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Jul 2, 2013

Is Aliza Bloch's candidacy in Bet Shemesh part of a Shas-Bayit Yehudi deal?

Disclaimer: I support Eli Cohen for mayor of Bet Shemesh. I know little about Aliza Bloch, and have seen no reason to support her over Eli Cohen. I have nothing bad to say about her, and have no plans to try to discredit her. She has the right to run, even if I think her joining so late in the game is a bad idea.

Now that we are past the disclaimer:

There is an article in Mynet about how many/some activists, even specifically female activists, in the Bayit Yehudi local party are against the candidacy of Aliza Bloch. There are plenty of reasons why they think it is a bad idea, and I don't feel the need to get into it. That is their internal debate within Bayit Yehudi. There is just one point I want to comment on.

In the article an unnamed activist is quoted as saying that she thinks that Bayit Yehudi must have made a deal with Shas, and supporting Aliza Bloch is a way of giving Bet Shemesh to Shas.

I think that is ridiculous. As misguided as I think Bayit Yehudi is in their decision to run Aliza Bloch, I think claiming she is a trojan horse as a way of guaranteeing Bet Shemesh stay in Shas hands is ridiculous.

Shas and Bayit Yehudi have not been able to agree on anything. Many attempts at coming to deals and arrangements, since before the elections until today, have all failed. There is a lot of bad blood between the two parties by now. After all those failures to come to arrangements, suddenly they are able to make a crazy deal like this, in such a politically-complicated city, and do so in order to give away control of the city? In this theory, what did Bayit Yehudi get in return? It makes no sense to me. It sounds ridiculous.

That does not mean it can't be true, but it sounds to me to be too crazy to be true.





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6 comments:

  1. Naftali Bennet was asked by Kol Brama what he was getting in return for all the compromises he was doing for Yair Lapid and all he could say was 'just wait and see'.
    I hear what you are saying, but there are in fact better relations between Shas/Mafdal on a local level since the people are probably familiar with each other on a community level.

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  2. I hear what you are saying, but it is unlikely to be accurate, as the main complaint I keep hearing over and over again from Bayit Yehudi people who tell me they are not (for now) supporting Aliza Bloch is that they are upset that the national Bayit Yehudi people made this decision without consulting the local Bayit Yehudi people.

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  3. I think that it's a mistake to run Aliza Bloch. The people wavering between Abutbol and a non-Charedi candidate - Sefardim and quasi-charedim - are not going to vote for a woman.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is spin, pure and simple. There are plenty of examples of cities with female mayoresses and Chareidi deputy mayors - Netanya (Miriam Feierberg), Arad, and others. The local sefardim are absolutely Aliza Bloch's home court. Her success as headmistress of the (now) only Hiloni school in Bet Shemesh and her Moroccan roots make her the ideal candidate.

      Aliza Bloch's personal integrity would not allow her to announce her candidacy before the school year was over, although she was obviously preparing well in advance, so the "very late in the game" argument doesn't hold water either.

      Rather, we should be asking; if Eli Cohen is such a wonderful candidate, how come he did NOT receive backing from any of the major parties?

      Delete
  4. As an oleh chadash who has had some political campaign experiences and working for political officeholders for many years I have a bit of a different take. Rafi might be right but not likely considering the very different goals and personal animosity between Shas leaders and Bennett. More likely, BY and YA are trying to build their political parties from the grassroots. Their wins at the national level were as much a fluke of good timing and stupid alliances made by other politicos that angered voters and created a vacuum BY and YA filled. Now they do not want to leave the next election to chance and building from bottom up is the priority: winning Mayoral and City Council seats is how they do it in America from where these guys take their advice. Bloch is just the first of what will be many new local candidates...even if they don't expect to win right now. The goal is national elections with partisans working hard in return for gifts now. Their backing Bloch is also a slap/challenge at Netanyahu and Likud. Right out of the Chicago playbook.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Running a candidate that will fail is a big risk. These elections are for five long years, with very little chance of no-confidence votes to topple a local municipal government.

      Delete

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