Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Kissing Cousins, Israel Election Edition

Loverboy Bibi is at it again.

Last year we caught Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kissing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Now he’s locking lips with Israeli Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich.

Well, not exactly.

Back in November 2011 Benetton photoshopped the embrace between Bibi and Abu Mazen as part of its controversial UNHATE ad campaign. There were lots of other highly unlikely couples, like President Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the leaders of North Korea and South Korea.

Now, the Israeli leftist party Meretz has produced altered parody images for another campaign — the one for the Israeli elections scheduled for January 23. There is the image of Bibi and Yachimovich. There is also one of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman kissing Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, to draw attention to Lapid’s refusal to pledge that he will not enter a coalition with Netanyahu’s Likud party following the elections and the likely event that Netanyahu will remain prime minister.

“We wished to provide an amusing and provocative illustration of what will happen to the votes of those who vote for the center parties, which are competing among themselves for the role of senior partner in Netanyahu’s next government,” said Roy Yellin, head of the Meretz campaign.

In case the photoshopped campaign posters alone do not make the point, Meretz also added a line of text on the Bibi-Yachimovich one. “I am yours and you are mine,” it says. In the Hebrew, “ani shelcha ve’at sheli,” it is a clever play-on-words of Yachimovich’s first name.

We haven’t yet seen the one with Tzipi Livni, who is running on the newly formed centrist Hatnua ticket. Who will she be kissing — Netanyahu or Lieberman? Maybe Meretz will go all out this time with a risqué Livni-Bieberman threesome?

A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren

We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.

With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.

—  Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief 

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.