Talk:2006 Israeli legislative election

diacritics
Could someone explain to me what the diacritics are good for? They make the names harder to read. They have no visible function, and they're not in use for Hebrew transliteration anywhere in Wikipedia. If someone wants to look up Avraham Poraz, why should they have to start guessing where the diacritics go? 83.130.193.102


 * diacritics are useful for several reasons. they provide an organised and systematic system for transliteration. in other words, they accurately reflect spelling and pronunciation in other languages without resorting to obscure or ambiguous wording used in english. (for example, translated the 8th hebrew letter 'Het' as 'Chet' looks as though it sounds like CH in 'cheese', when hebrew doesnt have that sound.) they also reflect truthfully the wording in the original language. finally -- and with respect to the spelling of personal names -- often english-speakers will 'choose' the spelling of israeli and arab politicians, but using diacritics is a neutral choice. (for example, choosing to spell Ron Lewīntal's name as 'Ron Leventhal' in english may not reflect his personal preference; since 'th' doesnt exist him hebrew, he may write it 'Levental', or he may write it 'Levintal' to reflect the pronunciation, or he may write it Lewintal to reflect orthography. i know someone with the same last name who doesnt spell it in any of those three ways!)
 * as far as your concern about not finding these people in wikipedia -- almost all of the individuals are not located in wikipedia, and for those who are, the link still goes towards the spelling on their wikipedia page. (for example, if a page for 'Avraham Poraz' existed, then the link for Avrāham Pōrāz would link to it).
 * personally, i think diacritics make things easier to read. however, if it appears that others also feel that it's difficult, perhaps a compromise can be reached, where the common (albeit incorrect) spellings could appear, with the diacritics in brackets. Dgl 15:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not only difficult to read, for some readers it's IMPOSSIBLE, because those diacretic characters do not appear in the usual English character set.--Nitsansh 00:41, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * from what i understand, wikipedia's formatting is set up so that everyone who has the basic Unicode font can see all the diacritics. Dgl 20:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Our argument here, with regard to both diacritics and spelling, is whether to prefer academic correctness or ease of reading. (Most English speakers probably don't know about the function of the macron, and I think that using "Shivyon" instead of "Shiwwyon", for example, would enable a non-speaker of Hebrew to pronounce the word much more accurately.)


 * Wikipedia guidelines say: "Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. The people who read it have different backgrounds, education and worldview from you. Try to make your article accessible to as many of them as possible." I think adding diacritics and technically correct spelling makes the article severely less accessible to someone who doesn't deal with Hebrew on an academic level. Your compromise, although logical, would only serve to confuse non-Hebrew speakers more. If the norm you're suggesting was in use all over Wikipedia, I'd shut up and accept it, but it just seems out of place. I'm not going to revert it unless a number of people show up here to support my claim, but I suggest you give it a thought.


 * (By the way, Leventhal, Kleiner, and other names, are of European origin - why not maintain the original spelling?)


 * Remarks: The article Romanization of Hebrew specifically mentions that "Hebrew-to-English transliteration is wildly inconsistent", and the article Macron mentions no use of this diacritic in Hebrew transliteration. 80.230.81.186


 * although many names may be of european origins, let's not forget that europeans differ widely on the spelling, too. for example, to use the first example of 'Leventhal': germans write it Lowenthal or Löwenthal, polish write it Lewental, russians write it Levintal', french Levental or Levintal, and in english it is Leventhal or Lowenthal. in other words, there no consistency. similarly, in hebrew this name can be written: לונטל, לוונטל, לוונתל, לונתל, לבנתל, לבנטל, לוינטל, etc. the current head of shinuy writes his name רון לוינטל, pronounced /levintal/, but given the fact that the hebrew Waw and Vet are separate letters, it would be transliterated Lewintal or Lewīntal. however, like i wrote before, he may personally choose something else entirely.


