Percentage of Israelis who say Obama is pro-Israel: Four

The two most left-wing, Israel-hating Jewish parties have 6% of the Knesset, which means that they have more Jewish support than 6%, since arab parties also have around 6% of the Knesset. The Precedent can’t even get the full support of these lunatics on the Jewish side. Wow.

progressoverpeace on August 28, 2009 at 6:11 PM

Though I take your point, I beleive that number is actually 20%. Which also happens to be their % of representation in the Knesset.

Archimedes on August 28, 2009 at 6:36 PM

Your population number is correct, but their representation in the Knesset is less because something like 30-40% of arabs boycott national elections as a protest to the existence of Israel … thank G-d.

progressoverpeace on August 28, 2009 at 7:03 PM

TXUS on August 28, 2009 at 7:09 PM

Actually, the unfortunate truth is that Israel is very socialist, though that has been changing (for the better) over the recent years. Many of the founders were Jewish communists, ergo the kibbutzim – which were the purest implementations of socialism the planet has ever seen, on scales that were the most workable, and whose downfalls are very instructive on the basic flaws of socialism and show better than anything else why socialism can never work. Still, a sizeable percentage of Israeli Jews bend towards socialism. This poll reflects something much more problematic; a very serious fear of the state being physically annihilated. So much so that even many of the Israeli Jews who vote for parties that want to weaken the state are scared that The Precedent has plans for Israel that go far beyond anything they ever entertained. Israeli Jews recognize the anti-Western nature of The Precedent and even the self-haters among them cannot believe what they see coming.

That’s my view of it, anyway.

progressoverpeace on August 28, 2009 at 7:32 PM

My pleasure, TXUS. I didn’t want to step on your point, which was an entirely reasonable conclusion to come to. I spent a couple of years on kibbutzim and learned everything I needed to know about socialism from that – the kibbutzim used to have the really whacko-left influences, such as children all being raised in a communal house, outside of the parents’ home – all sorts of truly crazy stuff. But even the died-in-the-wool socialists who built them could not sustain the socialist structures, as the later generations of kibbutzniks were just disgusted by the practices, which were unnatural, and then they ran them all to financial ruin – except for a couple or three – and that was the end of that. Now, most kibbutzim have been privatized and sold off, or at least have had to redesign themselves to take individualism into account (i.e. having individual accounts for everyone and having people pay for their own electricity and such), which was all a huge no-no before.

Interestingly, the kibbutzim turned out huge percentages of elite fighters (something like 10 times their representation among the top commando units and pilots) but I think that had a lot more to do with the fact that they were the farming communities than anything else.

progressoverpeace on August 28, 2009 at 8:41 PM