Peace Now is grim about the election. It says that in all likelihood four parties will poll between 15 and 25 seats in Knesset, with Lieberman's racist Yisroel Beitenu party outpolling Labor.
Peace Now: How do Tuesday's Knesset elections shape up in terms of prospects for a stable, peace-oriented government?
Yossi Alpher (political consultant, friend to J Street):
Yossi Alpher (political consultant, friend to J Street):
All of these scenarios are virtually dictated by the grim prospect that the four leading parties–Likud, Kadima, Yisrael Beitenu and Labor–will end up with somewhere between (in descending order) 25 and 15 mandates. Four medium-sized parties whose philosophies encompass nearly the entire spectrum of secular Zionist views are a recipe for lack of governability, to say nothing of lack of a viable peace process…
Once again we are reminded that the Israeli political system, while offering ultra-democratic representation to the most isolated minority and sectarian views, is ill-suited for the task of governance, and particularly for dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…
Throughout this period, an additional factor strengthening the Israeli political right has been the growing radicalization of the Arab citizens of Israel, whose political and intellectual leaders increasingly call for Israel to cease to be a Jewish state in order to accommodate them. This Israeli Arab ideological trend is in many ways an outgrowth of the failed Oslo process…
Once again we are reminded that the Israeli political system, while offering ultra-democratic representation to the most isolated minority and sectarian views, is ill-suited for the task of governance, and particularly for dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…
Throughout this period, an additional factor strengthening the Israeli political right has been the growing radicalization of the Arab citizens of Israel, whose political and intellectual leaders increasingly call for Israel to cease to be a Jewish state in order to accommodate them. This Israeli Arab ideological trend is in many ways an outgrowth of the failed Oslo process…
Seems Israel has had it with the Palestinian refusal to come to the negotiating table in an open and honest manner.
Not that anyone should support Peace Now, which is another group trying to get the Palestinians to accept settlers in East Jerusalem.
"with Lieberman's racist Yisroel Beitenu party outpolling Labor."
You have to be careful here: Yes, Lieberman's party is even more bigoted than the others, but you shouldn't use an expression which gives the impression that the others aren't racist parties too. They also support settlers and muse about how to get the Israeli arabs out of Israel.
Seems the world is waking up to the Israeli refusal to come to the negotiating table in an open and honest manner. Hopefully the new
even more extreme right wing coalition government will open the world's eyes even more.
The good little parrot, Alice, is having trouble forming words again. Have another cracker.
Elections in totalitarian states, like Israel, the USA, etc., are deceptions pure and simple. Any attempt to attach significance to them is dishonest.
Of course they are. There, there, go back to bed.
@Rowan
Is there any state in the world with a government/regime that you do not think is totalitarian?