 * anyhow, i think that some sort of compromise is required. there are plenty of people who prefer diacritics and it's not fair to exclude them. i suggest, like in most articles, to include the correct transliteration in parentheses or brackets after the name. i dont see how that would confuse anyone, they would understand that one is a simple transliteration and the other is a correct, albeit technical, form. Dgl 20:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I personally find the diacritics and spellings that have been put back on the page ow to be virtually unreadable. Take a good look at the English-language Israeli press (Jerusalem Post, YNet News, Ha'aretz, Kol Israel-Reka Network web page) and nobody spells things this way.  They all use common European spellings.  What has been done here is not onlu virtually unique, it is undoubtedly confusing to most readers.  I really, really don't want to take the time to change it back only to have it undone.  Who decides???  -Mordecai

Ahuz Ha'hassima
Somebody add an explanation or a link to the "threshold" law, which effectively determines that the minimum votes to enter the Knesset is equivalent to two (2) seats. This puts smaller parties in jeopardy (currently, speculation has is that Green Leaf and Dr Tibi's party are "on the threshold"). elpincha 10:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * That is explained (albeit briefly) in the article Elections in Israel.--Nitsansh 15:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Exit polls
There are at least 3 such polls published by Israeli TV channels. Why not publish all of them? There's no indication at this stage which is better than the others?--Nitsansh 21:35, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Pre-election polls
Aren't they redundant once the elections are over?--Nitsansh 21:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Not quite. They provide a comparison results versus hitherto predictions. Also, please create another table for the estimates of other channels; calling them exit polls & noting them side-by-side is problematic (just because haaretz does so, does not mean we have to). El_C 22:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Is there any justification to favour the Channel 1 poll over the others? If not, then I don't think we have a choice but to show all three and give them equal weight - otherwise we're showing a POV for IBA. Homey 22:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, see bellow. El_C 22:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Blank edit summary reverts are inappropriate
There are many polls out there. The IBA Radio station I got the results of Mabat's exit poll (the only exit poll) had another poll unrelated to Mabat's with the only researcher who successfuly predicted Peres' surprise loss to Netanyahoo, for example. But these are not exit polls; they do not involve polling stations and they do not involve +25,000 people. There is actually a sound methodological rational behind my position. El_C 22:42, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * There are 3 main TV channels in Israel. Each one conducted and published its own exit poll. Only statisticians make a difference between them. At this stage, with no real results available yet, this is the info that we have. Only when the real results will be published, we'll know which one predicted the results better. I see no reason to publish one poll and ignore the others. Channel 1 (IBA) has no monopoly on exit polls.--Nitsansh 22:44, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It has one here, because they actually conducted a real one. These are not actual exit polls in the traditional sense of the word. El_C 22:47, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Not only statisticians make a difference between them; the differences in metholdology and scope are not so insiginificant. It is widely seen as most authoritative, even those other channels highlight it before any other (except their own given one, of course). It should not be too difficult to create another table, or qualify it in the prior one. Someone else can attend to that, though. El_C 22:52, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Note that when I refer to IBA Radio, this is not Mabat's exit poll cited in the article and on the main page, it is another poll that is not mentioned here (though it should, is as authoritative as the other channels, but less so than Mabat's, is my point &mdash; in case someone misses that and thinks I'm talking about the same thing). El_C 22:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * This is what I mean. It's a difference only people in the statistic profession make. All 3 channels present their predictions, based on polls conducted AFTER people have voted. The differences between them are up to 2-3 seats, which is within the statistic margin error anyway. But more important in my opinion is to emphasize that these are all PREDICTIONS, not RESULTS.--Nitsansh 22:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Exit polls hold more weight, they always do. I don't really care who conducts them. This year, Mabat is the only one to do so. El_C 23:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I've seen 5 different polls, all conducted after the elections. I'm not statistician and I don't know how each one was conducted. Every poll has a margin of error, the only real poll is the actual results. Those won't be available until tommorrow morning or even afternoon, and as reported in the last hour, because one polling box was destroyed and there might be a re-vote, the final results may take longer than usual. If those re-election might decide if one party makes the threshold or doesn't, it could change the distribution of seats in the Knesset.--Nitsansh 23:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Again, the point remains that only Mabat conducted an exit poll. I'm not dismissing the other polls, but it's an important distinction. El_C 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Possible coalitions
