The talk in the locker room at the Jerusalem Pool has been surprisingly conciliatory since the election last week. Dani, who voted Meretz (after seriously considering Hadash) and Siman, who voted Likud, agree that the next coalition should consist of the Likud, Kadima, and Labor, under Bibi Netanyahu’s leadership.
When I pointed out that the foreign and economic policies on which Likud and Kadima would be hard to square unless one or the other party betrayed its principles, Dani and Siman insisted that the differences were negligible. So Kadima advocates cutting a deal with the Palestinians in which they’d receive nearly all the West Bank, whereas Likud promises that no such deal will be forthcoming. So Likud advocates tax cuts and a tight budget while Kadima’s program calls for a larger deficit and more government spending to stimulate the economy. When you get down to it, Dani and Siman insist, they’re really the same.
Why this yearning for the country’s large parties to rule together? President Obama has been learning some lessons in recent weeks about the futility of seeking bipartisanship when the ideological differences between the parties are real. Haven’t Dani and Siman been reading the papers?…
Read the rest on Jewcy–Comment there or here.
