Updated Post on the Israeli election campaign

The Israeli election campaign is in full swing, and election propaganda is a crucial part of it - advertisements from the various parties broadcast after the evening news on television. Jeffrey Goldberg brought my attention to an incredible advertisement for the Israeli Green Leaf party. The party platform aims at legalizing marijuana. They have now decided to take up the cause of Holocaust survivors in Israel. Their election ad combines these two causes:



Update: From the JTA: "Perhaps the most unusual alliance in this year's election is between the Green Leaf Party, which has no seats in the Knesset, and the Pensioners' Party, which has six. Renamed the Holocaust Survivors' and Grown-Up Green Leaf Party, the party's prime issues are legalizing marijuana and pensioners' rights, especially those of Holocaust survivors. One of the party's TV ads shows party head Gil Kopatch smoking a joint at the grave of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion."

Lisa Goldman has also just posted on this bizarre match-up. (She also reports on the much more terrifying prospect that Bibi Netanyahu may be Israel's next prime minister - and as she said, he was the worst Israeli prime minister ever. I was living in Israel for part of that time, and he demonstrated the most amazing incompetence I have seen until the Bush II years in the U.S.)

From the "Holocaust Survivors and Grown-Up Green Leaf Party" website: "The Holocaust Survivors & Grown-Up Green Leaf party is a green, human rights, liberal movement founded in 2008 as a unity of activists from the Green-Leaf party and the Holocaust Survivors movement. Today we running for Knesset for the first time. The ideology we are interested in forwarding is personal freedom, quality of life and decriminalization and legalization of all applications of the cannabis plant. We are a movement of activists that are connected by a common love of Basic Human Freedom. We have no stable source of financial backing and only you can help us realize our vision by giving your personal generous support." Their blog is also entertaining to read and gives the names and biographies of the candidates on the list.

Lisa has also posted the election advertisement for the Hadash Party. Their slogan is "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies." On the evidence of the ad, if I were an Israeli citizen, I would be very inclined to vote for Hadash.