Now that the exit polls are out, is it at all clear what coalitions could form a feasible government?  jaco plane  23:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Nothing is certain in Israeli politics.... it's quite obvious that Ehud Olmert will be the next prime-minister, and Labour will most likely be also in the government. But Kadima and Labour have only 51-54 seats (depending which poll you believe), so they'll need another party or two to get majority. Possible candidates are the Pensioners, Meretz and/or the 2 ultra-religious parties. It's almost certain that the right-wing parties will not be in the government.--Nitsansh 23:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Ehud Olmert concluded his speach with a verse from the Bible... perhaps that hints who he prefers as partners...--Nitsansh 23:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * As I noted in the article, according to the exit polls, the Zionist parties of the left block will need the support of the Arab ones for a majority of (61 or higher) seats. And I'll add, most crucially, for certain key steps in Olmert's platform. So the possibility that a smaller party on the right will form the govt. on account of the right block having 61 or higher seats, now appear remote. It's these blocks, then, that count most of all. El_C 23:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * There's no way anyone other than Olmert will be chosen by the president to form the government. He is the leader of the biggest party, and there's no way any coalition could be fomed without Kadima.
 * Incorrect. Had there been a clear block of parties from the right with 61 seats, a coalition could have been formed without Kadima. El_C 00:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The question is who will join the coalition... it looks to me that the natural candidate will be Labour rather than the right-wing parties. Kadima didn't broke out of the Likud just to re-instate the alliance with the right wing after the election. Although I just heard Shimon Peres saying that Liberman (Israel Beytenu) is not ruled out as partner, I doubt that Labour will agree with that. --Nitsansh 23:34, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, with Liberman until Olmert's Hitnatkut/Hitkansut, that is. Olmert would have really prefered having a Zionist majority block, though. El_C 23:39, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I highly I doubt Labour's objections to Liberman's party would prevent them from entering into a coalition with him. It's Liberman that will step out, though, once the Hitkansut takes place. I'm sure he's more than open to be a Minister until that time. El_C 23:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Zionist majority is not a problem. Even if Kadima and Labour get under 50 seats together, they can add Meretz and the Pensioners, or alternatively Shas and Yahadut Hatora, to get to at least 61, but my guess is that Olmert will like to have a broader coalition with both the religious parties and the left, which will amount to roughly 80 seats. OTOH, the more the coalition is broader, the less is Kadima share of it... getting the religious parties and Meretz together won't be easy, but it happend before and could happend again. Once the results are clear, the bargaining begin, if it hasn't began yet... but it would be weeks rather than days until the government will be finalized--Nitsansh 23:49, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Again, until the Hitkansut, sure. But Shas already expressed vehement opposition to that plan. Yahadut ha'Tora may be more pragmatic though. But to reiterate, it's not about how broad the coalition can be initially that's terribly decisive, but rather what coalition is possible to go through the Hitkansut motions later on. I think this is what's key. El_C 23:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Real results are coming in...
About 50% of the votes have been counted so far, but they may not necessarily be representing the population. Kadima is currently down to 28 seats, Labour on 20, Shas goes up to 13, Likud and Israel Beytenu both 12, NRP-Ihud Leumi 9, Pensioners 8, Yahadut Hatora 7, Meretz 5, Arab parties 5 (Raam 3, Hadash 2). Balad is close to the 2% threshold and might still get in.--Nitsansh 23:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Difficult to tell, though, as you note, since it might not be representative of all regions. El_C 23:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, don't forget the Odafim arrangments, that could prove significant. Ironically, the ones belonging to Likud go to Yisrael Beytenu. That amuses me. El_C 23:49, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's too early to tell how the surplus will be devided, but Kadima could have lost a seat or even 2 because it didn't make agreement with anyone... Likud and Israel Beytenu are together, and so are Shas with Yahadut Hatora and Labour with Meretz, so if one loses a seat it's likely to go to the same block... I don't recall at this moment which 2 Arab parties made agreement between them... if Balad is a partner to such agreement and will eventually go above the threshold, that could add 3 seats to the Arab block and significantly change the division.--Nitsansh 23:57, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that about Arab parties, but am also unsure about their arrangments. The distribution does not have to be of equale weight, of course. Thus, we can have YB getting another seat from Likud's, but Likud not getting anything from YB's odafim (that would be the amusing part), and vice versa. And, of course, as you note, Kadima is not playing the odafim game. El_C 00:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I have checked, and Hadash have surplus agreement with Balad. Now if Balad gets the extra votes that they lack to get above the threshold, it could be that both parties together get 6 seats as a result of surplus agreement. I don't fancy their chances, though, because the share of Arabs among the "absentee votes", which are mainly soldiers in compulsory service, is smaller than its share in the general population and Arab parties are unlikely to gain seats once these are counted. Yahadut Hatora also has significantly less "absentee votes" because most of their electorate don't go to the army as well. Traditionally, the "absentee votes" tend to favour the right wing, so I don't expect Labour or Meretz to get an extra seat. My gut feeling is that the parties most likely to benefit are Israel Beytenu, Shas or Ihud Leumi-NRP, but the way surplus division is done, an increase of votes for one party might result in an extra seat for its surplus partner. We'll have to wait a few days until the final results are released. As I recall from previous elections, they were out 2 or 3 days after the election. According to law, the elections central commitee has 8 days until it should release the official results, but it's usually done earlier.

