"Nyet to Yvet" is the slogan, using the Russian word for no and Liberman's nickname.
By GIL HOFFMANDefense Minister Avigdor Liberman holds a weapon during a visit to Sderot(photo credit: ARIEL HERMONI / DEFENSE MINISTRY)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud released its first campaign advertisement for the September 17 election on Thursday – and it is not in Hebrew.The campaign ad is entirely in Russian, seeking to woo voters from Yisrael Beytenu by portraying its leader Avigdor Liberman as inconsistent. When he refused to join Netanyahu’s government, the prime minister promised to spend a hefty amount in the Russian immigrant sector.“Nyet to Yvet” is the slogan, using the Russian word for no with Liberman’s nickname.The ad depicts Liberman promising to bring about civil marriage in Israel but repeatedly voting against it. The ad does not mention that the reason Yisrael Beytenu MKs voted against civil marriage legislation was that they were part of a coalition with haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties led by Netanyahu.Yisrael Beytenu’s Russian-language ads have portrayed Liberman as the defender of normative Judaism against the extremists.At the 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies this week, Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies academic chairman Prof. Ze’ev Khanin presented a study which found that key expectations of Russian-speaking Israelis from national leaders are similar to those of the rest of Israeli citizens.The study found that they are concerned with security, solving the housing problem of young couples, lowering retail prices, deregulation of the economy and improvement of formal education.At the same time, almost a third of Russian-speaking immigrants (more than 60% among the older population) recognize many problems specific to members of the community.Almost 45%, and more among the middle-aged sector, said they believe such problems are limited, while only about a quarter, mainly of young people, said they believed that “Russian-speaking Israelis have the same problems as others.”
