Netanyahu today, Netanyahu tomorrow, Netanyahu forever!

[Stavros]

The results of today's election in Israel are not a big surprise to anyone actually paying attention - which rules out just about 95% of the media that reported on the race.

The only interesting thing is as Billmon in Twitter noted: Netanyahu decided to go the Full Monty on settlements forever to ensure a big turnout of the right wing base. Again, no one who has been paying attention is surprised that Netanyahu is declaring there will be no two state agreement while he is PM. The prospect of peace during his reign has always been zero - he just felt the need to dispel any illusions with his honest declaration.

So Palestinians, there you have it. The Israeli voters have left you in no doubt about what they think of your dreams. The Israeli Left and Middle have been spayed, neutered, given a ball gag, and enough Xanax to remain catatonic for the next decade. They are out of commission. Your move.

So Palestinians, there you have it. The Israeli voters have left you in no doubt about what they think of your dreams.

-I think you might want to replace the word dreams with Rights. It is an important word in the US Constitution but when applied to the Palestinians seems to lose all its moral and political depth.

On currently available figures, Netanyahu won with 23.40% of the vote on roughly a 71% turnout, which means 70% of the voters wanted someone else, but that is typical of the proportional representation system they use in Israel -even Ben-Gurion had to form coalition governments in order to rule, though as far as I am aware, even Labour could not bear the thought of any Arab MKs being offered seats in a coalition government. It might be relevant that Naftali Bennet's Jewish Home lost five seats to Likud, as some early analysts believe that by adopting more extreme positions voters who think Netanyahu is soft (hard to believe but this is Israel) switched their vote from one millionaire to another.

The result confirms that the existential obsessions of Netanyahu, transforming every issue into a matter of life or death, plus his blatant anti-Arab scaremongering which led him to claim the left were bussing Arab voters to the polling station in droves -as if the Arab citizens of Israel had no right to vote or merely by voting were some kind of threat-- matched his blank dismissal of the peace process with the Palestinians though anyone who knows Netanyahu knows he has been opposed to the Oslo Process since it started and has been instrumental in the burial of Palestinian rights. In the meantime, there is still no proof that Netanyahu knows the price of a falafel, or even a hint that he has a policy to provide affordable housing for young married families in Israel.

Netanyahu cooked up a snide deal with John Boehner to address Congress as part of his election campaign, a deal so transparent I am surprised that Congress allowed it, but for them it is part of the war against a democratically elected President that has been going on since 2008, though I suppose playing dirty is also part of American democracy. The fact that the diplomatic protocols were ignored to give Netanyahu his third address is curious as Netanyahu is not head of state and thus is a junior figure compared to Obama, who is; but for Republicans like Boehner either the Prime Minister of Israel is more important than the President of the USA, or they needed to pull this stunt to get one over on the White House.

The truly depressing thing about all this is lies in the creation over the last 10-20 years of violently opposed political blocs which preclude the meaning of peace negotiations -for Netanyahu the only thing left to negotiate is a complete surrender by the Palestinians; for the Palestinians, they know every meeting they go into is a waste of time. If this is a gift for the extremists, then that is music to Netanyahu's ears, as he believes that Israel's military supremacy means they can do whatever they like as noone is going to stop them.
Moreover, tactically, it is little different from the way in which, in Iraq, IS provokes the Shi'a community by road bombs, suicide missions and so on, designed to so provoke a backlash that the Sunni communities sever all ties with the 'pagans' which, on top of the new government in Baghdad failing to end corruption or be even handed in its employment practices, is placing the Sunni minority in a position where they can't stand IS, but have no faith in a unified Iraq either.
Closing doors to practical political solutions is thus just as much a part of the IS plan as it is of Netanyahu who can claim that Israel is now threatened more than ever before by an uncompromising enemy, in spite of the fact that it is an enemy Israel has helped to create. It is not much of a surprise that Israel has clandestine relations with Saudi Arabia, on the basis that they both want to see Iran pushed back behind its borders, relations between the two -via the US- have always been, as it were, smokey.

Although I think the Israeli military command is still opposed to an attack on Iran, Netanyahu will continue to undermine the Obama Presidency and anything Kerry says or does which pursues peace talks with the Palestinians, and which maintains the negotiations on the development of Iran' nuclear programme -little or nothing has yet been said about Saudi Arabia's nuclear programme, and nothing at all about Israel's nuclear capacity.
It is common knowledge that Netanyahu is sitting there waiting for Obama to leave office as the next US President is almost certainly going to be one of the kind who does whatever Israel says, which for Netanyahu, is the only reason US Presidents exist (and to sign the cheques).

