he went waaay right today. he said that if he wins there will never be a palestinian state under his leadership. this is in direct opposition to his stated position on the conflict.
i think he overplayed his hand, and he will feel it at the polls tomorrow.
there are only so many times a man can cry wolf in 19 years before people stop believing him.
he is praying that he wins, because if he loses he is going before the world court.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
BIBI just said in an appeal to right wing israelis that "flocks of arabs are turning up at the polls by the bus load. if you don't want a left wing government vote for me and the Likud party."
no shit. outright racism right there. he just exposed his true self.
when do polls close?
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
polls close at 3:00 central time. about 36 minutes from now. i wonder how this last minute hard right turn is going to work out for bibi.
Appears to be working out for him. In the end it is about who is able to form a coalition. At this very early stage a Likud led coalition is most likely.
polls close at 3:00 central time. about 36 minutes from now. i wonder how this last minute hard right turn is going to work out for bibi.
Appears to be working out for him. In the end it is about who is able to form a coalition. At this very early stage a Likud led coalition is most likely.
i just read that it was too close to call right now. exit polls show either 27-27 or 28-26 Likud majority.
never trust exit polls though. here in the states they are hardly ever certain.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,341
65% turnout. A little less underwhelming than ours given the circumstances .
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
65% turnout. A little less underwhelming than ours given the circumstances .
What to make of the silent 3rd?
how can thier turnout be so low, considering election day is pretty much a national holiday there??
could it be that the voting public are just as apathetic as the american electorate??
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,341
Couple points higher than than the highest ever in 99? They are elated. Saying that high would never happen here, according to the guardian article I read.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Netanyahu (Likud) is apparently at 30 seats, Herzog (Zionist Union) at 24. Arab parties in Israel traditionally are either not invited or don't participate in Jewish coalition governments, hence Joint List won't be involved (in spite of their admirably large numbers this year). Sadly, the only hope I have against a Netanyahu-led coalition is a national unity government as President Rivlin has proposed. I hope he commits to that: if Netanyahu is in power, he has stated explicitly that there shall be no Palestinian state. I happen to think that a one-state solution is the best solution, as does Netanyahu. The difference is that I wish for the state of Israel to be one secularly run state without the 'Jewish' in 'Jewish democracy'. Enough is enough.
With a national unity government, the odds of some semblance of positive change are minor instead of non-existent.
'05 - TO, '06 - TO 1, '08 - NYC 1 & 2, '09 - TO, Chi 1 & 2, '10 - Buffalo, NYC 1 & 2, '11 - TO 1 & 2, Hamilton, '13 - Buffalo, Brooklyn 1 & 2, '15 - Global Citizen, '16 - TO 1 & 2, Chi 2
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
Netanyahu (Likud) is apparently at 30 seats, Herzog (Zionist Union) at 24. Arab parties in Israel traditionally are either not invited or don't participate in Jewish coalition governments, hence Joint List won't be involved (in spite of their admirably large numbers this year). Sadly, the only hope I have against a Netanyahu-led coalition is a national unity government as President Rivlin has proposed. I hope he commits to that: if Netanyahu is in power, he has stated explicitly that there shall be no Palestinian state. I happen to think that a one-state solution is the best solution, as does Netanyahu. The difference is that I wish for the state of Israel to be one secularly run state without the 'Jewish' in 'Jewish democracy'. Enough is enough.
With a national unity government, the odds of some semblance of positive change are minor instead of non-existent.
if bibi holds on, israel is heading for war and isolation from the rest of the world.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
GAZA/RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian leaders on Wednesday called for international pressure on Israel and support for their unilateral moves towards statehood after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election win.
Netanyahu's surprise victory, after pledging in the final days of the campaign that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he was in power, left Palestinians grim about prospects for a negotiated solution to a decades-old conflict.
"It is clear Israel has voted for burying the peace process, against the two-state choice and for the continuation of occupation and settlement," Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator in talks with Israel that collapsed in April, told Voice of Palestine radio.
Seeking to shore up right-wing votes and saying that Islamist militants would move into any territory relinquished by Israel, Netanyahu also vowed to keep building settlements on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Palestinian leaders said a fourth term for the Likud party leader meant they must press forward with unilateral steps towards independence, including filing charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court.
