Israeli Election
March 29th, 2006 at 8:49 am by David FarrarThanks to Tim Blair, have found this blog covering the Israeli election.
If I was voting I would be voting for Kadima and then Labour ahead of Likud. The rump left behind by Ariel Sharon are too extreme (mind you that worked for Hamas!).
Current exit polls suggest Kadima should get 30 – 32 seats and are likely to be able to form a Government with 62 – 66 seats out of 120 in support.
This means there will be a partner for peace on the Israeli side. The ball will be firmly with Hamas as to whether they are prepared to achieve a lasting piece.
Related posts:
- Israeli election result
- The Israeli Election Compass
- The Israeli Ambassador responds
- Israeli ground forces enter Gaza
March 29th, 2006 at 8:59 am
DFP – I think there are two shows of Hamas actually wanting peace and one of them is no show.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Just when I though it was game over and the Palestinians voted for suicide, the Israelis decided to meet them half way on a peaceful solution with a Kadima/Labour coalition. Dealing with Hamas will be challenging, but if Hamas can do a deal then they are on the road to peace.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 11:52 am
Congrats to Kadima. But if any thinks they are going to bend over for Hamas then they’re dreaming.
Kadima will pull out of unwanted settlements and secure the large ones inside the security fence. They will decide the final boundary of Israel and won’t cave into all the UN hot air that I expect.
This move solves two problems for the Jewish state
Vote:1) Provides a definable bounday eg hard to mistake a 20ft high concrete wall
2) Ensures a jewish majority inside Israel borders so that they don’t need to be concerned with being outbreed by the Arab population
March 29th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I don’t think so, David. As was once said, the Palestinians never miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Forget Farrar – heres a blog actually worth reading
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
the occupation in iraq from an iraqis point of view – what a novel angle.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Funny Decentre, there are many Iraqi blogs, written by Iraqis from an Iraqi point of view, and Riverbend’s is perhaps the only overtly anti-american blog around. Of course, being written by a Saddam and Baath party supporter, one would expect the writer to be upset by the removal of their privileged status and ability to lord it over the majority of the people of Iraq.
Somehow though, since it is anti-american it has the imprimature of authority to all those whose defining political belief is the evil and satanic nature of the US of A. Riverbend is not, however, a terribly reliable reporter when the facts are cross checked.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
there are many Iraqi blogs, written by Iraqis from an Iraqi point of view, and Riverbend’s is perhaps the only overtly anti-american blog around
A google search of Iraqi bloggers suggests that the majority of them are pretty critical of the US. And thems just the ones written in English.
Riverbend’s is . . . a Saddam and Baath party supporter
Wow! Really? I’d love to see a link to a pro-Saddam Riverbend post. Don’t disappoint me now . . .
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Danyl and Decentre I didn’t realise this blog was about Iraq. I could have sworn we were discussing the Israeli election?
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
The Israeli election shows the problems of PR. The most successful party got around 21% of the vote. The legislature is insanely splintered.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
The Israeli election shows the problems of PR. The most successful party got around 21% of the vote. The legislature is insanely splintered.
Vote:March 29th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Hamas as to whether they are prepared to achieve a lasting piece.
Piece of what?
Vote:Long lasting pice falafel? Apple pie? Piece of peace?
March 29th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
“This means there will be a partner for peace on the Israeli side. The ball will be firmly with Hamas as to whether they are prepared to achieve a lasting piece.”
Time will tell if Olmert wants to move in that direction and if he truly does, he will not support House Resolution 4681, “The Palestine Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006″
“The House of Representatives is about to begin markup on H.R. 4681. This bill would prohibit the United States from providing direct assistance to the Palestine Authority unless the President certifies that the Authority has met the bill’s subjective and ambiguous conditions (see below). Markup is the usual step that precedes sending a bill to the floor for a vote. One can ask why this bill is bound for the House floor, when it has no known organized support from the American public, addresses no issue of impact on the welfare of Americans, and flies in the face of the considered views of many American allies.