Make no mistake, the USA will be paying for this in the years to come, in dollars first and foremost, while the Palestinians whose territory is divided into three zones, who cannot travel from one zone to the other without the permission of the military, who cannot build on their own land, who see the fields and orchards farmed for centuries being illegally dug up and replaced by swimming pools and car parks -will be treated like lepers and ignored.

The word 'fail' is written in block capitals over this desperate part of the word, but nobody is innocent. Netanyahu represents the worst that Israel has to offer, as the years ahead will reveal in all their gory detail.

[broncofan]

I do believe the I/P conflict is the worst thing for global peace because I have friends from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine who all say the same thing... the US position relative to the I/P conflict is disastrous. These are smart professionals, not radicals. They have lived and worked in the Western world. They might be Muslims but they don't reject Western values. They do, however, reject everything that's happening in regards to the I/P conflict. It truly is a curse on the world.

Sub-topic: Greatest Threat to World Peace

I keep going back to this quote. What is it that's so compelling about the testimonial of these friends that it can trump common sense and logic? If you heard from as many people that there are dozens of conflicts in the world that also threaten world peace, would you find that as compelling?

I am sure you can talk to a number of people in the Jewish community who would say the proposition that one conflict in West Asia is the biggest obstacle to world peace is preposterous. Would that convince you otherwise (I am aware you can probably find a couple of Jewish opinions to bolster your view and ignore the thousands who think it's a load of nonsense)?

Here's a question from me to some of your Jordanian friends: The Jordanian ambassador to Israel explained that it does not allow people to travel to Jordan with any visible signs of Judaism to ensure the safety of their Jewish tourists. So this well-meaning and thoughtful mandate is intended to protect Jewish tourists from suffering serious harm for being identifiably Jewish.

Here's the question: Where on the list of threats to world peace does prohibiting Jewish religious items from entering a country because it might lead to murder rank? Does it rank? Would you be willing to smuggle in a yarmulke and wear it to show that the Jordanians are just being overly-cautious and typically thoughtful? Is the mandate a moderate one or an extreme one?

Where does Assad rank on threats to world peace? Remember, you can't say this is a deflection of Israel's record because the topic as framed in your quote is that the Israel Palestine conflict is the greatest threat to world peace. Does Assad using Sarin gas on civilians rank in the top ten? Would he not have done that but for the occupation?

[Odelay]

If you could ask your friends for me this question when you see them: What is it about Israel's actions that make it the greatest threat to world peace when there are other countries that have committed graver human rights abuses?

You've made some points that deserve a detailed response, but I have a deliverable I have to get out today so I only have time to reply to this one question.

First, I might have mis-worded my post but it's not my friends who think the I/P conflict is the worst thing for world peace. They might believe that but they haven't said that directly to me. That's my opinion. The national and regional atrocities going on in the Middle East are a huge problem. But as I said in the ISIS thread, I believe most if not all of these problems need to be primarily dealt with by Muslim/Arab neighbors. The international community should not lead the effort to solve these conflicts because it's a trap and a can't win scenario. It's a regional problem that needs a regional solution.

The I/P conflict, on the other hand, is an international problem. It antagonizes almost all Muslims who are spread around the world. I've been following this conflict, not as a scholar but as a simple citizen, from my middle school days, when I would sneak into the library at lunch and read newspaper reports of the 1973 Israeli-Arab War. For the last 37 years, since the Camp David accords, Israel has made no positive moves to resolve this conflict. In fact, they've only made moves to make it worse especially by allowing the WB settlements to grow unabated. All Muslims have noted this. Non-muslim people around the world have noted this. It would seem the only ones blind to it are Israelis.

37 years!

Do you now understand why I don't give anyone in Israel the benefit of the doubt? I'm surprised anyone does.

I'll post more, later.

[Odelay]

One other thing I forgot to say.... I am actually impressed with Netanyahu. He took off the mask that maybe he might be willing to negotiate a two state solution. Again, many, including me, never believed it. Now he's living out in the open, with honesty. Just as he always hated Obama, and his move to address Congress was an open and honest declaration of that hatred. Netanyahu might be the most honest nation/state political leader on the planet today.

See? I told you half the shit I write is stupid and not worth reading. Netanyahu has already walked this back. He's a liar through and through. No one should trust him, ever.

[Stavros]

The I/P conflict, on the other hand, is an international problem. It antagonizes almost all Muslims who are spread around the world. I've been following this conflict, not as a scholar but as a simple citizen, from my middle school days, when I would sneak into the library at lunch and read newspaper reports of the 1973 Israeli-Arab War. For the last 37 years, since the Camp David accords, Israel has made no positive moves to resolve this conflict. In fact, they've only made moves to make it worse especially by allowing the WB settlements to grow unabated. All Muslims have noted this. Non-muslim people around the world have noted this. It would seem the only ones blind to it are Israelis.