Now... I mentioned earlier that one ballot box was destroyed... that could be an excuse to hold a re-vote in that particular place, and those few hundred votes could make a difference... --Nitsansh 00:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * That makes sense. Well, now, with 95% of the votes having been counted, it looks like the exit polls dead-on about Kadima (29), but were off about Liberman surpassing Bibiyahoo (14 to 12), overestimated Labour (predicted as 22, at 20). They were rather off about striking Balad from the map (predicted as 0, now at 3), & the total Arab parties vote (predicted as 8, now at 9). El_C 02:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Just while editing a minor dyslexia on my part, I noticed that with 96% of the votes now having been counted, Kadima is now at 28. El_C 02:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, and Liberman is ahead of Bibiyahoo again. It's the regional nature of the count which results in unpredictable ups and down. El_C 02:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The way the system goes, a shift of a few tenths of percent could change the division of seats for several parties. The possible scenario that I suggested earlier seems to have materialized, and once Balad went above the 2% barrier, its surplus agreement with Hadash gave them an extra seat, and so they jumped from 0 to 3. Apparently, the additional seats of the Arab parties were at the expense of Kadima, Labour, Meretz and Gimlaim who lost 5 seats between them compared to the earlier count, so the general share of the left and center (without the Arab) went down below 60 seats, and that means a coalition must include the religious parties. Now that increase their bargaining power... Kadima is in control and can choose its partners, and has the options of either right or left, but in any case, they need the religious...--Nitsansh 03:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it looks like the Arab vote ended up being higher than was predicted. I mentioned Dr. Fox as the only pollster to predict the Peres-Bibiyahoo surprise, so it should be noted that in this election, he was the first (about 2 weeks ago) to point out that Gimlaim were going to pass the threshold, and did they ever pass. Anyway, as I keep reiterating, the options open to Olmert become much more limited once he starts leHitkanes. It's possible even that Olmert will leave Peretz out of the govt., until it's time to relocate 75,000 settlers, then he'll need him. El_C 03:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * You're looking too far ahead... Olmert's first task is to form a government and then pass the budget bill, which normally should be approved on the new year but was postponed until after the election because Sharon could not pass it in the outgoing Knesset. This is not an easy thing because the Labour and other potential coalition partners will demand drastic changes in the economic policy of Bibi (which was among the main reasons to his downfall). --Nitsansh 03:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * True, I'm looking 1.5-2 yrs forward. This isn't to dismiss what you say about the budget bill where I do expect important changes (increased spending) now that Sharon's aura can no longer shield the disaffected from the bibitter neoliberal reality: taking food from the mouths of the hungry directly to the already-full pockets of the super-rich. El_C 10:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It should be emphasized that it's not 99% of all the votes but only 99% of the votes in regular ballots. There is a significant number of absentee ballots that haven't been counted yet. Those include voters in the army, hostpitals, prisons, embassies and ships, alltogether several hundred votes. These should be first verified that those voters didn't also vote in their original ballot stations, and only afterwards the outer envelopes are removed and the votes counted. And there's still the problem of that burnt ballot box which should be delt with before the official results are sealed... the general picture though is quite clear... Kadima took first place but with significantly less seats than expected... Likud was crushed to its lowest point since Gahal was created 41 years ago and Liberman emerged as the leading figure in the right wing. The surprise of these elections were the Pensioners, but it seems that like previous one-agenda parties they will be a flash in the pan. They filled part of the vacancy created by the total loss of Shinui, that went from 15 seats in the previous elections to a has-been party. Apart from that there were no significant changes.--Nitsansh 03:45, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Great synopsis! It should be noted that those absentee ballots will favour the right-national parties more than their centre-left counterparts. El_C 03:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I lifted your comment about Gahal straight into Likud#Defeat in 2006 . Well said, again. El_C 12:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It appears Bibiyahoo has opted not to resign, so there goes my prediction. The Likud Central Committee is so going to want to be his friend. And ultra right-national Landau, head of Likud rebels is out? Sharon's would be pleased with that particular revenge. El_C 04:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sharon, unfortunately, is history. If he would be atill healthy, the results would be totally different. Olmert lost about 10 seats from what Kadima had when he replaced Sharon.--Nitsansh 04:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Getting Landau out (well, probably) was a close call in this case, so this is revenge from beyond the hospital bed. Yes, I also think Sharon would have gotten somewhere around 10 seats more than Olmert secured. El_C 04:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Where can I find ...
... a complete (or relatively) overview of the party candidate lists? The Knesset website only covers the first 14 18 names for each party. CJCurrie 00:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC) (corrected CJCurrie 04:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC))
 * Perhaps the Hebrew version has the full lists... do you need the list for one or several parties (officially called: lists of candidates) or all of them?
 * The list of MKs in the newly-elected Knesset should be available in few days once the official results are released.--Nitsansh 01:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to find the top forty positions for Kadima, Labour and Likud, and the top twenty positions for the others. Comparable information was available online (in English) in the last election, and I assumed it would be this time too. (I can only find the first 14 names for Likud, and I'm fairly certain there were incumbent MKs in lower positions.)

