Proud American!

Believe it or not, it was somewhat challenging being an Obama supporter in Israel. Most of the Israelis I've spoken too were staunchly pro-McCain, mainly because they fear that Obama will not be a proponent for the state of Israel. They bought into all of the rumors about his Muslim affiliations, and noted how strange it was that we Americans supported a candidate whose background check might not clear him to be a member of the secret service! Since many of the people I know here made Aliyah from the US and still hold voting rights there, I got sorely criticized for the fact that I sent in my absentee ballot with a check mark for Obama. Some of them were only comforted by the fact that my vote didn't technically count, since there was no doubt that Obama would take New York. Apparently I was a huge anomaly as an American in Israel voting for Obama. According to this article my dad sent me from Ha'Aretz, US absentee voters backed McCain over Obama 3-1 -- WOW! 

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1032932.html

(Side note: I can't seem to meet anyone who was actually born in Israel. Most of the people I know in Jerusalem are olim, having made aliyah from the US, South Africa, the UK, Australia, etc. It's quite incredible how many native English speakers are here, and I'm certainly not getting as much of a chance to practice my Hebrew skills as I would like!) 

My personal position? After eight years of Bush, which brought us a war that won't end and an economy that's in the tubes, we needed a stark change. I am thrilled that my fellow Americans agreed and am counting the days to Obama's inauguration on January 20th. In fact, I just realized that I'm currently planning to actually be in the US for Inauguration Day, which means that I can watch it without worrying about the time difference. It was certainly a challenge watching the election returns, which started coming in the middle of the night. I woke up at 6am to CNN.com proclaiming that Obama emerged victorious. I'm quite grateful for both my slingbox and for the fact that for some reason my apartment actually gets CNN International. Most networks here only offer Fox, which means that I'm forced to watch a lot of Conservative rubbish while working out at the gym. Apparently one of the Israeli cable providers had a disagreement with CNN and will only offer Fox News. Perhaps that's the reason why so any Israelis were anti-Obama! Quite frankly, I can only stomach so much of Hannity and Colmes -- sorry, dad! :)

Admittedly, it was slightly disturbing to see how happy the Muslim students in my ulpan class were about Obama's victory. I can only hope that their enthusiasm came from the fact that having an African-American president allows them to see the United States as a nation of diversity and not one of white supremacists, thereby reducing the number of people in their society who are so staunchly anti-American. Most of all, I hope that Obama can bring peace to the Middle East in a way that is satisfactory for both the Muslims and the Jews. For one thing, at least President Obama doesn't seem to have plans to invade Iran!

One last political note: Last night I was in a cab on my way home from rehearsal when I encountered a huge mob of police cars at a traffic stop. When I asked a cop what was going on, he told me that Condoleeza Rice and her motorcade were leaving Jerusalem. It was cool seeing over a dozen dummy cars and trying to guess which one Condi was actually in, but it wasn't so cool that the meter was running the whole time and that the cab ride ended up being much more expensive than I would have liked. 

And now, onto the Israeli elections scheduled to take place this winter. I went to a lecture on Israeli politics this week, where I learned that the Israeli party coalition system actually makes our fakacta electoral college look good! It should be an interesting couple of months here....