"Moving Rightward" volunteers in Jerusalem, working at full capacity, hope to bring out as many right-wing voters as possible for tomorrow's elections. Some right-wingers still refuse to vote.
Yehuda, who heads the activity at the Jerusalem headquarters, said, "It now appears that voter turnout around the nation will be very low, possibly even below 60%. We are therefore putting all our efforts into bringing out our voters. Right now, we are trying to get volunteers for tomorrow. We plan to reach the 60,000 Jerusalem households that can be expected to vote for right-wing/religious parties, and remind them to vote - and even bring them to the polling stations if they wish. We will have pairs of people going out to at least 100 homes each for this purpose; out of the 600 pairs that we need, we already have 400."
Former Gush Katif spokesman Eran Sternberg called upon his fellow expelled residents to vote. He told Arutz-7 today,
"There will be some who won't vote, but I believe that in the end, the intellect will override, and most people will vote. We have clearly undergone a very large shake-up, and it's impossible to predict how individuals will act... It's not that I believe that the Knesset can really stop future withdrawals, but Knesset Members can be influential in taking their share of the national budget, just as the Arabs and even the hareidim do... I believe that the Knesset is like a parachute, in that you can use it to make a soft landing, or even direct yourself away from trees and the like; but it can't be our springboard for taking off to higher heights. For that, we will have to search for other avenues of action."
Rabbi Moshe Tzuriel, a former rabbinic lecturer at Yeshivat Shaalvim and the author of several works on Jewish law and philosophy, issued a Halakhic ruling that now appears on the Katif.web site. He wrote that those who study Torah must vote early in the morning, when the lines are shorter, so that they will thus waste less time from their Torah study:
"And for those who are in despair and depressed and would rather boycott the elections altogether... regarding them I quote the words of our Sages: 'The humility of Zecharia ben Avkulas destroyed the Holy Temple and exiled us among the nations.' [The reference is to Rabbi Zecharia's refusal to rule leniently in an emergency situation, angering the ruling Romans and bringing about the destruction and Exile - ed.] To fail to take action because of skepticism/doubt is also a form of action, but it is negative and destructive!"
Rabbi Tzuriel recommended voting for the NU/NRP, explaining:
"Certainly, in general it is good to vote for a hareidi party, because its members will work to maintain the Torah. But in our times, when we face an existential life-saving issue, if and when the evil government will carry out further disengagements and weaken, Heaven forbid, our ability to withstand future expected Arab attacks, certainly the rule of 'danger is more grave than a prohibition,' and almost everything is pushed aside in order to save Jewish life. In the past, the religious parties did not concern themselves with the problem of the Land of Israel. About a year ago, they could have 'buried' the disengagement in the Knesset Finance Committee, but did not do so by an 11-10 vote, with the vote of the Agudat Yisrael representative as one of the 11. They also could have thwarted the terrible plot in the Knesset Law Committee, and again, by an 11-10 vote, with an Agudat Yisrael MK in the majority, they did not do so. And even though the National Union is now 'stuck' with the NRP, but still we must try our best in the natural course of events, even though our strength is limited, and not engage in 'vengeance' against anyone."
A letter from over 100 children living in Psagot - a Jewish community straddling Ramallah in southern Samaria - calls upon the former Gush Katif residents to vote. The letter reads:
Our beloved Gush Katif expellees:
We are children in Psagot, here in the Binyamin region. We know that last summer, you and your children experienced something very difficult, and we are with you. We know that you are now angry at all the parties and at the entire Knesset. But despite this, we here in Yesha ask: Please don't stay at home!!
If you don’t vote at all, it's just like a vote for the left. If you stay at home, then we too will remain without a home. We understand you: It's hard to vote for a government [sic] that has just now banished you - but if you don't vote, it won't help, and will only hurt. We, the children of Psagot, are the next candidates for an expulsion, Heaven forbid, and we ask you: don't let it happen. Vote and help make a difference, because every vote is important...
With great love and admiration,
The children of Psagot in Binyamin
In Yitzhar, considered one of the deeply ideological central-Shomron communities, there has also been much talk of not voting, because of anger and disappointment with the Knesset following the destruction of Gush Katif. It now appears, however, that most residents will vote in the end.
"Of course, that's if you consider voting for Marzel 'voting,'" one woman of Yitzhar said, expressing her fear that votes for Marzel's Hazit party might go to waste and be credited to parties such as Kadima if fewer than the necessary minimum are received. "We have been going house to house here in town to convince people to vote, and though many say that they don't want to, I think in the end, they will go and vote. It could be that more than half of them will vote for Marzel."
In another "extremist" stronghold, Tapuach - east of Ariel and south of Shechem - there are three schools of thought, resident Mike Guzofsky said: "Many will boycott the elections altogether, while others will vote for Michael Kleiner's Herut party, and others will vote for Baruch Marzel and Hazit."
Asked about the "wasted votes" claim, Guzofsky said that he rejects this for several reasons, chiefly because, "if everyone would just vote his conscience, I think that both Kleiner and Marzel would get in. It's too bad that the NU/NRP wasted so much effort and money telling people not to vote for the smaller parties, because that's exactly why these parties might not get enough votes!"
The Nation Union/National Religious Party continues to score victories in mock elections at universities. At the College of Judea and Samaria, where students from all over the country learn, the NU/NRP finished in first place on Sunday with nearly a third (32.6%) of the votes. Trailing far behind were the Likud (13.4%) and Yisrael Beiteinu (12.3%). 70% of the student body hails from the Tel Aviv area and central Israel.
In mock elections held last week at the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the National Union-National Religious Party won a decisive victory. The joint list won 32 seats, while Kadima won only 5 seats. Overall in the Hebrew University poll, NU-NRP won a more narrow but still surprising victory: 24 seats, compared to 23 for Meretz, 22 for Labor, 12 for the Likud, and 11 for Kadima.