Tzipi Livni and the Haredim

Small parties have seen some success in the past running on an anti-Haredi platform. The greatest of them all was the Shinui party led by Tommy Lapid. They had the greatest of the temporary successes on that platform, but they eventually folded. Some other parties had more limited success, gaining a couple of seats using the haredim as their bashing board, but they all disappeared.

People do not see the Haredim as the threat against the country. You can use the Haredim to scare voters only so much. People are more concerned about other things. The economy and security are clearly greater concerns.

When a candidate has nothing to sell, nothing to offer, they use the haredim as their fallback platform, because it always brings in good press. Tzipi Livni is posturing with a lot of recent anti-haredi chatter. She won't give them this, she won't give them that.

That is all fine and dandy, but at the end of the day, the voters are not going to be inspired and come out to vote on an anti-haredi platform. Those days are behind us, and there are much more pressing concerns today. Does anybody really care that the haredim are not working, when companies are laying employees off right and left and jobs are scarce? When someody sees his pension funds disappearing, and his job possibly as well, does he really think the greatest threat is the haredi who does not serve in the army? When he looks at the growing threat of Iran, does he really think dealing with the haredim will solve anything?

All the recent statements by Tzipi Livni simply attest to the fact that she is a failure and has nothing to offer. She has turned to the last resort of "anti-haredi" rhetoric. She fails to motivate her supporters. Surprisingly the polls are still giving Kadima high returns with mandates in the upper-twenties. Either the polls are wrong, and they will get much less, or I fail to understand why she is using such rhetoric when there are much more pressing issues. Anti-haredi rhetoric can only sustain a party for so long, as people see that a) nothing will change, no matter what the candidate said, and b) they have much greater concerns that are not being dealt with.

Anyway - how ill she avoid giving Shas what they want? According to the pols and analysts, the left wing parties, even with the Arab parties, will only acheive a minority of seats. Meaning even if Livni and Kadima surprise us and pull off a victory over Bibi (it is more likely for Bibi to crash than for Livni to rise), she still will not likely be able to form a government without Shas.

So as Tzipi increases her anti-haredi ranting, you know she is getting more and more frustrated and desperate...