The elections are almost finished and the final votes are soon to be tallied from Israeli service personnel. There is little doubt though that Likud has won the most seats and Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to lure Kadima into a coalition. Kadima leader Tzipi Livni has thus far refused to join any coalition that would be of a far-right religious bent. Netanyahu is most likely to form just such a coalition. What would this type of government lead to in regards to peace with Palestinians and the prevention of war with Iran, along with US-Israeli relations?
That can wait. First, if Netanyahu doesn't get Kadima to join up, where does that leave Livni? She has said that she is still trying to form a coalition under her lead. At the same time she has stated that she will not give in to exorbitant demands in order to form a coalition. She has one very strong argument in regards to her leading the country.
"I can also put together a coalition that is united around the peace process. Netanyahu doesn't want that, and couldn't do it even if he did, with his right wing partners." -Livni
What she says seems true enough. It is doubtful that Netanyahu would do much for the peace process. He might also worsen relations with Iran. This at a time when US President Obama has made moves to improve relations with Iran. However, Netanyahu will be able to form a ruling coalition, and it seems unlikely that Kadima can stand against him for long. He is offering some top spots to leaders of some of the smaller parties. He is also expected to offer Livni the top position in foreign affairs and perhaps the defense position to fellow opposition member Mofaz.
So, if Livni accepts the post, she would be in a strong position with regards to foreign policy. How strong, and how far she would be allowed to carry her agenda remains to be seen. She could push a more accepting peace process, but I imagine that will be greatly hampered by Netanyahu and his probable coalition. The only thing we can do now is to wait and see, and hope for the best for the country of Israel.
Peace
Haaretz articles- Breakdown of Coalition Possibilities, Final Tally
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Comments: 11
It has to be a two-way street to peace, but not all Palestinians want peace; Hamas is truth of that.
As to not being concerned with the livelhood of their people you might be a little more specific. Perhaps you have a suggestion as to what they could do to solve the problem of a dedicated group of people who are willing to die in oorder to destroy Israel. See hte excerpt form a BBC news article that I am reproducing below, especially the part about more children being born than were killed.
You make it sound as if only Likud or Israel would be reasonable, their enemies would make peace. Unfortunatley that is not the case. As to my not having an iopen mind, I try not to have amind so open that my brains will fall out.
"At a weekend meeting in Istanbul, 200 religious scholars and clerics met senior Hamas officials to plot a new jihad centred on Gaza.
The BBC's Bill Law was the only Western journalist at the meeting.
In a hall crowded with conservative Sunni Muslim sheikhs and scholars, in a hotel close to Istanbul's Ataturk Airport speaker after speaker called for jihad against Israel in support of Hamas.
Mr Nazzal told his audience: "Don't worry about casualties."
The 23 days of bombardment of Gaza, in which some 1,300 people, many of them civilians and nearly 300 of them children, are believed to have died, was "just the beginning" of the struggle, Mr Nazzal said.
To laughter in the audience, another speaker noted that twice as many babies were born as children were killed during the war.
Every death, I was told, was a martyrdom on the road to liberation."
btw- I know you have an open mind, but my saying you don't is like you saying I am divorced from reality. It gets us nowhere, like Israel and Palestine.
For example?
That the rightists came back from the political graveyard was predictable. The appeasing of the Arab militants has gained Israel nothing so far. They evacuated Gaza and gained nothing but mortar and rocket fire. People will try the right again if for nothing else for a change to the failures of the last few years.
When I asked exactly what more Israel could do I was asking for things it could do that would achieve peace. Theur are probably many things Israel could do that would be just and proper but if it is unlikely that those things would persuade the Arabs to live in peace with Israel they are irrelevant to this discussion. Now let's look at yur points loggically. Most of them relate to the west bank, such as stoping the settlements. I will ignore the assumption that the settelrs are invading palestinian land. That's not the only way of looking at it but regardless, let us assume that Israel stopped all settlements and even removed them all - even those such as in the Gush area that was heavily populated by Jews before the 1948 war when Jordan ethnically cleansed it of all Jews. Is it likely that by rendering all of the west Bank Judenrein, peace would be achieved? I would suggest that it would almost certainly not. I say this for two reasons. First it is not logical to believe that something causes a situation if the situation existed before the cause. Israel liberated the West bank (that's another way of looking at the situation) in 1967. If an israeli presence in the West Bank caused the Arab attacks then there should have been peace and tranquility before. But the facts are that all through the years before 1967 there were constant Arab attacks. Armed groups crossed hte border(they were called fedayeen) and murdered Israelis. The PlO was formed in May 1964 with the goal of liberating all of Palestine through armed struggle. So today's situation in the west Bank was not the cause of the Arab desire to destroy Israel and the elimination of the Israeli presence in the West Bank is unlikely to cause the Arabs to accept Israel. I must point out that many of the facts you recite are not true but that is not my point. My point is that whatever Israel is doing in the West Bank is not the cause of the hostilities.
Second, Israel tried removing itself from gaza in the hope that would create a different dynamic. It did not work. The response was that Hamas claiimed that the Israeli withdrawal proved that armed struggle would be successful. Your statements about Gaza boggle the mind. Why do you think any of it would help? Does Hamas present a list of grievances and say that when those grievances are addressed it will accept Israel? No it does not. It says very openly and honestly that the destruction of the zionist entity is the only thing that will satisfy it. Do you think opening the borders, etc will make them change their minds? If you do you are not taking them seriously.