Allow me to interject a remark between you and Broncofan -If I were to split some hairs, I would remind you that there is a large Christian population in Israel and the Occupied Territories, so that not all Palestinians are Muslims (eg, Hanan Ashrawi). And I might suggest that after the 1979 Camp David treaty, the 1993 peace treaty that was signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat demonstrated that peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians could yield a positive result. One of the enduring problems on both sides, at the time and since, is that to demonstrate their commitment to peace, Palestinians want an end to settlement activity, and be free to build on their own land and travel freely, while the Israelis want guarantees that Palestinians will not engage in terrorist/'guerilla' actions like blowing up pizza parlours. Fateh have given up the armed struggle, while HAMAS has not, although in the past it has signalled a willingness to do so.
The 1993 peace process was derailed by the assassination of Rabin and the subsequent elections which gave power to people like Ariel Sharon and Netanyahu whose commitment to settlement activity is based on their nationalist ideology but which has resulted in a severe deterioration of both hope, a precious commodity, and practical measures to improve the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
It means that the options for change narrow as nationalists narrow the terms of debate -the re-construction of the Berlin Wall on land stolen from the Palestinians was a major set-back and remains an example of how hopeless it all seems to be.

But can a wider international involvement make this any better? Hillary Clinton, whose position on the conflict changed between 1990 and her election to the Senate and became more solidly pro-Israel is now in the position of banking on a 'two-state' solution that for all his backtracking (most people believe) Netanyahu doesn't really believe in. How this will play out in the Democrat Party as they await Clinton's decision whether or not to run for the White House, remains unclear, as was reported in today's New York Times. It would appear that Netanyahu is the least convenient Israeli Prime Minister for the Democrats, and they can't do much about that.

For outsiders, the problem is that the USA since 1967 has taken sides with Israel against the Palestinians, and did not change its position even when Israel, long before Obama's election, showed no signs of 'building peace' by not building settlements and ending the nonsense of dividing the West Bank into three zones. Before 1993 the PLO was alien to the US because it was being bankrolled by the USSR, because of its lukewarm attitude to the 'armed struggle', the involvement of Palestinians in regional and international terrorism (eg, Lockerbie), and because of the unreliability of Arafat as the man in charge. But the perception is that the USA could put pressure on Israel by cutting back on the enormous billion dollar subsidies that go from the wallets of American workers straight to Israel. I wonder about this because Israel is more successful economically now than it has been in the past, although I suspect most of the money going to Israel that is not ending up in foreign bank accounts is spent on weapons.

Complicating this is the fanatical devotion to Israel of American Christian evangelists like Pat Boone, for whom Israel retains its pre-eminent geographical status as the location for the long-awaited but soon-to-be-fulfilled return of Jesus and the end of history, the world, and life as we know it. But whether or not this gives the USA the leverage on Israel that would change facts on the ground I don't know.

[Odelay]

On currently available figures, Netanyahu won with 23.40% of the vote on roughly a 71% turnout, which means 70% of the voters wanted someone else, but that is typical of the proportional representation system they use in Israel -even Ben-Gurion had to form coalition governments in order to rule, though as far as I am aware, even Labour could not bear the thought of any Arab MKs being offered seats in a coalition government. It might be relevant that Naftali Bennet's Jewish Home lost five seats to Likud, as some early analysts believe that by adopting more extreme positions voters who think Netanyahu is soft (hard to believe but this is Israel) switched their vote from one millionaire to another.

The 23% doesn't mean much when voters that represent the right side of the Israel political spectrum easily represent 50+% of the voting population. Unlike in the US, where a breakaway Tea Party Presidential candidate would drain votes from the GOP and effectively push the election to the Democrats, Israelis to the far right of Netanyahu and just barely to the left of him can not only vote for alternatives, but get rewarded too by forcing him to accept someone like Lieberman as Foreign Affairs Secretary.

But even if the right was only 51% of the voters, the real story is even worse for any coalition of the left/middle because they would need the 10+% of MP's who are Palestinian, and that is unacceptable to far, far more than 51% of the population.

And as I stated earlier, the demographic situation only looks worse in the future where the population of young voters on the right is exploding while the children of the left are migrating out of Israel - and, really, who could blame them.

The situation looks pretty dire to me. Again, the Palestinians have no reason to believe that the 2 state solution isn't dead and buried in the backyards of the right wing voters in this last election.

[fred41]

The situation looks pretty dire to me. Again, the Palestinians have no reason to believe that the 2 state solution isn't dead and buried in the backyards of the right wing voters in this last election.

I'm not sure that the majority of Palestinians are for a two state solution anyway. I recall reading polls that suggest otherwise. The two state solution may be more of a western ideal, but I'm not an expert in this regard...just something I noticed.

