rave: woman prime minister

[arnie.k]

she's daughter of one of the founders of israel's right-wing. very clean of political intrigue, very much a "say it like it is" lady. she's also much less right wing than her father, and is viewed as a pragmatist and probably the best person for the job right now.

she's a lawyer, an ex spy (or so the rumor goes), had a very good tenure in our ministry of foreign affairs, and though i am not even considering voting for her or her party (my leanings are much further to the left), i am happy with her election.

i honestly think she's going to be a good prime minister, unlike Golda (who was viewed as the main reason we didn't have peace with Jordan until the early 90's - king hussein pretty much came to her and offered peace and she refused; and also as one of the main reasons for the start of the yom kippur war).

ps - the t is not silent. it's like the t is "let's" or "mets". tz ee p ee. it's short for "tsipora" which would translate as "birdie" - tsipor is "bird".

pps - she's definitely not "hot", but could be viewed as good looking for her age. she's one of the most boring people on earth - at least her public persona - so i would say "hot" is out of the question.

[KyCardinalFan]

I think maybe that first posted picture just isn't too flattering. She may be like the two-faced woman in Seinfeld. It all depends on the light.

[jim]

Hey arnie .... could you explain the process in Israel for us stupid Americans too lazy to look it up?

[arnie.k]

Hey arnie .... could you explain the process in Israel for us stupid Americans too lazy to look it up?

parliamentary democracy. there are multiple parties, and each party announces its members from places 1 to 120 (our parliament has 120 members).

we then go vote, each person voting for his/her party. then they calculate each party's relative share of the parliament (you need at least 2% of the votes to have your party in parliament), and get that many seats. right now there are about 12 parties in parliament.

the head of the largest party (right now that's "kadima" - translates to "forward") is given the task of building a coalition. she needs a majority (61+ members) of the members of parliament to approve her government.

tsipi's current coalition, built by olmert, is about 74 members strong, and includes kadima, the labor party, a religious left-wing party and the "pensioners" party (a party built on the votes of 70+ year-olds, and mainly concerned with pensioners' rights).

there's a lot of give and take between coalition parties (special budgets for sectoral causes, etc), and a lot of corruption involved in this process. still, it's probably one of the best systems i've seen.