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Obama’s Israeli Community Organizers Never Got to Drink Their Free Beer
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On March 21, 2015 @ 9:34 pm In The Point | 5 Comments
Imagine the opposite of the outcome of the 2012 election. That’s about what happened in Israel.
Obama’s campaign organizers went there. They set up the same operation. They gathered up lots of young volunteers. They even got free beer.
But nobody got to drink the free beer because they lost.
The crates of beer – a contribution from a local brewery – stood sealed in a corner of the room. More than anything else, they symbolized the slightly sour mood that filled the “victory headquarters” of the V15 organization last Tuesday night in Tel Aviv. At that stage, 10 P.M., it still looked like Zionist Union had achieved an honorable tie with Likud, and no one expected the enormity of the eventual defeat [six seats].
One of the activists reached out a hesitant arm and grabbed for a bottle, even though it was already clear it was not the time for celebrations.
No beer for you.
On Election Day, when the main sentiment was hope, Weizmann shot out encouraging figures as evidence of V15’s dominance in the field and the public debate: the number of visitors to its website (400,000 unique visitors); the number of cards signed in support (35,000); the number of field headquarters spread all over country, from Be’er Sheva to Kiryat Shmona (50); and the number of volunteers in its Nes Tziona HQ at that very moment (13).
As the hours passed on Tuesday evening, the Zionist Union’s loss started to became apparent. V15 may have succeeded in raising voter turnout in almost all the neighborhoods it targeted, but its efforts counted for naught and its achievement was ultimately insignificant since the entire bloc suffered a defeat.
But… but 13 volunteers in Nes Tziona.
“The truth is, when all the lawsuits, summonses and headlines against us started coming day after day in Israel Hayom, we pissed our pants,” admitted Itamar Weizmann, who founded V15.
He was active among the new media staff at Greenpeace, and worked for the outgoing MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz).
“When all this ends I will be unemployed,” said Weizmann.
Don’t count on it. Lefty parasites can always find a gig.
The trauma still shows, so much so that when U.S. actor Chuck Norris released a video in support of Netanyahu just ahead of Election Day, at V15 they mulled for a long time whether to release a similar video made for them by another actor, Natalie Portman. In the end they decided not to, fearing it might be construed as “foreign intervention.”
More likely they knew Israelis wouldn’t care. Natalie Portman left Israel. An endorsement from her would actually carry anti-weight.
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