"This makes it more necessary than ever to go to the international community, and to go to the ICC and escalate peaceful resistance and boycott against the occupation," Wasel Abu Youssef, a Palestine Liberation Organization leader, told Reuters.
The Palestinians are due to become ICC members on April 1.
Erekat called in a statement on the international community to back Palestinian efforts "to internationalize our struggle for dignity and freedom through the International Criminal Court and through all other peaceful means".
Netanyahu's stand against a Palestinian state had already threatened to strain ties with the United States and Europe.
The parliaments of several European countries, including Britain and France, have called on their governments to recognize an independent state of Palestine in the past year, reflecting exasperation at continued settlement building on occupied land. Sweden formally recognized Palestine in October.
Netanyahu, who in 2009 had endorsed the two-state solution, seemed on course to form a coalition government leaning further to the right than his outgoing cabinet, which had included two centrist parties and engaged in the U.S-brokered peace talks.
"MASQUERADE IS OVER"
In his new coalition, Netanyahu is expected to include his natural allies, religious and far-right parties, as well as one centrist party which campaigned on internal social-economic issues rather than on matters of war and peace.
Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, said he was concerned that as head of rightist-dominated government, Netanyahu would move forward more easily towards expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, enclaves many countries view as illegal.
"Netanyahu's masquerade is over. Everything's clear now, we're talking about a man who has sworn allegiance to the right, not about a centrist," Oppenheimer said.
Adding to Palestinian frustration is Israel's January decision to withhold $127 million tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, a retaliatory step after the Palestinians moved to join the ICC.
Though Israeli officials have indicated no imminent change, Gaza-based political analyst Hani Habeeb said Netanyahu may unfreeze the funds, which cover around two-thirds of the Palestinian budget, now that the election is over.
"I do not rule out Netanyahu releasing the PA tax revenues to improve his (international) image," Habeeb said. "He used it as a card during the election campaign and now he won."
Erekat suggested the Palestinians may press on with their pledge this month to suspend security coordination with Israel, a move that could have an immediate impact on stability in the West Bank.
But Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, did not close the door completely on negotiations with Israel.
"We are not bothered by who is head of government in Israel, what we want from the Israeli government is to recognize the two-state solution and that east Jerusalem be the capital of the state of Palestine," he said.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent reelection puts Israel on a course toward ever deeper confrontation with the world. To govern, his Likud Party would need to depend on ultranationalists — a recipe for neither stability nor bold moves toward Mideast peace.
A period of some horsetrading looms. With Likud as well as rightist and religious allies, Netanyahu still only commands 57 out of 120 parliament seats. He must woo Moshe Kahlon, a relative newcomer to the big leagues of Israeli politics. Breaking away from Netanyahu's nationalist Likud two years ago after a falling out with the premier, he adopted a vaguely centrist platform and flirted with Isaac Herzog's more moderate Zionist Union. If he is non-aligned as he claims, then he holds the balance of power between Israel's traditional right and left blocs, each with just under half of parliament.
It is widely thought that it would be too awkward for the former Likud figure to crown the opposition unless Herzog's party enjoyed a cushion of several seats over Likud. Polls had suggested that would happen, but the actual vote count on Wednesday showed the opposite: Likud was ahead by 30-24 seats.
If Kahlon does go with Netanyahu, it would give the hard-liner a fourth term that, if completed, would make him Israel's longest-serving leader, on par with the nation's founder David Ben Gurion.
That would not bode well for prospects of peace with the Palestinians or a rapprochement between Israel and the region, which seems tantalizingly close in an era in which many of the neighboring Arab nations fear jihadi extremism far more than they oppose Israel.
Under Netanyahu, Israel has deepened its hold on the West Bank, adding Jewish settlers to the point where the territory may soon become inseparable from Israel proper. Combined with the Jews in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, there are some 600,000 Jews living on occupied land.
In recent days, Netanyahu has said that he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state if elected. The Palestinians have already said they would take their case against Israel to war crimes tribunals and other international bodies. A campaign to boycott Israel seems poised to gain traction. Netanyahu's relations with the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama are frosty at best.
International isolation looms.