[broncofan]

But even if the right was only 51% of the voters, the real story is even worse for any coalition of the left/middle because they would need the 10+% of MP's who are Palestinian,

Palestinian or Arab Israeli? When there is a two-state solution one of the states will be called Palestine. However, members of Israel's parliament are Israeli, Netanyahu's racism notwithstanding. They are likely of Palestinian descent, but I think there should be a distinction in terminology between Palestinians who are non-citizens of Israel (in Gaza for instance) and people of the same heritage who are citizens of Israel. Palestinian usually refers to the former.

I always wonder whether this is an intentional obfuscation when I see people do this. Do you support a two-state solution Odelay? I know you say you think the creation of Israel was a mistake...but it's a mistake that should remain? Could you elaborate on the mistake...what it means for those who first immigrated to Israel and those still immigrating there? What do your Middle Eastern friends think about the two state solution? Do you hear lots of optimistic platitudes like "I would love to see a Palestinian state living peacefully side by side with a Jewish state...both people deserve the right to self-determination?"

I generally don't read punditry, so no I haven't read Max Blumenthal. I have no idea why a set of attitudes should be normed simply because various authors have stated an opinion that's easy to appropriate. It encourages group think...have you ever met someone who waits until someone says something they like and they say, "that's exactly what I wanted to say I just couldn't find the right words." About 1% of the time they're being honest. About 99% of the time they have a general meme they want to hear and someone else has skillfully tapped into that emotion. That's what I think people seek in a lot of these books. There's someone here who thinks Russia's state owned propaganda arm says exactly what he's thinking a lot of the time.

[Stavros]

The 23% doesn't mean much when voters that represent the right side of the Israel political spectrum easily represent 50+% of the voting population. Unlike in the US, where a breakaway Tea Party Presidential candidate would drain votes from the GOP and effectively push the election to the Democrats, Israelis to the far right of Netanyahu and just barely to the left of him can not only vote for alternatives, but get rewarded too by forcing him to accept someone like Lieberman as Foreign Affairs Secretary.

But even if the right was only 51% of the voters, the real story is even worse for any coalition of the left/middle because they would need the 10+% of MP's who are Palestinian, and that is unacceptable to far, far more than 51% of the population.

And as I stated earlier, the demographic situation only looks worse in the future where the population of young voters on the right is exploding while the children of the left are migrating out of Israel - and, really, who could blame them.

The situation looks pretty dire to me. Again, the Palestinians have no reason to believe that the 2 state solution isn't dead and buried in the backyards of the right wing voters in this last election.

I accept that I have been too glib in dismissing the smaller parties, on the other hand, I am not sure I can completely agree with your view on voting trends. Likud's victory in 1977 was seen as a watershed because it put an end to Labour's dominant position in Israel as a generation of 'Oriental Jews' came of age and voted for a party that was not culturally European. But if it was such a demographic shift, this does not explain the subsequent resurgence of Labour and in particular, the Peace Treaty that was signed when Yitzhak Rabin was Prime Minister. It was an opportune moment for all parties, with the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the PLO's Russian subsidy, and the general mood that the time was right for bold initiatives. And I think that could happen again, but it needs a helpful political climate, and the right kind of politician, and I don't believe Netanyahu is that man, just as I think Mahmoud Abbas is weak and indecisive. The mood in Jerusalem and the West Bank recently has been described as close to boiling point, primarily because of the settlement activity and acts of violence on both sides which, as was seen with the kidnapping and murder last summer, can quickly get out of hand.

I suspect Israeli voters are nervously watching events in Syria and Iraq, and wondering if Israel will get sucked into this conflict. A positive view would suggest that if over the next 5 years IS is worn down and some form of settlement is reached in Syria, it will calm regional tensions, but that also depends on how Saudi Arabia and Iran conduct their proxy war. It is always foolish to predict what will happen in the Middle East, the saddest part is that it is not so foolish to be gloomy about it.

[broncofan]

The I/P conflict, on the other hand, is an international problem. It antagonizes almost all Muslims who are spread around the world.

Why does it antagonize Muslims around the world more than mass slaughter against Shiite Muslims and Yazidi Christians? You say that's a local problem. I think when people are being literally put into mass graves that's quite a cavalier thing to say.

You are talking about Muslims who are not in the West Bank being antagonized by Israel's actions. They are inflamed because other Muslims are harmed by Jews, but are not inflamed by other Muslims killing Muslims or Christians at equal proximity. And here you are, claiming that when they are inflamed we should be sensitive to it. We should be sensitive to all human rights abuses. Not just when Muslims all around the world feel antagonized by this one issue but not others.