Tuesday (March 3rd): “Super Tuesday” Israel edition.

Benjamin Netanjahu

Name? Benjamin Netanyahu

Westphalian Identity? Israeli

Age? 70

Why is he in the news? Israelis voted for the third time in a year and it seems like Netanyahu actually came out on top, yet, once again, short of a majority. 

Why do we care? One of us has still not booked his flight to Tel Aviv since he is going on exchange there and would love to enter a stable country. At the same time, elections in Israel are public holidays, and we like holidays, so keep on voting Israel. You can do it!

Why should you care?  Israel is a major player in the Middle East. Being involved in Syria and causing diplomats a headache over Palestine makes them important. And this important player has been without a functional government for a year, leaving plenty of issues unresolved. 

Who else cares? The court that is investigating and trying Netanyahu for corruption in two weeks. Interesting to see that people are still, in 2020, willing to vote for corrupt individuals. But hey, Praesumptio innocentiae still counts for something, right?

Any further comments? It seems like Trump’s deal of the century (more like campaign help of the century) did help Netanyahu to gain more votes in this election as his opponent Gantz was ahead of him last time. Other candidates not to ignore are the Joint-list, mainly representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, which gained votes as well in this election. 

As it seems right now, we will be reporting about a fourth election in Israel soon, next time directly from there so stay tuned! (That is if we manage to book our flights and Corona does not stop us…)

Joshua Dario Hasenstab

General Coordinator