As Israelis prepare to head to the polls Tuesday, Netanyahu doesn’t conceal his desperation very well, does he?
Is it possible there is a relationship between this on the one hand and this (Bibi gets lots of foreign support too) and this (a complete reversal of his 2009 Bar Ilan speech) on the other?
All that and Sarah Silverman too.
Update: Looks like it’s Sarah Silverman versus Chuck Norris.
ISRAEL!
If you are a Meretz supporter you NEED to VOTE MARCH 17. Every vote counts. If you don't vote, you can't complain
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) March 11, 2015
Thank you for the campaign support @chucknorris ! http://t.co/ZdNIVrUHRn #israelex
— בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 16, 2015
Further update: Jeffrey Goldberg writes:
It is possible to understand an Israeli leader’s hesitancy about creating a Palestinian state at this exact moment—one in which the Arab state system seems to be in partial collapse; one in which Sunni extremism is on the march; and one in which Iran appears to be in an expansionist mode. But a leader who is interested in protecting Israel’s status as a haven for the Jewish people (a haven whose necessity is being proven again, unfortunately) while maintaining it as a democracy, would at least create conditions on the West Bank that could allow a Palestinian state to one day emerge, and he would certainly not disavow his promise to work to bring such a state about, no matter how many votes were at stake.
Additional update: In Israel, unlike in the US, prison inmates are allowed to vote.
Another update: Bibi sends out a panicked Facebook message about large numbers of Arab citizens of Israel exercising their democratic right to vote.
The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out. We have no V15, we have no Order 8 [code for emergency call up to IDF reserve duty], we have only you. Get out to vote, bring your friends and family, vote Likud in order to close the gap between us and Labor.
Who knows, Bibi? Maybe some of them are even voting for Likud. Or were planning to, until you sent this message.
[A]n Arab Muslim man named Khaled from the nearby town of Fureidis comes in to take a Netanyahu t-shirt, and said that he and the rest of the town would be voting for the Likud. He said the right wing party helped repair local infrastructure in the area in recent years, perhaps explaining part of how they received 15% of the vote there in 2013.
To Netanyahu's many American friends: what if a US President had said "too many Jews are voting?"
— Chemi Shalev (@ChemiShalev) March 17, 2015
What’s more, there’s no evidence that Arab voter turnout is higher than usual.