This bill is moving because it has almost 200 sponsoring members of Congress who have been cozened, promised campaign contributions or intimidated into supporting it by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee and other Israel support groups. AIPAC’s immediate weapon is all members of the House are up for reelection in November. For any Member of Congress, the assurance of votes or of campaign funds will be critical in the next few months. An about equal incentive, however, is the fact that AIPAC has funded the defeat of several members of Congress who in the past refused to cooperate by supporting Israeli interests.
HR 4681 is being pushed by the Israeli hardliners to keep any serious negotiation of the Israeli-Palestinian issues from occurring.
From past performance the Israeli leadership does not want to negotiate. Israeli performance on the so-called Road Map is marked by determination to never reach the negotiating table. Ariel Sharon was transparent on this matter. He never publicly committed to negotiating the Road Map; he merely avoided actively opposing it. Supporters of the plan simply took his lack of negative comments as a positive state of mind. Meanwhile, he and the Likud party proceeded with their own plans: (1) continue building the wall on a course that redefines boundaries, especially around Jerusalem, but elsewhere as well; (2) get free kudos in the west by removing settlements in Gaza because they are difficult and costly to defend, but add settlements that deepen Israeli occupation of the regions around the holy places; (3) harass and make life generally intolerable for Palestinians who live in or near the Jordan Valley; (4) in short, continue elaborating a plan that surrounds and shrinks the spaces that could become a Palestinian state to less than 10% of pre-World War II Palestine.
The Israeli game plan does not appear to call for negotiations with the Palestinians, but a Hamas victory, if it cannot be overturned, discredited or ignored, means the Israelis will be faced for the first time with a serious need to negotiate.
To continue its present course, Israel must have the political cover of continuing conflict. HR 4681 is tailor made, because it is more likely to cause terrorism than to stop it. Israel needs the insurgency in order to continue its repressive moves against the Palestinian people. If Hamas reforms and succeeds in controlling other groups such as the al Aksa Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the insurgency is quelled. Israel has no excuse for continuing occupation and repression. Israel then has to face its obligations under peace agreements that Hamas is politically better equipped to negotiate than any previous Palestinian government.
The tragedy of this bill is that it is not in the interest of the United States. Nor would the resulting depression and repression of the Palestinian people be in the interest of Israel or Israelis in general. It is surely not in the interests of the UN membership or the European Community to support it.
If this bill is passed, and the Palestinian people are subjected to hardships that cause them to reject Hamas–the clear purpose of this act–then the Palestinian/Israeli conflict will continue and eventually grow worse. Frustration will drive more Palestinians into terrorism. Sympathy for them will drive others into support for terrorism or active involvement in terrorist attacks. The international terrorism generator that Palestine has been for decades will be reignited full blast. Under cover of that conflict, Israel will continue to confiscate Palestinian lands until it reaches the Jordan and the Palestinian people are all expelled.”
Let’s just see what happens, shall we?
http://www.rense.com/general69/ham4.htm [relevant background]
http://www.rense.com/general70/hrr.htm [explains the bill's main clauses]
Vote:March 31st, 2006 at 11:43 am
If (as said above) the Israeli election shows the problem with PR, the what does the Palestinian majoritarian-mixed system show?
Hamas got 56% of the seats on only 45% of the votes.
As for Israel, the new government is likely to be pretty stable, given that the largest party is the centrist party. The location of the parties on the spectrum is far more important than their size under PR. It’s not as if the electoral system created Israeli society’s fragmentation.
The creation of a center “pole” will be the lasting legacy of Ariel Sharon. And without PR, he could never have pulled it off, for his new party and Likud would have split the votes of the center and right to the detriment of both under a majoritarian system.
By the way, by far my favorite blog for following Israel (as well as Africa and the Pacific) is The Head Heeb.
http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/
Vote: