The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Inconclusive Israelis

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The exit polls are in for the Israeli elections, and the winner is...well, it depends on who you ask. Tzipi Livni's Kadima, according to polls, has a 2 seat lead over Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud, but when you add the smaller parties into the mix, the right wing bloc performed better overall, dealing a blow to the left.

Both Kadima and Likud are claiming victory. "Israel has chosen Kadima and we will form the next government," Livni said, while Netanyahu chimed in, "I will be the next prime minister of Israel."

To form a government, a party must reach 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The exit polls show Kadima with 29 or 30 and Likud at 27 or 28. But the right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, conrtolled by Avigdor Lieberman, jumped to 15 seats, while the liberal Labor fell to 13. Overall, the breakdown has been projected at 64 seats for the right-wing parties and 56 seats for the left-wing.

Haaretz cautioned that, "some analysts noted that soldiers, whose votes could account for a couple of seats, had not been counted in exit polls and that could favor Netanyahu as tallying continues through into Wednesday."

Either way, it was a huge comeback for Likud (which was at 12 seats in the current government elected in 2006) and a massive defeat for Ehud Barak's Labor (which had won 19 seats in 2006).

The inconclusive results could be the worst possible outcome for Israel, as the lack of mandate by any party could mean in a muddled policy.

View all comments (15) | Leave a comment

MattSwartz| 2.10.09 @ 7:07PM

If a major political party in any other western nation were to call for the forced repatriation of minority citizens the way Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu does, they would be derided as a hate group and pressure from the international community would make keeping them out of the government coalition a diplomatic necessity.

It appears that Israel is different, however.

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2009/02/09/from-haider-to-lieberman/

WendyG| 2.10.09 @ 7:35PM

The good news is the Israel left lost BIG.

And we don't need lectures here from a paleocon rag. One thing is for sure, we'll never deal with the issue of Jews being the victims of forced repatriation in Arab countries. Cause no Jews are welcome to live there.

Stuart| 2.10.09 @ 10:26PM

Matt, while I find Lieberman's ideas appalling, he is not calling calling for Israel's Arab minority- or the ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose the state whom he denounces- to be evicted. He does believe in establishing some test of loyalty, which, if not passed, would result in disenfranchisment.
It's a hateful, bigoted, and incendinary idea.
But it's not a call for ethnic cleansing and it's put forth in a country that's under siege, a country at war- despite what the American Conservative and its founder, the sage Pat Buchanan believes. By the way, in Britain and France and other European countries parties who advocate intolerance and extreme measures towards minorities do run candidates. Le Pen in France jumps to mind.

ConservativeWanderer| 2.10.09 @ 10:35PM

Gee, Matt, no American politician would do anything like, say, forcibly relocating people of a certain ethnic background and sticking them in camps, would they?

Or would they?

http://www.densho.org/

Oops, maybe an American politician would.

J David| 2.11.09 @ 8:03AM

Matt apparently has an incredible ignorance of Israel's history, and Torah laws, in which Yahweh requires that Israel NOT mingle with the nations around it, and doing so has ALWAYS precluded it downfall as a nation. But then those who would turn against Israel ALWAYS FAIL to see God's mighty hand in their destiny, in which destiny will also be the END of the armies of the world that gather against Israel. Only Godless fools turn against the Children of Abraham...

MattSwartz| 2.11.09 @ 9:33AM

WendyG,
You're right. Technically, Iran is Persian, not Arab.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews#Current_status_in_Iran
Compare the conditions described with those in Gaza if you wish.

Stuart,
Le Pen and the "hard" european right only dare to call for an end to Muslim immigration and the repatriation of non-citizens. Forcing citizens to sign loyalty oaths and making them refugees if they refuse is not on the menu.

CW,
Roosevelt was a fascist and a socialist and I'd never defend him.

J David,
Are you being satirical? I hope so, because otherwise you have become a perfect mirror of the worst of Islamic Fundamentalism.

J David| 2.11.09 @ 10:39AM

Read the Old Testament of the Bible. Read the Pentateuch.

Simple common sense says that if a portion of Israel's population wants to see the END of Israel, and votes that way, and Israel lets them corrupt the country from the inside, no good will ever come of it.

Those God-haters who diss what the Bibles says, both to Jews, and to their enemies and allies, are fools. That includes self-hating liberal Jews most especially.

J David| 2.11.09 @ 10:41AM

Those who accuse conservatives, Christians, and Jews of mirroring the worst of Islamic fundamentalism tend to be those bowing down before the world-wide spread of Islamic fundamentalism, like the good little dhimmis they are...

A. Schlictgruber| 2.11.09 @ 10:44AM

"Swartz"... Yeah! Keep the faith!

Heinrich H.| 2.11.09 @ 10:47AM

Comrade Swartz, Salute with us a New Order!

R. Heydrich| 2.11.09 @ 11:44AM

Jews absolutely should include suicide bomber citizens and their families in the democratic process!

Only Zionist Holocaust-fabricators could possibly think otherwise!

MattSwartz| 2.11.09 @ 12:56PM

This Swartz is a Christian with (distant) Jewish ancestry, although I don't think that'll interrupt the general meme here, and certainly don't think the Nazi references are in bad taste. Maybe if my points were weaker and I had less class I'd be calling people who disagree with me Nazi names, too.

If it matters, I favor a complete cessation of immigation from certain nations that are hotbeds of Islamic Fundamentalism, and for obvious reasons. What I don't do is propose stripping people of their citizenship, which in this day and age is like cutting an umbilical cord, not to mention a huge affront to justice.

MattSwartz| 2.11.09 @ 12:57PM

Also, J David, I can't think of a clearer indication of your having missed the entire point of the Old Testament than what you're proposing.

Stuart | 2.11.09 @ 3:20PM

Matt, I take your point about the hard Right parties in Europe- but they do have ideas about dealing with minorities they don't tend to publicize, due to the strict laws in Europe. As I said, Lieberman's idea is vile. Actually, Israel bans Kach, Kahane's party, for its racism. But Israel is not Europe- it's under attack, still in a state of war with most of the Arab world, and so the possiblity that its Arab minority-mostly, its Muslim Arab population- might act to betray it is real. Lieberman has also called for the possible disenfrancshisment of ultra-orthodox Am I engaging in causitry here? His idea should be rejected but I'd just point out that Israel's Knesset and its Supreme Court would never entertain such a move. But its introduction into the political arena is what the Arabs get for not considering the residents of Israel's south to be their countrymen.
On a whole other note, I clicked your name- and landed on that delightful country music site.

MattSwartz| 2.11.09 @ 7:40PM

Stuart,
I'll be the first to agree that Israel is in a pickle. If I were an Israeli politician (or even a voter) completely closed to the idea of a two-state solution but faced with the demographic facts on the ground in Israel, I would also start thinking about repatriation of the Palestinians, who are, of course, surpassing Jews in population growth by a wide margin, and of course, within that framework, starting with the most aggressive ones first makes sense.

Which is to say that at the end, I'm brought back to my central support for that policy, and you, I'm assuming, to your opposition to it. The point of whether there ought to be two nations or one, whether the Palestinian one would ever consent to live peacefully with it's neighbor (and vice versa), is much too involved for discussion thread debate, or at least, I'm too busy/lazy to engage in such a debate during midterm week.

At which point I've got to wish honest conservatives who honestly disagree with me the best. And youtube is an absolute goldmine for old country, by the way. I've found dozens of artists there who would have been totally lost to me otherwise, and some were doozies: Floyd Tillman, Carl Butler, Curly Putnam, Big Al Downing, and Hawkshaw Hawkins are just a few.