is gone: Tsahi Hanegbi (he stars only in thebroadcasts of his enemies), Doron Shmueli, Limor Livnatand the rest have hisappeared as if by magic. But the impressiveLabor bunch has also disappeared: Ben-Ami, an electoral asset bygeneral consent, Baram, Beilin (who stars only in Likud broadcasts),Ramon and Burg. Gone with the wind.
Dedi Zucker. He is the leader of the “Greens”, but the Greens hide himcompletely. They hide the peace as well, which used tobe Zucker’s trademark. Their program says: “In the end, peace willcome. It’s only a matter of time. And in the meantime…” In themeantime let’s deal with other issues. Peace, after all, will come ofitself. Automatically. No need at all to fight for it.
The Prime Ministry. Many parties — from Tommy Lapid and The Greens toMeretz and “The Third Way,” to the weepy Penina Rosenblum, all say: “Onevote for Prime Minister, one vote for ‘our’ party.” In other words, itdoes not matter who you vote for as Prime Minister; the most importantthing is our party. In my opinion, any party that does not endorse aspecific candidate for Prime Minister must not be given any votes, sinceit is unclear whom it would support in the Knesset.
Tommy Lapid’s views. He curses the Haredim. That is now popular. Hedoes not mention other religious groups, as that seems to be lesspopular. But in particular, he keeps silent about his own views. Onthe TV talk-shows his extreme rightist views used to be veryprominent. Those are now absent in the campaign spots.
Arafat stars only in Rightist commercials. In “One Israel” (the newname of the Labor party) — silence. “One Israel” treats him as adirty secret. They show Rabin shaking hands with King Hussein. Butwith Hussein even Limor Livnat could have made peace. Israel kepthim in power for over 45 years. Rabin’s greatness and uniqueness wasin making peace with Arafat. For that he was murdered. In hiding hishistorical achievement, “One Israel” has murdered him forthe second time.
The Arabic language. In practically all of the TV spots there are Russiansubtitles. But with the exception of the communist broadcasts, theArabic language is absent.
Then, just what is present in these broadcasts? There is one thing whichis putting its imprint on the elections and which reflects the immensechange that has taken place over the past few years: The bigcounteroffensive by the secular bloc against the religious bloc hasbegun. Until recently, the situation was one-sided: The religious cursingand humiliating the secular. Now we see a few parties — Shinui, YisraelB’Aliyah, Meretz and a little bit of One Israel, who are hoping tocapitalize on the increasing hate of the secular for the religious. Justas Deri is capitalizing on the hate of the religious for the secular.
A wise Rabbi would have advised the religious to lower their profile andtemporarily halt their campaign of robbery of the state coffers. But thatcan’t happen. The internal competition within the religious camp preventsany moderation. In the next elections this could bethe central theme.