In a divided and divided country like Israel, most artists prefer to stay away from political identification. The cliché says that once an artist identifies with one of the parties, he gains the sympathy of half of the people but also the ardent disgust of the other half. Still, the history of Israeli election campaigns includes a number of artists who have chosen to take advantage of their public status and participate in a campaign for one of the parties. Some did it out of sympathy with the ideology and righteousness of the way, and some, as we shall see later, did it because the payment was handsome.
Sefi Rivlin – Likud 1977, 1981, 1984
Despite being a member of the Betar-Revisionist family, in his youth Sefi Rivlin played football for the Hapoel Rishon Lezion team. a certain. In one fateful game of Rishon Lezion against Betar Ramla, the result was 2-2, and in the 90th minute Rivlin received the ball and kicked the goal. The Ramla goalkeeper deflected the ball and Rishon Lezion lost the chance to win.
The next day Rivlin arrived sad and depressed for training, and to his astonishment discovered that his entry into the field had been banned. When he asked for explanations, the team’s managers accused him of selling the game to Betar Ramla.
By 1977 Rivlin was already a well-known actor, a graduate of the satire show “Cleaning the Head.” In the run-up to the election, he received an offer from the Likud to appear on the party’s election broadcasts, and immediately agreed. When asked what payment he demands in return, he replied: “Only travel refunds to Jerusalem and back.” Rivlin brought a fresh comedic spirit to the broadcasts, and perhaps made a small contribution to the revolution of 1977. In 1981, Rivlin returned to his post, again for free, and this time shone with the campaign that went on the head of the lineup, Shimon Peres: “Yes and no.” Peres later admitted that the broadcast This one did him immense damage, and the Likud party won again.
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By 1984 the story was different. After the Likud’s second and problematic term in power, with the First Lebanon War and the economic crisis, Rivlin was, he said, more skeptical and less purposeful, and did not really feel like doing the campaign this time either. Therefore, when they approached him from the Likud, this time he demanded payment and mentioned an imaginary amount that he was convinced that the party would not agree to pay. They agreed. Rivlin once again found himself, for the last time, at the forefront of the campaign.
The Pale Tracker – The 1984 Array
After two consecutive defeats, the Labor Party realized that they had to give the Likud a fight in the broadcast sector as well. Opposite Rivlin is the weapon of doomsday: the pale tracker trio. The scouts, who until then had maintained neutrality and were loved by all sections of the people, agreed to participate in the broadcasts, breaking the hearts of many Likud supporters who adored them and were disappointed by the political identification.
The broadcasts were in the familiar scout style – an exchange of wits between Shaike, Gavri and Polly, who, among other things, suggested that the Likud shorten the month by two weeks so that people could, perhaps, finish the month. There was also use of the trio’s familiar repertoire and catch-prices such as “Wrong, wrong, we were wrong” and “Did you get that, Baruch?”.
Meanwhile on Likud broadcasts, Rivlin responded directly to the trackers (“My friends, reward”), declaring: “I voted for Likud, I will vote for Likud. No mistake, no mistake, we did not make a mistake.”
At the end of the battle of the giants, the result at the polls was a draw and led to the formation of the rotation government of Peres and Yitzhak Shamir. After the election, Motti Kirschenbaum, who was working with the trackers as a director at the time, decided that in their next show they must address the performance in the election campaign and laugh at themselves. Thus was born the sketch “The Exorcist”, in which the late Foley plays himself and faces questions such as “How much did you get for the election?”.
Rami Weiberger – Labor Party 1996
The post-Rabin election put veteran and experienced Shimon Peres in front of the young and energetic Likud chairman, Benjamin Netanyahu. The choice of star does the job well for the party.
Weiberger is of course a very talented and funny actor, but the “quintet” was at the time identified as the home program of the elitist left camp (although it also often criticized him), and his choice was seen as turning to the “base” on the left instead of doing what to do in an election So close – to appeal to the undecided.
Instead of presenting the vision and ideology of the Labor Party, the broadcasts, which were written by a team that included the late Anat Gov and Shmuel Hasefri, went over Netanyahu’s headline under the slogan “Bibi does not fit.” A Premier League striker, an astrologer who can not predict what Bibi will think tomorrow because “even he still does not know”, a taxi driver, etc. In a post-mortem, the Labor Party was perceived as smug and arrogant.
In the direct election for prime minister, as is well known, Netanyahu won by a fraction of a percent after the samples had already given Peres victory. The Likud’s effective campaign, led by Councilor Arthur Finkelstein, was sharp, focused and focused on clear messages that presented Peres as a security threat. Weiberger’s confused campaign, on the other hand, was part of Labor’s confused election campaign. Weiberger later said that about a week after the election, he met Peres at the Jerusalem Film Festival and told him, “So what, Shimon, we lost.” Peres was not confused and replied: “Who are you?”.
Zehava Ben and Dana Berger – March 1996
In the 1996 elections, Meretz broadcasts included Dana Berger and Zehava Ben and performed “Shir LaShalom,” which was a song especially charged after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin with the iconic image of the lyrics, which were in Rabin’s pocket, bloodied. While Berger’s casting was quite natural, the connection between Zehava Ben, then the leading singer in the Mizrahi genre, and the party with the Ashkenazi and elitist image, raised quite a few eyebrows, and later it turned out to be right.
Ben comes from a Likud supporter house and in an interview with Walla! In 2018 she referred to the same broadcast: “It’s pressure from the first manager. I did not do it wholeheartedly. I did it to please the manager and of course I was paid for it. Beyond that nothing. It is a mistake. He (the manager) was a mechanic and we were many A lot, arguing about this thing, I’m completely right-wing, and it’s extreme. There were a lot of disagreements … a lot of persuasions. I got comments, that it’s not right to do it. “They will not dare.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkcJZs7VWro
Moshe Ivgi – The Zionist Camp 2015
At the beginning of 2015, about a year before the affair broke out, at the end of which he was convicted of indecent acts and sexual harassment and imprisoned, Moshe Ivgi still enjoys his status as a senior player in Israel and is identified with the left camp and the social issue. Thus, he was recruited for the Zionist Camp Party and participated in a video called “The 89th Minute”:
“This is the 89th minute, there is a feeling that something really bad is happening, we are exhausted and desperate and receive the worst news with the indifference of terminally ill people. Every third child in this country is hungry, old people lie in hospital corridors, 40 year olds take food from parents to put “Food for their children. This is only the 89th minute. There is still enough time to win this game. All it takes is one move that will bring back to this country what it once had. Last chance to make a decisive move. You know what needs to be done.”
The campaign received cold reviews: from the right, it was claimed that the descriptions of the Netanyahu regime’s apocalypse were exaggerated and unfounded, and from the left, the campaign, which did not mention any candidate or party name, was vague and obscured the camp’s positions. The Zionist camp led by Yitzhak Herzog then gave Netanyahu a good fight, but in the end Netanyahu managed to achieve the long-awaited victory, contrary to all predictions and polls.