Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n
As a result of this week’s general elections in Israel,\u0412\u00a0Tzipi Livni of the center-right Qadima Party took a\u0412\u00a0razor-thin lead over Binyamin Netanyahu’s neo-conservative Likud Party. However, the Knesset, Israel’s “Congress,” the body with which the next prime minister will form a new coalition government,\u0412\u00a0is now predominated by\u0412\u00a0far right wing\u0412\u00a0parties. Even with her slim lead, it appears Livni and\u0412\u00a0her Qadima Party will not have enough Knesset support to assume power.<\/p>\n
From\u0412\u00a0the USG Open Source News:<\/em><\/p>\n “According to Israeli law, the creation of a coalition government is granted to the head of the faction who has the greatest chance of forming a coalition — in other words, the one with the greatest chance of securing positive support from other factions. Given this fact, it is unclear from exit polls which party leader should be given this task. While Qadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni appears to have won the elections (securing 28 to 30 seats, according to various polls), Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu lags behind by only two mandates. More importantly, the exit polls show that right-wing parties will secure over 61 mandates — thus easily allowing for the potential creation of a right-wing coalition. Moreover, Livni has a troubled history with coalition construction. In October, after winning the Qadima primaries held pursuant to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation, Livni tried and failed to set up a coalition government, leading to the call for early elections.”<\/p>\n I’ve been keeping a watchful eye\u0412\u00a0on the general elections in Israel,\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0our staunchest ally and\u0412\u00a0a\u0412\u00a0keystone to\u0412\u00a0American policy in the Middle East.\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0The results\u0412\u00a0of Israel’s general elections for prime minister\u0412\u00a0should give us pause, and will most likely rise to the top of\u0412\u00a0Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s priorities in the coming months and years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Over the last eight years, Israel has\u0412\u00a0gone further right in its political leanings. This trend towards the right in the Knesset should not come as a surprise.\u0412\u00a0 It\u0412\u00a0is now a matter of cause and effect. With the United States’\u0412\u00a0five-year occupation of Iraq and ongoing tension with Iran,\u0412\u00a0Bush Administration policies in the Middle East, including\u0412\u00a0its hard pro-Israel stance\u0412\u00a0continues to contribute to instability\u0412\u00a0in the region,\u0412\u00a0with Israel using military force as\u0412\u00a0its response.\u0412<\/p>\n Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, once deemed far-right wing when it first ascended to power during the Clinton Administration in the late 1990s, is now viewed as “centrist” by newer and further right wing parties in Israel, particularly\u0412\u00a0Avigdor Lieberman’s “Israel Is Our Home” party, a proponent of racial hatred against Israeli-Palestinians.\u0412\u00a0 In the divisive aftermath of Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, Lieberman suggested that Arab-Israeli lawmakers who met with Israel’s enemies should be executed as collaborators.<\/p>\n According to Juan Cole at Informed Comment<\/a>\u0412\u00a0with Lieberman’s party leveraging control over\u0412\u00a0Israel’s next prime minister, they may\u0412\u00a0propose and enact any one of the three following possibilities for the Palestinian state and its people:<\/p>\n Israel’s political analysts predict that Binyamin Netanyahu\u0412\u00a0may more than likely assume power as prime minister.\u0412\u00a0Lieberman\u0412\u00a0as a kingmaker in the Knesset could choose to put his chief conservative political rival Binyamin\u0412\u00a0Netanyahu\u0412\u00a0over the top with a neo-conservative bloc forming the new government.<\/p>\n However, Lieberman’s extreme positions could also force the Knesset’s Arab-Israeli minority faction to join forces and provide Tzipi Livni a slim near-majority she could\u0412\u00a0use to sway\u0412\u00a0President Shimon Peres to\u0412\u00a0form the new center-right\u0412\u00a0government. If\u0412\u00a0Israel’s Arabs in the Knesset choose to do that, it would be with great hesitation and possibly a high political price. According to Cole, \u0412\u00a0“Livni’s problem is that if she tries for a right-of-center coalition with the left, she can only get 47 seats. The nine Arab representatives would not formally join her coalition and now hate her because she was among the leaders of the great Gaza Massacre.”<\/p>\n Cause and effect. Americans should know by now. After living through eight years of an administration elected under questionable circumstances and witnessing the economic, environmental and geopolitical ramifications of that election particularly in the Middle East, we\u0412\u00a0understand sadly and all too well that\u0412\u00a0elections have consequences\u0412\u00a0that reverberate far into the future, affecting the lives of millions. These consequences don’t stop at our borders.<\/p>\n Yours & truly,<\/p>\n Fe Bongolan Dear Friend and Reader: As a result of this week’s general elections in Israel,\u0412\u00a0Tzipi Livni of the center-right Qadima Party took a\u0412\u00a0razor-thin lead over Binyamin Netanyahu’s neo-conservative Likud Party. However, the Knesset, Israel’s “Congress,” the body with which the next prime minister will form a new coalition government,\u0412\u00a0is now predominated by\u0412\u00a0far right wing\u0412\u00a0parties. Even with … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[762],"tags":[36,52,1013,1014,1016,1015,1017,117],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n<\/strong>San Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"