Netanyahu knows the complications of all this and may try to draw in Herzog, to give his government a more moderate character. But he has promised, in his final appeals to his base, not to do this — and Herzog would probably demand a rotation in the premier's post as his price.
Kahlon seems to dislike Netanyahu intensely, and he certainly has the power to crown Herzog, a mild-mannered lawyer and scion of a venerable family of Zionist founders. Kahlon's platform is moderate, as are top lieutenants in his party, and despite his Likud roots he has supported the idea of peace talks. It is not inconceivable that the left's desire to unseat Netanyahu extends to offering Kahlon a rotation as prime minister.
The issue has defined Israeli politics ever since the 1967 Middle East war, which cemented Israel as a regional power but saddled it with occupied territories including the Palestinian-populated West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but to many the territory, run by Hamas militants and blockaded on all side by Israel and Egypt, remains part of the equation.
Parties on the left would trade the land for peace and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. They also argue that the lands are a liability because with their millions of Palestinians their incorporation would destroy Israel as a Jewish-majority state.
The right emphasizes the lands' strategic value and biblical symbolism and pushes constantly for settling them with Jews. Its success in this endeavor has, paradoxically, put the country on a path toward being a place where Jews are no longer a strong majority.
The issue is Israel's existential dilemma, central to the world's interest and fundamental to determining the country's ultimate character. But after decades of failure and disappointment accompanied by periods of violence, Israelis have despaired of peace and politicians increasingly address the Palestinian matter with evasion, mendacity or doubletalk.
The Zionist Union is a rebranding of Israel's once venerable Labor Party, which led the country for three decades after its founding but last won an election in 1999. That brought to power its then-leader Ehud Barak, who became the first prime minister to offer the Palestinians a state, on most of the occupied territories. No deal was struck and a violent Palestinian uprising erupted, leaving Labor in shambles ever since.
Meanwhile, the political system has fragmented in ways that align with Israel's internal divisions. So there are parties for Russian immigrants, Sephardic Jews, different types of religious Jews, secular and progressive citizens, the European-oriented middle class, and a new union of Israeli Arab parties that individually are nationalist, Islamic or socialist.
Only one thing seems certain: Pressure to overhaul the electoral system that has yielded such chaos will grow.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
AMMAN -- The Israeli electorate had a choice to make. By re-electing a leader who publicly reneged on his commitments to peace and a two-state solution, they voted against peace. What remains now is how the Palestinians and the world will react to the closure of the charade that was called the peace process.
Palestinians have for years lost hope in the peace process and have been telling everyone who is willing to listen that the Israeli leaders are merely giving lip service to it as their own bulldozers were gobbling up Palestinian lands. The world kept on believing in the lip service until the Israeli public forced their leader to state his case in Hebrew to his own people. Now that we know that Israel is not a democracy to all its citizens (see Netanyahu's racist comments about Arab citizens) and Netanyahu never meant his commitment to a Palestinian state, the world must react.
The vote by the Israeli public has sealed the fate of Mahmoud Abbas who had placed his bets on the peace process and the support of the international community. The 79-year-old will certainly set the stage for a new generation of Palestinian leaders during the upcoming seventh congress of Fatah. But in the meantime he has been given a mandate to follow-up on efforts to ostracize Israeli internationally while suspending security cooperation.
The efforts by the UN's non-member state of Palestine to pursue Israel in the International Criminal Court must now be seen as a positive nonviolent act that is much kinder to Israel than what should happen to an occupying power. Instead of criticizing Palestine, the US and other western countries must praise the actions of Mahmoud Abbas as a moderate peaceful alternative to various offers of resistance.
Abbas's efforts to go to the ICC have been recently approved by the Palestinian Central Council, which also approved the need to suspend security cooperation with Israel. Palestinians have for years made life easy to its occupiers by providing intelligence and security cooperation to thwart any efforts to resist the illegal occupation of its territories and the colonial settlement of its lands.
Palestinian and world eyes will now be focused on the post-election Israeli relations with Washington and the rest of the international community. Will the US continue in defending Israeli in the Security council after Netanyahu renounced the two-state solution without presenting a credible alternative. The Obama Administration is still reeling from his efforts to sabotage a possible deal with Iran over its nuclear plans without giving a credible alternative. The same situation is now present in the Palestinian issue after Netanyahu renounced his own commitments to recognize a Palestinian state (albeit with conditions) without offering any alternative. As the veteran anchor Christiane Amanpour said on CNN Tuesday, without support for a Palestinian state, the Israeli leader is offering no alternative except for an apartheid-like situation where four million Palestinian under Israeli military control have no political rights.
