Guest post by RaP
A funny thing happened on the way to the recent Israeli elections: A lot of Israeli Jews got lost along the way! How so you may rightly ask?
For most people the Israeli method of elections is puzzling. Basically it is based on the "proportional representation" model. Votes are cast for parties and the votes are then added up and divided "proportionally" so that if party X receives 10% of the vote it will get about 10% of the members in the 120 member Knesset. There is also a requirement to meet a minimum threshold percentage to "qualify" for the final dividing-up of the percentages. This was done to eliminate gadfly small parties and keep them from splintering the Knesset that would hinder forming governing coalitions and setting up governments. For the last election the minimum threshold required was raised to above 3% of the required total in order to be in the running for the final division of votes for numbers of seats. Thus many smaller or smallish parties decided to "unite" in order to surpass the minimum threshold requirements as well as to strengthen their chances against larger parties.
The one group that figured out all the angles and put into motion a "solution" was Israeli Arabs and a small group of Israeli Jewish Communists who work within those parties. The Israeli Communist party under various names has long merged into and morphed into an Arab Israeli party. In the recent elections four diverse and conflicting Israeli Arab parties united know as the generic "United Arab List" and as a result they did exceedingly well becoming the third largest single block in the incoming Knesset almost doubling their representation to 14 Knesset members! That means that this group has basically succeeded in crowding out most of the small Israeli Jews' parties some to near or virtual extinction and others to bare bones numbers that has sent them reeling.
It was probably the main reason that the new Israeli Yachad party headed by Israeli Sefardi ex-SHAS veteran political leader Eli Yishai just missed making it into the Knesset where the smallest parties under the current allocations are not less than four members. Thus four popular well-known Israeli Charedi and Orthodox Jews, consisting of Sefardim and Ashkenazim, under the guidance of Rav Meir Mazuz, representing a huge group of Charedi and Orthodox Jews, as well as serious Religious Zionist voters disgusted with Bennett's "Bayit Yehudi" party's flippant attitude to serious Torah Judaism were shut out of the new Knesset because the Israeli Arabs united and organized in such a way to pump up their own numbers that ensured that parties like Yachad and Eli Yishai and his ally Zev Marzel were "defeated"!
They know this quite well and some of the new Israeli Arab future Knesset members have openly bragged to the press that they are proud of the fact that managed to keep Eli Yishai and Zev Marzel and all of Yachad out of the next Knesset. And who do the Arab Israeli new Knesset members represent? Communists on one side and real dyed in the wool Arab Islamic fundamentalists with full regalia and all as the new anarchists to sit in the Israeli Knesset historically mainly meant to be a place for all Jews to have a political voice. This is a cruel twist of political irony. True, that this is the way a democracy like this works and the Arab Israelis deserve their well thought out and well funded and executed Pyrrhic victory, thinking they have now "stormed the Bastille" but they are living in a fool's paradise because only in Israel would Jews allow something like this to get off the ground. In Arab lands they long ago kicked out all the Jews, confiscated their property, and now that they don't have Jews to persecute, they have taken to killing Arab Christians and burning down their churches, as they all fight and kill each other with Sunni versus Shia, Arabs versus Iranians, and secular versus Islamic radicals. While in Israel they adopt the language of moderation and talk like lawyers and hot TV celebrities as they smile for the cameras, win debating points and make sure to provoke fellow Israeli Knesset members into furious rages with open support for Hamas and all sorts of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist invective.
This affected not just Eli Yishai and his Yachad party forcing them to shrink into political oblivion, but even a hardened political operative like Avigdor Liberman the leader of Russian Israelis in the Knesset rightly called it a "political assassination"! Just what does that mean?
All the Israeli political parties received outside financial and political help and boosts. Likud has its super-capitalist backers overseas while Labor has its ultra-liberal backers who pumped money and advisers in. Charedim got plenty of backing from rich American backers and advisors. Seems Liberman and his part did not get such backing from Russian Jews abroad, maybe because they are not as open-handed as other groups, but one thing is for sure, the new "Arab List" party received lots of good help and advice for itself that worked.
There was a group that came in to Israel from the USA according to multiple news sources headed by people who had helped to get Obama elected that allied with Israeli leftists and radicals. This new group dubbed itself "V15" and it was assumed they were working mostly to hand the Labor block a victory in the "2015" elections -- but this is just one dimension of what they were up it now transpires.
It is very possible and even probable and totally conceivable that "V15" actually means the goal to elect into the Knesset of the Jewish state, 15 Israeli Arabs that in turn would squeeze out problematic smaller parties like Eli Yishai's Yachad party that voiced strong views about Arabs by its member Zev Marzel, as well as shrink down and neuter as much as possible any and all other Israeli Jewish parties by cutting down on the number of Knesset seats they could hope to have and hence voices in the Knesset for Israeli Jews would be shut down and put out of action, and it worked. Not quite 15 maybe, but 14 is excellent for them and those 14 now take over slots and crowd out Israeli Jewish voices in the Knesset that should rightfully and historically belong to Jewish Israelis who founded the Jewish state of Israel not as a venue for Arab nationalism and anti-Israel and anti-Jewish diatribes but as a voice for all Jews first and foremost something virtually all Charedi and Orthodox Jews understand all too well.
Maybe it is a measure for measure from Heaven above, that once upon a time Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D stood as a new voice in the Knesset but he was ostracized and at one point when there were going to be new elections in his time it was predicted he would gain huge increased support and votes from Israeli Jews to the tune of also perhaps from 10 to 15 potential new Knesset members. But PM Shamir and his cohorts panicked and they banned Kahane and his party from the Knesset for being "racist" and soon thereafter Kahane was assassinated becoming the first victim of Arab terrorism aka Jihad in America that came into full view on 9/11 when over 3,000 Americans lost their lives to the same Islamic radicals out to destroy not just Kahane, Israel and the Jews but to crush America and bring the entire Western World to its knees and bow down to Islam by the force of their swords!
So now instead Israel has allowed some proven Arab racist Knesset members who have even faced serious sanctions for their anti-Israel bashing and ranting and actions visiting terrorist groups abroad. While the Israeli Supreme Court supported them, now with the help of "V15" who mobilized the Arab Israeli vote like never before there are now at least 14 of these people. So that when in the past Israeli Jews blocked the potential growth of other Israeli Jews they did not like Kahane's party's growth, now they have to live with the Arab nationalist's growth which is far worse and more dangerous for the Jews and the Jewish state.
So watch out what you wish for, it may come true, and the "V15" group have made the Israeli ultra-leftists' and Arab Israeli wishes come true allowing the Israeli Jews to roll out the red carpet for a true Trojan Horse and Fifth Columnists in their own Israeli Knesset, folks that wish to see the demolition, shrinkage and disappearance of the small Jewish state from the Middle East once and for all.
May HKB"H have mercy on the Jewish People everywhere and save them from the whiles of its enemies both near and far as he did on Purim and Pesach, Amen!