Green Movement elects veteran activists to its Knesset candidates list

Eran Ben-Yemini was the founder of Green Course - the national student environmental organization.

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
eran ben yemini 88 (photo credit: )
eran ben yemini 88
(photo credit: )
Green Movement cofounder Eran Ben-Yemini was voted into the top spot on the party's slate for the Knesset on Friday in a primary at Seminar Hakibbutzim in Tel Aviv. He was followed by cofounder Alon Tal. Ben-Yemini was the founder of Green Course - the national student environmental organization - and currently works at the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership in Tel Aviv. Tal founded the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (Adam, Teva, V'din) and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura. No. 3 on the list is Iris Hahn, a city planner affiliated with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and its Open Landscape Institute. She also represents the environmental organizations on the National Planning and Building Council and various subcommittees. Hussein Tarabieh, who took the fourth spot, founded the first environmental unit in the Arab sector in Sakhnin. He also founded an environmental center there that uses the environment as a motif in coexistence dialogue. Anglos did not fare so well in the primary. Although North Carolina-native Tal made it to No. 2, Gershon Baskin, raised in Long Island, New York, and Yosef Abramowitz, from Massachusetts, failed to crack the top 10. The rest of the list, in order: Yael Cohen Paran, Ofer Kott, Rami Livni, Natalia Gutkovski, Sarit Oked and Shmuel Chen. About 70 percent of the 1,000 party members voted in the primary and Ben-Yemini was voted to lead the party by a large majority, the Green Movement said. "Democracy triumphed. The people who made it to the front of the list are people who have proven themselves over the past several years as those who led the most prominent environmental battles in Israel. We hope that with the help of the public we will continue to lead the fight in the parliamentary sphere as well," Ben-Yemini said in a statement. It is as yet unclear what chance any green party has of passing the 2% electoral threshold on February 10 and entering the Knesset. A poll on Thursday for Israel Radio placed the other green party, the Greens, outside the Knesset once again. The Green Movement did not appear in that survey.