The vote for the Israeli Knesset and the shift to the right by Israel's presumptive re-elected prime minister has relieved Palestinians of any worry about moving seriously in the direction of internationalizing the conflict. Attempts to say that the conflict can be resolved if both parties just sit down and talk was based on the assumption that Israel is a democratic state for all its citizens and thus can't accept to politically disenfranchise another people and that the state of Israel accepts to replace the occupation with an independent Palestinian state. Both these assumptions have been wiped by Netanyahu and therefore Palestinians are no longer bound by the need to continue to pretend that the conflict can be solved simply through direct Palestinian-Israeli engagement.
The role and the responsibilities of the international community to resolve a conflict that all agree has poisoned the air in the Middle East region is now paramount. It is no longer acceptable that international instruments such as the Security Council and the International Criminal Court be disabled in favor of Israel. No one country should be allowed to be above international law. And Israel has now lost any chance of world powers protecting it from international justice.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
I wonder when/if we get a statement on this from the US government. they probably don't have a sweet clue how to deal with this now that the cat is out of the invisible bag.
I wonder when/if we get a statement on this from the US government. they probably don't have a sweet clue how to deal with this now that the cat is out of the invisible bag.
There won't be any real statement. The Obama Administration put all their eggs in the Zionist Union basket and lost. He is now a lame duck on the Israeli-Palestinian issue until the end of his term. It's a shame but he allowed it all to become to personal. Hopefully under the next administration (D or R) the two-state solution can be revived.
Nice deflection. What a fucken joke. Bibi said there will never be a 2 state. Anyone else have issues with this statement? There already is a Palestine. What the fuck. Unreal. This is serious shit here. 2 diff WH for 16 years and nothing. How many times am I gonna say, this is what has been wanted.
So BB don't you think Obama at least created some friction? Think tide is turning though way to slow.
And I do want good for Israel as well.
It's weird cuz I do but then I think, but what has really happened? Nothing. Same shit. Bibi gets away with war crimes and Palestinians will suffer, get this, in their own land. Like a nightmare that doesn't end. I'd love for the day to come that a president has the huevos to really do something. But I already know, the senators and congressmen have their pockets full with aipac money.
his statements the last 3 days will further isolate israel in the eyes of the international community, excluding the us, that is...
The "international community" doesn't really exist as an entity that can change the status quo. Egypt has declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Jordan, The UAE and Saudi Arabia now align themselves with Israel against Iran. Canada, Australia, and others are staunchly pro-Israel and in a couple of years the Obama foreign policy which pressured Israel more then any previous US administration will be over. The ICC and the UN have no muscle without the involvement of the above players being on board. The reality on the ground is that until Palestinians rid themselves of the Islamofascists that have co-opted their movement no progress can or will be made. It is time for deep introspection for all those that support the Palestinian cause.
his statements the last 3 days will further isolate israel in the eyes of the international community, excluding the us, that is...
The "international community" doesn't really exist as an entity that can change the status quo. Egypt has declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Jordan, The UAE and Saudi Arabia now align themselves with Israel against Iran. Canada, Australia, and others are staunchly pro-Israel and in a couple of years the Obama foreign policy which pressured Israel more then any previous US administration will be over. The ICC and the UN have no muscle without the involvement of the above players being on board. The reality on the ground is that until Palestinians rid themselves of the Islamofascists that have co-opted their movement no progress can or will be made. It is time for deep introspection for all those that support the Palestinian cause.
his statements the last 3 days will further isolate israel in the eyes of the international community, excluding the us, that is...
