ANT KATZ

The Israeli Embassy in SA held a mock election campaign to introduce SA citizens to how Israel’s democracy works.

The site was designed and built in SA, and gives each party’s platform for the election. The intention of the website was to expose South Africans to the political playing field in Israel and explain how Israel’s electoral system works.

“We are hoping to get everyone in South Africa voting,” the embassy’s deputy head of mission, Michael Freeman, told Jewish Report.

7,000 visits

The SA mock Israel election website attracted over 7,000 page-views with an average time on page of over four minutes over the past two weeks. This is huge in web terms.

Not everyone voted said the embassy’s deputy head of mission, Michael Freeman: “Our aim was always to help people to understand about democracy (in Israel)” he told Jewish Report, describing the project as an “absolute success.”

The Embassy will keep the SA-designed and developed website, www.israeldemocracy.co.za, alive as a means of keeping people informed on Israel’s democracy. “We are very, very happy with the numbers of people who read the website,” said Freeman.

And who did South Africans vote for?

The results of the mock-election were: Likud, 62%; Bayit Hayehudi, 15%; Zionist Union, 12%; Yesh Atid, 3%; United Arab List, 1%; Kahlon, 1%; Yahad, 2%; Meretz, 2%; Yisrael Beyteynu, 1%; Shas, 0.5%; and United Torah Judaism, 0.5%.

Individuals were only allowed to vote once and voting closed on Monday 16 March – a day before the real election.

Why go to all this trouble? “The underlying purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate and highlight the vibrant democracy of Israel,” said Freeman.

Christian, Muslim, Bedouin, Druze and other minority citizens enjoy all the same freedoms and rights as any other Israeli citizen, he says, and Arab political parties participate fully in Israel’s democracy. Twelve members of the outgoing Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) are of Arabic decent.

To demonstrate how democratic Israel is, says Freeman, “we are going to be publicising this through as many media formats that we can,” with the objective of “allowing people to learn and understand more about the democratic system in Israel.”

While the embassy was interested in how SA Jewry would vote, says Freeman, the initiative is largely targeted at the non-Jewish demographic – folks who don’t know about Israel.