.bmp)
.bmp)
As Israelis go to the polls today in the country’s 18th parliamentary election, the main story over the last couple of weeks has been the rapidly declining lead of former prime minister Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud Party over Tzipi Livni’s Kadima Party. The implications of that story for the future course of Israeli politics are indeed far-reaching. Netanyahu’s decline is attributed mainly to the rise of a third party, Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu (Israel Our Home).Right-wing like Likud,Israel Our Home has appealed to many Jewish Israelis exasperated with the provocations of Israeli Arabs.That exasperation peaked during the recent Gaza war, when Israeli Jews looked on as Israeli Arabs held pro-Hamas demonstrations. Against this background, Lieberman’s campaign promise to make Israeli citizenship conditional on loyalty to the country has gained popularity.Netanyahu’s depressed poll numbers also may be attributed to right-wing voters’ disgruntlement over his avowals to form a national-unity government with centrist Kadima and/or the center-Left Labor Party of current Defense Minister Ehud Barak.In addition, Netanyahu has ruffled right-wing feathers with his known preference for keeping Barak on as defense minister. Keenly aware of the threat posed by Iran, Netanyahu is believed to view Barak’s good chemistry with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates as an important asset.Even with these recent dents to his popularity, Netanyahu remains the frontrunner. An aggregate of the latest polls shows Likud still leading with 26 Knesset seats (out of 120) to Kadima’s 23, Israel Our Home next at 18 and Labor trailing at 16. The two right-wing parties’ clear edge is further enhanced when the various smaller parties are added to the mix, with the center-Right bloc of Likud, Israel Our Home, and right-wing/religious satellite parties totaling 65-70 mandates to 50-55 for the center-Left bloc led by Kadima and Labor.And even that understates the center-Right’s strength. The 50-55 total for the rival bloc includes about 10 seats for Arab parties that are avowedly anti-Zionist and would not be included in any governing coalition. Add to that the fact that about a third of the Kadima MKs can be described as right-leaning, and it’s clear that the Israeli electorate now tends strongly to the Right of the spectrum, averse or at least skeptical of the once-dominant “land-for-peace” paradigm in dealing with hostile neighbors like the Palestinians and Syria....By P. David Hornik
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv.He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/.
P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv.He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/.
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