The "international community" doesn't really exist as an entity that can change the status quo. Egypt has declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Jordan, The UAE and Saudi Arabia now align themselves with Israel against Iran. Canada, Australia, and others are staunchly pro-Israel and in a couple of years the Obama foreign policy which pressured Israel more then any previous US administration will be over. The ICC and the UN have no muscle without the involvement of the above players being on board. The reality on the ground is that until Palestinians rid themselves of the Islamofascists that have co-opted their movement no progress can or will be made. It is time for deep introspection for all those that support the Palestinian cause.
one man's "islamofascist" is another man's freedom fighter.
austalia is very critical of israel. they will be moreso now. most of europe is going to turn on israel, all they will have left is the united states, and with icy relations, they will be more and more isolated.
bibi wants war. and he is gonna get it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Comments
he went waaay right today. he said that if he wins there will never be a palestinian state under his leadership. this is in direct opposition to his stated position on the conflict.
i think he overplayed his hand, and he will feel it at the polls tomorrow.
there are only so many times a man can cry wolf in 19 years before people stop believing him.
he is praying that he wins, because if he loses he is going before the world court.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
that sucks. i had forgotten that was coming up.
there was a big thread about her years ago. i will try to find it because she deserves her own thread.
rip rachel.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
no shit. outright racism right there. he just exposed his true self.
when do polls close?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
never trust exit polls though. here in the states they are hardly ever certain.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
What to make of the silent 3rd?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
could it be that the voting public are just as apathetic as the american electorate??
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
With a national unity government, the odds of some semblance of positive change are minor instead of non-existent.
EV
Toronto Film Festival 9/11/2007, '08 - Toronto 1 & 2, '09 - Albany 1, '11 - Chicago 1
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
http://news.yahoo.com/palestinians-want-world-pressure-israel-netanyahu-win-131521806.html
GAZA/RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian leaders on Wednesday called for international pressure on Israel and support for their unilateral moves towards statehood after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election win.
Netanyahu's surprise victory, after pledging in the final days of the campaign that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he was in power, left Palestinians grim about prospects for a negotiated solution to a decades-old conflict.
"It is clear Israel has voted for burying the peace process, against the two-state choice and for the continuation of occupation and settlement," Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator in talks with Israel that collapsed in April, told Voice of Palestine radio.
Seeking to shore up right-wing votes and saying that Islamist militants would move into any territory relinquished by Israel, Netanyahu also vowed to keep building settlements on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.
Palestinian leaders said a fourth term for the Likud party leader meant they must press forward with unilateral steps towards independence, including filing charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court.
"This makes it more necessary than ever to go to the international community, and to go to the ICC and escalate peaceful resistance and boycott against the occupation," Wasel Abu Youssef, a Palestine Liberation Organization leader, told Reuters.
The Palestinians are due to become ICC members on April 1.
Erekat called in a statement on the international community to back Palestinian efforts "to internationalize our struggle for dignity and freedom through the International Criminal Court and through all other peaceful means".
Netanyahu's stand against a Palestinian state had already threatened to strain ties with the United States and Europe.
The parliaments of several European countries, including Britain and France, have called on their governments to recognize an independent state of Palestine in the past year, reflecting exasperation at continued settlement building on occupied land. Sweden formally recognized Palestine in October.
Netanyahu, who in 2009 had endorsed the two-state solution, seemed on course to form a coalition government leaning further to the right than his outgoing cabinet, which had included two centrist parties and engaged in the U.S-brokered peace talks.
"MASQUERADE IS OVER"
In his new coalition, Netanyahu is expected to include his natural allies, religious and far-right parties, as well as one centrist party which campaigned on internal social-economic issues rather than on matters of war and peace.
Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, said he was concerned that as head of rightist-dominated government, Netanyahu would move forward more easily towards expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, enclaves many countries view as illegal.
"Netanyahu's masquerade is over. Everything's clear now, we're talking about a man who has sworn allegiance to the right, not about a centrist," Oppenheimer said.
Adding to Palestinian frustration is Israel's January decision to withhold $127 million tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, a retaliatory step after the Palestinians moved to join the ICC.
Though Israeli officials have indicated no imminent change, Gaza-based political analyst Hani Habeeb said Netanyahu may unfreeze the funds, which cover around two-thirds of the Palestinian budget, now that the election is over.
"I do not rule out Netanyahu releasing the PA tax revenues to improve his (international) image," Habeeb said. "He used it as a card during the election campaign and now he won."
Erekat suggested the Palestinians may press on with their pledge this month to suspend security coordination with Israel, a move that could have an immediate impact on stability in the West Bank.
But Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, did not close the door completely on negotiations with Israel.
"We are not bothered by who is head of government in Israel, what we want from the Israeli government is to recognize the two-state solution and that east Jerusalem be the capital of the state of Palestine," he said.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-analysis-advantage-netanyahu-close-race-230332505.html;_ylt=A0SO8yt8nAlVT4gAhBhXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzN3M0Ym50BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDU01FNzAzXzEEc2VjA3Nj
JERUSALEM (AP) — Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent reelection puts Israel on a course toward ever deeper confrontation with the world. To govern, his Likud Party would need to depend on ultranationalists — a recipe for neither stability nor bold moves toward Mideast peace.
A period of some horsetrading looms. With Likud as well as rightist and religious allies, Netanyahu still only commands 57 out of 120 parliament seats. He must woo Moshe Kahlon, a relative newcomer to the big leagues of Israeli politics. Breaking away from Netanyahu's nationalist Likud two years ago after a falling out with the premier, he adopted a vaguely centrist platform and flirted with Isaac Herzog's more moderate Zionist Union. If he is non-aligned as he claims, then he holds the balance of power between Israel's traditional right and left blocs, each with just under half of parliament.
It is widely thought that it would be too awkward for the former Likud figure to crown the opposition unless Herzog's party enjoyed a cushion of several seats over Likud. Polls had suggested that would happen, but the actual vote count on Wednesday showed the opposite: Likud was ahead by 30-24 seats.
If Kahlon does go with Netanyahu, it would give the hard-liner a fourth term that, if completed, would make him Israel's longest-serving leader, on par with the nation's founder David Ben Gurion.
That would not bode well for prospects of peace with the Palestinians or a rapprochement between Israel and the region, which seems tantalizingly close in an era in which many of the neighboring Arab nations fear jihadi extremism far more than they oppose Israel.
Under Netanyahu, Israel has deepened its hold on the West Bank, adding Jewish settlers to the point where the territory may soon become inseparable from Israel proper. Combined with the Jews in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem, there are some 600,000 Jews living on occupied land.
In recent days, Netanyahu has said that he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state if elected. The Palestinians have already said they would take their case against Israel to war crimes tribunals and other international bodies. A campaign to boycott Israel seems poised to gain traction. Netanyahu's relations with the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama are frosty at best.
International isolation looms.
Netanyahu knows the complications of all this and may try to draw in Herzog, to give his government a more moderate character. But he has promised, in his final appeals to his base, not to do this — and Herzog would probably demand a rotation in the premier's post as his price.
Kahlon seems to dislike Netanyahu intensely, and he certainly has the power to crown Herzog, a mild-mannered lawyer and scion of a venerable family of Zionist founders. Kahlon's platform is moderate, as are top lieutenants in his party, and despite his Likud roots he has supported the idea of peace talks. It is not inconceivable that the left's desire to unseat Netanyahu extends to offering Kahlon a rotation as prime minister.
The issue has defined Israeli politics ever since the 1967 Middle East war, which cemented Israel as a regional power but saddled it with occupied territories including the Palestinian-populated West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but to many the territory, run by Hamas militants and blockaded on all side by Israel and Egypt, remains part of the equation.
Parties on the left would trade the land for peace and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. They also argue that the lands are a liability because with their millions of Palestinians their incorporation would destroy Israel as a Jewish-majority state.
The right emphasizes the lands' strategic value and biblical symbolism and pushes constantly for settling them with Jews. Its success in this endeavor has, paradoxically, put the country on a path toward being a place where Jews are no longer a strong majority.
The issue is Israel's existential dilemma, central to the world's interest and fundamental to determining the country's ultimate character. But after decades of failure and disappointment accompanied by periods of violence, Israelis have despaired of peace and politicians increasingly address the Palestinian matter with evasion, mendacity or doubletalk.
The Zionist Union is a rebranding of Israel's once venerable Labor Party, which led the country for three decades after its founding but last won an election in 1999. That brought to power its then-leader Ehud Barak, who became the first prime minister to offer the Palestinians a state, on most of the occupied territories. No deal was struck and a violent Palestinian uprising erupted, leaving Labor in shambles ever since.
