How appropriate - coming to us from Hades
KHARTOUM, Sudan — The militant group Hamas on Wednesday dismissed Israel's election results as another face of Israeli policy
designed to eliminate the Palestinian issue, while other Arabs warned the Jewish state about taking unilateral action.
Hamas Government Approved, Vows to Fight Israel - Nidal al-Mughrabi
"We cannot recognize Israel," Hamas' newly-approved Minister of Information, Youssef Rizka, told one cheering crowd in Gaza. "The land of Palestine is ours and not for the Jews."
What a joke.The Israelis never learn. I can't imagine what they were thinking but they have to live there and its their security that is at stake. It reeks of a Gore victory after 9/11.
I've been conversing with Doc Nancy and she writes;
The answer is that Israel is infected with the same disease (liberalism) as the US and most countries of the world. It bespoils everything it touches.We spoke in the past of my concern for Israel's coalition government. I believe
there has been a change in its structure in the last generation. It has become clear in recent years that no party leader is able to truly lead because he never has a mandate due to this. To me, this is the real story. And furthermore, by conventional wisdoms' definition, winning 29-32 seats does not a mandate make.
This is fascinating: Graphic (bottom left) shows projected results of Israel's parliamentary election.
If you collect all of the fractious right thinking votes, you get a lot more than 11 seats. The imperiled Sharon who created Kadima was responding to this coalition difficulty, but he never wanted to create a party Peres would approve of. Kadima seems to be much more leftward than he planned. Sharon and Netanyahu were on the same side for years, even competitors in their own party, that's why Bibi said we're "shattered" but the press acts like they were never on the same side. I could study this graph for hours, but I really feel they need to fix their governmental structure becaue what they need most is basically a TWO PARTY SYSTEM, a system that forces people to commit to a side and let the leader lead. THE ABOVE SORT OF LOOKS LIKE A REPEAT OF PEROT!
And lord knows without Perot there would have been no Bill Clinton - what a wonderful world it would be.
But seriously, the doc hits on the key problem. Israel needs an electoral college. Their system is broken, wherein after every election the tyranny of the minority kicks in.
Kadima won an underwhelming victory.
Kadima received 28 seats, significantly fewer than predicted. Only once before in Israeli history has a smaller party formed a government - in 1999 - and it lasted only 18 months.
Lots of excuses being made for Likud's abysmal showing. Here is MK Uzi Landau, #14 on the Likud list
Another reason for the Likud's failure, Landau feels, involved the economic reforms led by party leader Binyamin Netanyahu when he served as Finance Minister. "What we were unfairly punished for was the economic policy," Landau said. "People told us that because their pensions decreased, they wouldn't vote for us." The Pensioners' Party in fact scored a totally unexpected success, jumping from oblivion to 7 Knesset seats.
Landau also blamed the media to a certain extent. "Look," he said, "I ran against Bibi [Netanyahu] for party leader, and I have some criticism of him - but what was done to him by some of the media, especially Channel Two and Yediot Acharonot, was simply a targeted killing. I believe the media should perform a self-reckoning of its role in the campaign; it did not act like the watchdog of democracy it is supposed to be."
Frankly, I am not buying it. The fact that the turnout was the lowest in Israeli history is counter intuitive. This, after Hamas, whose mission statement is to destroy Israel, got elected? What am I missing here? This was a critical election - and the diaspora felt as I did. So yeah I am at a loss.
I think Israel gave Ariel Sharon the old tip of the hat: Sharon's Party Is Winner in Israel. But I also think the Israelis were wrong and will pay dearly for their cognitive dissonance.
Hamas is already dissing the election results ands vowing to destroy Israel. America should watch the unfolding events carefully. Israel's swerve to the left provides America with a snapshot of a similar fate if we do the same at the polls in 2006/2008.
