With Palestinian terror groups generally committed to a lull in the fighting with Israel and Arab countries debating normalizing ties with the Jewish state, some in Israel see signs that the 57-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict finally may be winding down.
Does 2 percent of the country really believe legalizing pot is the most important issue? Are 12 percent really going to vote for Lapid, a former in-your-face talk-show host whose primary goal is to secularize the country?
Like marijuana?
Believe in men\’s rights? Want a secular state?
If you happen to have an offbeat or nonmainstream platform for Israel, now is the time to run in the Jan. 28 parliamentary elections. One lesson to be learned from the list of the 30 parties vying for Knesset (see page 18) is that Israelis are disenfranchised, and looking for alternatives to the major National Security issue.Â
And while Aleh Yarok (Green Leaf) — the party promoting marijuana legalization — always seems to hit the headlines a week or two before elections (despite publicity before the last elections in 1999, the party mustered 34,029 votes, representing slightly more than 1 percent of the electorate — 15,000 votes short of the 1.5 percent threshold for Knesset membership), other parties with less headline-grabbing platforms are really set to win big.
Israel backers are raising numerous concerns about the latest version of the U.S. "road map" for Middle East peace.
While Israel reformed its formerly British-based system to allow for the direct election of the prime minister for the first time in the 1996 elections, it has still retained much of the British doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty.
To encourage the partisan faithful, the campaign rivals are offering heavily subsidized round-trip fares, with the stay in Israel limited to a few days bracketing the election dates.
Kenneth Bob, a software executive from Long Island,N.Y., is registered to vote in this month\’s World Zionist Congress elections, but he\’s having a hard time deciding how to cast his ballot.
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