Haaretz has exit poll results from the elections in Israel. They provide some hope that Netanyahu might not have won. However, it is downright frightening how weak the labor party is.

Exit polls by Israel’s three main television stations on Tuesday night showed Kadima as the clear winner in the 2009 general elections, with Likud coming a narrow second.

Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 10 polling of voters as they left the ballot box all showed victory for Kadima, headed by Tzipi Livni.

The Channel 1 poll gave Kadima 30 seats, Likud 28 seats, and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu is predicted to win `14 seats, according to the poll.

According to the Channel 2 poll, Likud will take 27 seats, Kadima will hold 29 seats and Labor 13 seats. Yisrael Beiteinu will have 15 seats in the new Knesset.

Consider the fact that the left is so discredited in Israel that teachers are increasingly afraid to teach democratic principles in civics classes, and that the fascist Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman is now very popular with young Israelis. The Labor Party is now smaller than the fascist party? I can’t really express how troublesome I find that development.

Prof. Ilan Gur-Ze’ev, whose specialty is the philosophy of education, argues that the political positions of Israeli youths derive in part from historical ignorance:

“It’s not that they don’t know what Lieberman says. It’s that they don’t understand the implications of what Lieberman says. They may know how to quote phrases like ‘What we need is an iron fist in a silk glove.’ If you think about such a metaphor – are they able to really appreciate what such a phrase means, are they aware of its connection to the fascist tradition? Are they capable of linking this phrase to the tradition in which it was originally used? They know slogans. They don’t know history.”

Gur-Ze’ev also offers an original explanation for young people’s tendency to support Lieberman:

“The Israeli reality can no longer hide what it has kept hidden up to now – that today no sentient mother can honestly say to her child: ‘Next year things will be better here.’ The young people are replacing hope for a better future with a myth of a heroic end. For a heroic end, Lieberman fits the bill.

“Outwardly they may say that Lieberman will bring about a better future,” the professor adds, “but have them talk with a psychologist or with a philosopher and these mantras will implode. In a reality in which you can’t honestly tell your children, ‘Tomorrow will be better,’ in which the realization has finally sunk in that no deal or accord is about to happen, not now or 10 years from now – they react in a hysterical, survivalist fashion. In such a situation, the commitment to humanist values can be viewed as a luxury that we as a society cannot afford.”

Something has shifted fundamentally in Israeli society. And I don’t think it is a good or healthy development. However, given a choice between Netanyahu, Livni, Lieberman, and an irrelevant Ehud Barak, I guess Livni would be the best outcome for the U.S. in terms of making some progress.

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