JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Livni’s mandate

By Uriel Heilman · September 18, 2008

As Israeli pundits are falling over themselves to point out, Tzipi Livni's mandate to serve as Israel's next prime minister came solely from the mere 17,000 people who voted for her in yesterday's primary.

Here are some of the different ways they are illustrating this point:

More people will arrive at the Yarkon Park to see Paul McCartney perform than the number of people who bothered to show up at poling stations in order to elect the person who may become Israel's next prime minister. This is the bothersome fact that emerged from the Kadima primaries, which ended up culminating in a tight race. A total of 0.5% percent of the public – this is the mandate received by a leader during one of the most fateful and complex periods in the State of Israel's history. – Sima Kadmon, Ynet

A decade ago, she was a fairly anonymous public sector official, at the helm of the Government Companies' Authority, a post to which she was appointed - ironically, given the challenge she now presents to his ambitions - by Likud leader and then-prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. She barely scraped into the Knesset for the first time in 1999 - 18th of the 19 Likud members who made it. Rapidly promoted all the way to foreign minister, she was truly tested only during the Second Lebanon War two years ago; her ostensible diplomatic achievements have proved significantly less than compelling. And now look at her, a mere Olmertian resignation away from the prime ministership. – David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post

She began nine years ago as head of the Government Corporations Authority, and now she is a step away from being head of the government. All her previous posts came to her because of a rare combination of circumstances. A junior minister under Sharon, she was promoted to justice minister after Shinui left the cabinet, and, eventually, foreign minister after Ariel Sharon fell ill. On Wednesday, she was elected Kadima chairman by some 20,000 voters. Ninet Tayeb needed ten times that to win the "A Star is Born" television talent show. – Yossi Verter, Ha'aretz

If the Israeli punditry has a problem with the size of Livni's mandate, why did they set the Kadima winner up for this scenario by excoriating Ehud Olmert in the press until he resigned, thereby forcing this strange election? Olmert may well prove to be guilty of corruption, but Israeli media didn't bother to wait for evidence.

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Anti-Semitism—still

By Lisa Hostein · September 18, 2008

The latest Pew Research Center survey of global attitudes on religion is out and the news is not good for Jews – or Muslims.

Anti-Jewish attitudes are up in most major European countries, with the highest numbers in Spain, Poland and Russia. Only British attitudes have remained constant in recent years. But the same is true about attitudes toward Muslims. And according to Pew, "there is a clear relationship between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes: publics that view Jews unfavorably also tend to see Muslims in a negative light."

But none of this comes as a big surprise. Similar studies in recent years have come up with similar numbers, give or take a few percentage points. A major report last year by Human Rights First went beyond the numbers to chide European countries for not doing more to halt the trend. See JTA's analysis of that report.

But while anti-Jewish sentiments appear a constant (so what else is new in Jewish history?), some other troubling – though not necessarily surprising – findings have garnered less attention:

• The deepest anti-Jewish sentiments exist outside of Europe, especially in predominantly Muslim nations. The percentage of Turks, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Pakistanis with favorable (my emphasis) opinions of Jews is in the single digits.
• A majority in people in Jordan express a positive view of Hamas. But views of Hamas tend to be negative in Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt.
• Views of the militant Lebanese Shi'ite organization Hezbollah are overwhelmingly negative in Turkey, while slim majorities in Egypt and Jordan express positive views of Hezbollah. In Lebanon itself, Hezbollah is almost unanimously popular among the country's Shia community, but is overwhelmingly unpopular among Sunnis and Christians.
• Most Muslims continue to worry about the rise of Islamic extremism, both at home and abroad. Majorities in Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria say they are concerned about extremism in their own country and in other countries around the world.

Perhaps, in these troubled times, we should take comfort in this, though it's hard to believe given the daily headlines:

* Since 2002, the percentage saying that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are justified to defend Islam from its enemies has declined in most predominantly Muslim countries surveyed.

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