I don't speak Hebrew, sadly. CJCurrie 01:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I found the list of top-50 candidates of Kadima here .--Nitsansh 18:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Overview of parties
I found this image from the Economist article Israel's new politics to be quite useful, since I like most people are probably unaware of Israeli political parties. Right now the "Remarks" field in the party table explains a little of what the parties are about, but I think there is still not very much context for readers to understand what each party is about.  jaco plane  15:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Details of the various parties could be found in their articles--Nitsansh 18:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Impact and coalition prospect
This segment is mostly speculative. Do we deal in Wikipedia with forcasts for the future?

The first sentence is a factual error. In the elections of the 15th Knesset (1999), Likud was the biggest party with just 26 seats, 3 less than Kadima got this time, and 2nd place Labour had just 19 seats, so its by no means the first time that no party won more than 30 seats. --Nitsansh 19:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Another error is "the most fragmented Knesset in history". This title also goes to the 15th Knesset, in which 15 parties entered the Knesset. 12 parties as in these elections is about the average, but it should be noted that the threshold was raised this time from 1.5% to 2% and in most of Israel's history (until the 12th Knesset) it was merely 1%.--Nitsansh 19:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, that's right (again). El_C 01:52, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, remove. This segment is pure speculation and OR. --Shuki 19:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
 * In particular the last paragraph dealing with Peretz's attempts to make a coalition without Kadima, which seems to be futile and was criticized by members of his own party as well as the media. This section belongs to Wikinews, not here, and some parts of it are allready old news. Until we have facts, such as the president's decision to appoint someone to form a government (I would expect that decision to be on Thursday or Friday, definately not earlier because official results of the election should be released on Wednesday), I think we better not write speculative news. Patience is a virtue that should be respected in political matters, especially in Israel's complicated political system.--Nitsansh 00:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

The section that I (originally) authored was not wildly speculative but merely reiterated the analyses in the mainstream media. Nor was it excessively news-ish in character (not a day-by-day account, but as the title intimates, coalitionary prospets until the govt. will be formed). As for (the "impact" part) the election being a defeat for the right-national block, the demise of Likud, the lowest voter turn-out, these are all well-established facts. The section did have some factual errors (now corrected), but otherwise, I fail to see why it's problematic at this juncture. El_C 12:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

left-wing, centrist, right-wing
IMO, these labels are OR unless a specific source can be referenced to accurately describe all parties. Why is National Union 'far-right', but Meretz only 'left'. Why is Kadima 'centrist'? Why is Labour only centre-left, but Likud right and nationalist (left is also formed of proud Israelis). What about the Arab parties? Why are they not described with left-right labels? --Shuki 19:01, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent counting methodology
Likud's seat delta was based on its pre-Kadima numbers. Labor's delta was based on post-Kadima numbers. Since I could make everything consistent by only changing the Likud number, I have changed it from -28 to -15. If the other method of counting is prefered, at least six numbers on this page need to be changed.--65.96.168.107 00:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a tricky subject, because parties tend to evolve during the Knesset term. It's a common phenomena that parties merge or split, or both. For example: Likud got 38 seats in 2003 election. Shortly after the election, Scharanski's party "Yisrael Be'aliya" of 2 members merged with the Likud so it became a party of 40. When Kadima split 14 MKs left the Likud so there were 26, but afterwards Omri Sharon (the PM's son) resigned after being convicted of mis-handling the financial matters of his father's 1999 primaries campaign, and his replacement was a Likud member so at the end of the 16th Knesset assembly there were 27 Likud members. So which figure should be used?

