You know how right wing troglodytes always seem like they were born "made to wave the flag", as John Fogerty put it so well? Flag pins, hands on hearts and national anthems? Well, it doesn't have to be just the red white and blue, and it doesn't have to be just right wing trogs, either. The sad truth is that we all have that tiny inner bigot, that can go rearing its ugly head of abuse at any time, you betcha, if we don't stay alert.

Israel will be having municipal elections this November, and one of the most interesting races, to my mind, is taking place in Tel Aviv - this despite the fact that few doubt the eventual winner of the race for Mayor. Retired Brig. Gen (air force) Ron Huldai will almost certainly be elected for a third term. The interesting question is by how much, and whether a stron enough true opposition will be elected to the city council.  

Huldai, former principal of Tel Aviv's historic Gimnasia Herzlia High School, who represents the labor party, is acknowledged as an efficient mayor who has undertaken many over-neglected basic infrastructure problems (bravely disregarding the inevitable bad will due to gridlock with many traffic arteries clogged for months).

However, he is also accused by many of grossly nelgecting environmental, community and culture concerns in favor of big business.  He is also accused (pretty much irrefutably) of running roughshod over a divided and easily, um, persuaded city council, and of displaying a disdain to public accountability that Acting President Darth Shooter would be proud of. Huldai, of course, would call it efficient politicking and nothing more.

At first, progressives were hoping that former left wing Knesset Member, former environmental and education minsiter Yossi Sarid would challenge Huldai. Sarid demurred eventually. Things got interesting when communist party Hadash member Dov Hanin threw his hat into the ring.

Hanin, 50, a Ph.D. in political science, is widely acclaimed as one the most honest, modest, mild-mannered, aisle-crossing among the 120 members of Israel's parliament. He can work with hard-core nationalist right wingers on environmental and social issues, refrain from calling them names even when discussing issues where no agreement can be reached, and his best friend in the house and main legislative partner is Moshe Gafni, of the hard core ultra-orthodox "Torah Jewry" party.  (Ed. to add: He is running in Tel Aviv not under his national party, but under a non-affiliated local party he formed under the name "City for Us All".

Now, it was obvious that as a member of a communist party, with views far to the left of Israeli mainstream on matters of security and the occupation of Palestinian territories (as well as on economics), Hanin would have a strong barrier with many, and invite pavlovian attacks from the right as to his fundamental eligibility for the job - even though a mayor has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What was not anticipated was that a strident, flag-waving, last-refuge attack of this sort would come from someone hitherto regarded as one of the most liberal, humanist, feminist, anti-militarist and all around progressive representatives - former "militant journalist" and current MK Shelly Yehimovitz (Labor).

Yehimovitz, who has had a generally impressive maiden term as a legislator, sponsoring good pieces of law on workers rights and the like, as well as womanning the front when bad legislation was submitted on the floor, astounded many of her admirers when she seemed to be possessed by a settler and said that "with all due respect to Hanin's progressive views, someone who doesn't stand at attention for the national anthem and preaches draft-refusal is not fit to be mayor of the first Hebrew city and Israel's main metropolis".

People could scarcely believe this was the same woman who, during a long broadcast career and her short legislative one, often delighted in puncturing holes in the machoist style of Israeli politics and the placing of things military above all.

Then it turned out Shelly was, in addition to going for the "us and them" rhetoric, simply lying. Ar first it sounded perfectly reasonable that a member of the stridently non-zionist (many would say anti-zionist) party Hadash would indeed not stand for the anthem. So nobody looked into the actual claim, and instead only attacked Shelly for even raising the issue. But as it turns out, Hanin has a deep sense of respect for establishments he freely chooses to be a part of, and does indeed stand at attention for the flag and the anthem - even if he, personally, would like to amend it (the anthem) to more broadly reflect ALL Israeli citizenry. He also served in the army, with more than mere perfunctory surrender to the draft, making 1st Sgt.

 So Shelly lied, and everyone is wondering why. It's not like anyone seriously expected her to support Hanin over her own party's encumbent and poll leader by a mile? Had she said "I like Dov, he means well on the local level, and if he actually manages to get into city council, I'm sure he'll be a great help to Mayor Huldai, my esteemed party-member whom I am proud to support for a third term" - nobody would have had a cow, or even a turd. But the fact that she felt compelled to go for the jugular - when nobody seriously believes he'll be able to topple Huldai, suggests that maybe they have polling which makes them less complacent than we think they should be.

As I noted, there are some good things to be said about 10 years of Ron Huldai's reign in Tel Aviv. But with the last bits of open space, greenery and public beaches going fast the way of the Dodo, With Parking Lot Mentality gripping all rungs of the ladder, it's time for someone you know ain't going to work for a big corporate behemoth when his gig is up. Dov Hanin doesn't want to give back Jaffa to the "Arabs", and couldn't if he did, even if elected mayor. He would like, among many other aspects of a progressive civiilian agenda, to stop treating the majority Arabs of Jaffa as a residual nuisance and start treating them as equal citizens in their own city. I really, really don't think that will be the death knell of Zionism, Shelly, or of anything that's worth fighting for. How you can feel otherwise is a sad, sad puzzle.