This is the fourth of a series of blog posts from Israelis with different perspectives on the forthcoming elections. Lisa Goldman is an Israeli freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv. She also writes about the Israeli blogosphere for Global Voices Online and blogs at On the Face. Read her first post here, and read posts from Shai Tsur here and here.
Dalit Nemirovsky, 28, says she does not know what a Zionist is.
Like most Israelis of her background - young, secular, urban, educated and well-travelled - she is far more interested in universal subjects like art, music and fashion, than in politics. She is both deeply connected to her country and society, and impatient with ideological labels, writes Lisa Goldman.
"I'm an Israeli and that's it," she said, when I asked if she considered herself a Zionist. "I've travelled all over the world, lived in Paris, London and Frankfurt, but this is my home. I think that Tel Aviv is one of the greatest cities in the world. And even with all of this country's problems, this is where I want to raise my children."
Dalit is special to me because she is my friend. But in her views on politics and social issues she is very much an ordinary Israeli.
The manager of a number of publishing, internet and film projects, Dalit knows all of Tel Aviv's fashionable clubs, restaurants and cafes. Her social and political opinions are consistently liberal, but she rarely discusses politics with her friends and doesn't have much time for newspapers.
Israel's conflict with the Palestinians may affect Dalit's life sometimes - when there is a suicide bombing in her city, for example - but it certainly does not define her existence.
In the last elections, she decided to vote for the Green Party, "because there was no one else to vote for". This time, she will vote for Kadima.
"Until the disengagement from Gaza," she said, "I could not forgive Ariel Sharon for his past mistakes - for Sabra and Chatila, for his refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians, for his belief in a Greater Israel. But he showed that he was strong enough to change his mind. He recognised that he was wrong and did something to correct his mistakes. He earned my respect."
Dalit has concluded that Kadima is the only party with the credibility to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank. "We don't belong there," she said, "and we should get out."
She goes on to say that, while she agrees fully with the liberal social programme of Meretz, the leftist Zionist party, she doesn't think that Israelis have the luxury of voting for a party based on social issues as long as the conflict continues.
Like the vast majority of Israelis, Dalit is tired of the unending, pointless conflict; she compares Israelis and Palestinians to a divorcing couple: "We just have to decide how to split up the property."
Most Europeans and Americans, even those who watch the television news and read the foreign pages of their newspaper diligently, know little about Israelis like Dalit. "I think that most people around the world simply do not know anything about us. When friends I met abroad come to visit me, they are shocked to discover what Israel is really like - the hi-tech culture, the sophisticated lifestyle, the open, warm people and the beautiful vistas."
There's a reason for that. Foreign correspondents based in Israel rarely write about people like Dalit. The journalists are almost always based in Jerusalem, and only come to Tel Aviv to cover news events. They do travel, but it is usually to cover violent confrontations in the West Bank, or to interview extremists there who will provide them with the provocative and sexy quotes - the kind that sell newspapers, and feed into common misperceptions and biases.
As a result, they really don't have the time - or perhaps the inclination - to get a real sense of Israeli society. Their readers may know Israeli politicians, Israeli terror victims, and Israeli soldiers, but they don't really know ordinary Israelis.
Kadima will be elected because it represents mainstream Israelis: People who would rather focus on their personal lives than on the conflict with the Palestinians; people who really do not have an axe to grind with their neighbours, whatever they may think. People like Dalit.