Labour got 19 seats in the previous elections, but later Amir Peretz's Am Ehad party joined the Labour, but one of the 3 members split and didn't join Labour (he eventually joined Kadima), so it had 21 seats at the end of the assembly. And so on with other parties...--Nitsansh 01:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Result and Coalition
Could someone who knows about Israeli politics move the results to the start of the article and have some information on which coalition was actually formed? Catchpole 11:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Help needed
I went to update the intro a bit, and ended up changing around and updating the background section as well. Parts of it were still written from a during-the-campaign perspective. As I skim down the rest of the article, some parts of the article suffer from this to an even greater degree. The election is still being written about as a future event in some spots. I am not sure when I will be able to get to this, so if anyone else gets a chance, jump right in. As for the comment immediately above, I am still not sure that there is anything in this article about the coalition that was formed as a result of the election; on the other hand I am not sure whether that belongs in here or in another article -- and I am sure it already is in some other article, maybe the one about Kadima or the one about Ehud Olmert (or both). I am not sure if there are separate articles about the different Israeli governments and Knessets (nor am I sure if there should be.) Or maybe there is some WikiProject I should be participating in that coordinates all these things. I don't know. I just tried to fix one paragraph and it raised all these other issues. 6SJ7 18:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Relations between Jews and Arabs
I tagged this for neutrality, accuracy, and citation. Further, even if these weren't issues, why ought these comments be here and not on, say, Israeli Arabs? Savant1984 18:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say the whole section on Israel as a Jewish and democratic state has no place in this article as it is not particularly connected to the 2006 election - the religious/secular and Jew/Arab issues are common to every political issue in Israel.


 * Having said that, the section is very biased, and the statement that "Most Jews in Israel see the clear inequality that exists as a natural result of Israel being a Jewish state" is ludicrous (and possibly untrue).


 * The only specific points that I think could be made under this sections heading are:
 * The Hetz/Shiunui v Shas/UTJ rivalry, particularly the harsh anti-religious adverts from Shinui (I am very anti-religious, but thought Shinui went a bit too far) and a lesser extent Hetz (and possibly the parodical advert from Meretz "Because the Rabbi says").
 * The usual call for Israeli Arabs to boycot the elections by Abnaa el-Balad
 * Israel Beytenu's policy of transferring Wadi Ara to the Palestinians
 * Various semi/outright racist election propaganda used by the Jewish National Front, Herut and even the National Union-NRP coalition (I personally received an election pamphlet from them warning Be'er Shevans about Bedouins seducing their daughters!)
 * Perhaps the whole section should be renamed "Ethnic and religious issues" with a paragraph detailing each of the above 4 points?
 * Number 57 21:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

For the time being, I weakened the article, added another couple citation tags, and deleted an obviously irrelevant paragraph. Savant1984 00:43, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

results per locality
Should this be in the article? Sure it's interesting, but there were another few thousands polling stations as well which are equally important as well. --Shuki 18:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've deleted it for now, but it would be good to have them, albeit on a larger scale than villages. I think the table on the Hebrew wiki is quite good. If you like it, I'll copy it across.  Number   5  7  08:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Such detailed information would be best suited in its own sub-page. Catchpole 09:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure we need a whole other article for one table. To be honest I think the table of participating parties could be scrapped and replaced with a list of parties and their leaders (I don't see how Arabic/Hebrew names are relevant to this article - they can be found out on the parties' article pages), which would "make room" for this table. Number   5  7  09:27, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The cross-section in the hebrew article seems representative enough. The parties table seems fine though. --Shuki 17:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I've added the table from he.wiki. I haven't got rid of the parties participating table, but I have cut it down (removed the Arabic column and fixed some links (Meimad were missing for e.g.)). Number   5  7  08:25, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks fine. To make it better, there should be some sort of ordering of the cities, I suggest one of these options: size, location (north to south), or ABC. --Shuki 19:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I forgot to reorder it - the Hebrew version has the 4 big cities, then alphabetical, but of course they start with different letters in English... I'll do ABC Number   5  7  07:54, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

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