Meanwhile, the political system has fragmented in ways that align with Israel's internal divisions. So there are parties for Russian immigrants, Sephardic Jews, different types of religious Jews, secular and progressive citizens, the European-oriented middle class, and a new union of Israeli Arab parties that individually are nationalist, Islamic or socialist.
Only one thing seems certain: Pressure to overhaul the electoral system that has yielded such chaos will grow.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
World No Longer Bound to Defend Israel Internationally
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/world-no-longer-bound-to-defend-israel-internationally_b_6891838.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
AMMAN -- The Israeli electorate had a choice to make. By re-electing a leader who publicly reneged on his commitments to peace and a two-state solution, they voted against peace. What remains now is how the Palestinians and the world will react to the closure of the charade that was called the peace process.
Palestinians have for years lost hope in the peace process and have been telling everyone who is willing to listen that the Israeli leaders are merely giving lip service to it as their own bulldozers were gobbling up Palestinian lands. The world kept on believing in the lip service until the Israeli public forced their leader to state his case in Hebrew to his own people. Now that we know that Israel is not a democracy to all its citizens (see Netanyahu's racist comments about Arab citizens) and Netanyahu never meant his commitment to a Palestinian state, the world must react.
The vote by the Israeli public has sealed the fate of Mahmoud Abbas who had placed his bets on the peace process and the support of the international community. The 79-year-old will certainly set the stage for a new generation of Palestinian leaders during the upcoming seventh congress of Fatah. But in the meantime he has been given a mandate to follow-up on efforts to ostracize Israeli internationally while suspending security cooperation.
The efforts by the UN's non-member state of Palestine to pursue Israel in the International Criminal Court must now be seen as a positive nonviolent act that is much kinder to Israel than what should happen to an occupying power. Instead of criticizing Palestine, the US and other western countries must praise the actions of Mahmoud Abbas as a moderate peaceful alternative to various offers of resistance.
Abbas's efforts to go to the ICC have been recently approved by the Palestinian Central Council, which also approved the need to suspend security cooperation with Israel. Palestinians have for years made life easy to its occupiers by providing intelligence and security cooperation to thwart any efforts to resist the illegal occupation of its territories and the colonial settlement of its lands.
Palestinian and world eyes will now be focused on the post-election Israeli relations with Washington and the rest of the international community. Will the US continue in defending Israeli in the Security council after Netanyahu renounced the two-state solution without presenting a credible alternative. The Obama Administration is still reeling from his efforts to sabotage a possible deal with Iran over its nuclear plans without giving a credible alternative. The same situation is now present in the Palestinian issue after Netanyahu renounced his own commitments to recognize a Palestinian state (albeit with conditions) without offering any alternative. As the veteran anchor Christiane Amanpour said on CNN Tuesday, without support for a Palestinian state, the Israeli leader is offering no alternative except for an apartheid-like situation where four million Palestinian under Israeli military control have no political rights.
The vote for the Israeli Knesset and the shift to the right by Israel's presumptive re-elected prime minister has relieved Palestinians of any worry about moving seriously in the direction of internationalizing the conflict. Attempts to say that the conflict can be resolved if both parties just sit down and talk was based on the assumption that Israel is a democratic state for all its citizens and thus can't accept to politically disenfranchise another people and that the state of Israel accepts to replace the occupation with an independent Palestinian state. Both these assumptions have been wiped by Netanyahu and therefore Palestinians are no longer bound by the need to continue to pretend that the conflict can be solved simply through direct Palestinian-Israeli engagement.
The role and the responsibilities of the international community to resolve a conflict that all agree has poisoned the air in the Middle East region is now paramount. It is no longer acceptable that international instruments such as the Security Council and the International Criminal Court be disabled in favor of Israel. No one country should be allowed to be above international law. And Israel has now lost any chance of world powers protecting it from international justice.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/03/18/the-election-that-didnt-happen-matters-far-more-than-the-one-that-did-israel-palestinians/
www.headstonesband.com
And I do want good for Israel as well.
his statements the last 3 days will further isolate israel in the eyes of the international community, excluding the us, that is...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
www.headstonesband.com
austalia is very critical of israel. they will be moreso now. most of europe is going to turn on israel, all they will have left is the united states, and with icy relations, they will be more and more isolated.
bibi wants war. and he is gonna get it.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."