Watch: Israel pre-election debate

Less than week before national elections, representatives from all the major parties try to convince English-speaking immigrants to support them

Ynetnews |Published: 01.17.13 , 17:52

Israel has just joined the Google Hangout craze by following in the steps of the successful hangouts used by President Barack Obama, the Japanese electorate and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The format of the pre-election debate (in English), which was aired live on Ynetnews Thursday evening, was divided into four parts. The first offered party representatives an opportunity to tell new immigrants why they should vote for their party. In the second section, questions from people on the street were offered up to the politicians. The third section offered the politicians a chance to attack their fellow running mates on any one point, while the end had a special and unique twist to the often savage political world stage.

Watch online debate

"Politics really has a way of separating people; I wanted to see how we could bring everyone together," said the Right-leaning David Lev, one of the moderators of the debate. His co-host, Ellis Shuman, is oriented towards the Left. The idea for two moderators with separate views was to make both political guests and viewers feel more comfortable that the event will be both balanced and fair.

Above all, in keeping with the theme of 'celebrating Israel's democracy,' a strong message will be broadcast that people are entitled to their own views and should be able to express them with due consideration and respect for others, the event's organizers said.

These are the parties that were represented from across the political spectrum:

Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home)

Labor

Likud-Beiteinu

Meretz

Hatnua

Otzma Leyisrael

Shas

Yesh Atid

"Catering to the Israeli election campaign, with all its passionate diversity, and colorful participants, is sure to take this high-tech communication platform to an entirely new level," remarked of Lev, co-founder of Israel Vibes, producers of the event.

The main focus of the event is to celebrate Israel's democracy and help educate English-speaking immigrants to better understand the choice of parties running for election in Israel's often complex political system.