Israeli elections- Netanyahu declares victory

The Guardian

So the elections are nearly over. So far Netanyahu's right party Likud is ahead of the center-left Zionist Union led by Issac Herzog and Tzipi Livni by at least 5 seats in the Knesset. Other parties may join either of the two in the coming days and realize the new government. So far the joint Arab party with 13 seats, has declared support for the leftists which should be no surprise but would probably not take part in forming the government. This means that the Kingmaker would likely be Moshe Kahlon with his centrist party that holds 10 seats as of now.

Should Netanyahu win we will be looking forward to:

- More power to the ultra-orthodox rightists and religious bigots.

- Less focus on economy and justice (especially for Arabs).

- More focus on "protecting the Jewish state".

- No two-state solution for at least a couple of more years.

- Definitely another invasion of the Gaza strip (my bet is this very summer) so that Netanyahu can show his people he's not a failure.

- prevention of any breakthrough in the nuclear deal between Iran and the US.

- More power to the republicans and thus the continuation of Obama's bad days.

But who cares? As long as he's allegedly protecting the Jewish state, really who cares?

So what do you guys think? Do you think the left still has a chance? I think not to be honest.

Do you believe this is good for Israel, Palestine and the world? I don't think so.

I say they should cut the racist crap over there before somebody gets even more hurt like really Gaza is almost bombed completely flat!

Guess we're going to war against Iran, strap in folks.

@fenriz275: Or Israel will be exiled (yes i like that plan...)

Too bad the Joint Arab List is a collection of insane extremists or the left could have formed government.

- More power to the ultra-orthodox rightists and religious bigots.

No. There will probably be less than last term.

- No two-state solution for at least a couple of more years.

That's not really in his hands. At this point a two-state solution is not dependent on Israel.

- Definitely another invasion of the Gaza strip (my bet is this very summer) so that Netanyahu can show his people he's not a failure.

Definitely dependent on what Hamas and others choose to do.

He won? Excellent.

That lowlife won, huh? loool Israel is hopeless; I can't think of another Western country so morally bankrupt.

Hahahah aren't you from that Western country which has killed millions of innocent Iraqis, Afghans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese and many others? Most Western countries are clearly much more morally bankrupt than Israel. They aren't Jewish though, so that's a huge plus for them.

Yes, I am but that doesn't change the fact the people of Israel voted for that scumbag...the people. Americans would never vote in such a monster...I don't think.

1. From what I've heard Netanyahu's Likud is a center-right party, though he has moved further right in this election partly because the main threat to his party was on the right (i.e. parties on the far right could gain seats, costing Likud seats) so he had to shore up that vote.

2. As far as the Nuclear Deal between Iran and the U.S. goes, I thought Herzog's party opposes that deal two.

3. I think any party would focus on protecting the Jewish state, no electable party doesn't want to protect the sovereignty of their country.

4. Yeah I don't see a two-state solution happening anytime soon regardless of which party is in power in Israel. So long as Hamas is a significant player and refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist, how can there be a too state solution?

5. Republicans will definitely be happy about this.

6. I don't think Netanyahu will invade Gaza just for political purposes, the Gazans would have to provoke him first with rockets or something like that, but Hamas may not act out this year since they took so much damage last year. And I think last summer's offensive was necessary in order to get rid of the Hamas tunnel system. Also the Egyptian government now considers Hamas's armed wing a terrorist group, so Hamas is being further marginalized.

That's true but it does mean that Israel is not the most morally bankrupt western country. In any case, all countries vote for scumbags now and then. Americans voted for George Bush, Nixon, and many more Americans voted for Mitt Romey & McCain/Palin than Israelis for Netanyahu. And they're in two completely different situations. Bush invaded a country on the other side of the earth, killing hundreds of thousands, to "spread democracy" or something. Compare that with a neighbor that has for many years targeted your civilian population with deadly rocket attacks. So I am pretty sure Americans would vote in a guy such as Netanyahu, and much worse than that.

Netanyahu has to declare victory himself cause NO ONE else will do that task for him.

@themajormayor Americans are quite ignorant, to put it lightly, about foreign policy - and that's true even of domestic policy. Most really didn't know anything about US foreign policy toward the ME. During the Bush II period, many Americans, including myself, felt that "the Islamic extremists are after us and they'll keep coming - even though the US has done no wrong to the ME." We were quite ignorant. Can you say the same about Israelis? They know exactly what Israel is doing. They know of the illegal occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory.. They know of Netanyahu's position on the two-state settlement; he's against it. They know all this, yet they still voted him in. What does that say about them?

First of all, I am sorry to disappoint you but most Jews are just normal people. They don't have a PhD in the ME conflict and they don't spend their entire time thinking about it. Everyone of course knows that they militarily control the West Bank, but if you think that that alone is enough to make make a good judgement about this conflict then you clearly don't know much either. They are not all experts on this subject because they live there. Trust me I know that from personal experience. And we should not expect them to be either.

Second of all, if feeling "Islamic extremists are after you" is a "good" reason for voting Bush, then the same kind of reasoning is many times more appropriate here and apparent when you look at who actually voted for Netanyahu. He had massive support in Sderot, which lives under daily rocket bombardments from Gaza, and Beersheva, also having suffered rocket attacks recently, however in cities such as Tel Aviv and Haifa, which has been spared comparatively his support was much lower. This kind of voting is a very natural human reaction to a similar situation as you described in the US, albeit this is actually real.

Thirdly, they did not vote him in. He got 23%. The majority of voters voted on parties which explicitly supports the two-state solution. The problem is that he has a much easier time forming a coalition. It would definitely be possible right now for the centre-right to be in government, but some parties don't want to cooperate with others.

So it does not say anything special about them at all. It's definitely worse in Europe. As one example.

Both illegally occupying and annexing territory. That's all the info a person should need to know to make a judgement call. What else is there to know?

Did you post an image? My script blocker has trouble displaying images on this site.

First of all. I don't think there's any specific law here that makes it illegal, and if there was I don't understand why it would be very relevant to an Israeli voter, and if it was then again not every Israeli is an expert on international law. Again we're talking about the average Israeli voter here.

Secondly, countries have been occupying and annexing territories throughout history. All of Germany was occupied for a very long period post WWII and much of its territory was annexed and I have't heard anyone complain. And that's because that's not enough info for a person to make a good judgement call. USA has occupied many different territories and annexed some as well, Hawaii for example.

Nope don't worry.

@themajormayor: And they're still doing it. Whose dime is Israel using to maintaining this endeavor? Whose military equipment are they operating? And when it comes time to vote for the 2-state resolution, which UNSC member vetoes the resolution every single time? The US; they're responsible for all of it and this conflict is just a continuation of US imperialist activity. I don't separate Israel and the US in that regard; Israeli military activity is US activity, as far as I'm concerned. Every time Israel bulldozes another home, I point a finger straight at the US, because that shit could stop tomorrow if they wanted. My gripe here is with the people voting in this party that Netanyahu aligned himself with. But I didn't know that this was a last minute coalition between Netanyahu and the party.

Almost exclusively their own dime. And you know, US dimes goes to almost everywhere on earth. They have a long list of bad states they should end their military cooperation with long before Israel. Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, and even the Palestinian Authority.

Israel is using military equipment from many different countries, including itself. But US is the world's biggest weapon exporter. You find their military equipment everywhere.

Now this I am not sure of but I am very confident that the US does not veto a resolution that is merely promoting the 2-state resolution considering this is what Israel, PA and USA officially supports. Does not make sense.

This conflict started long long before the US ever cared about this region. The US has actually not that much to do with it. Israel is an ally like many others, that's it basically.

I really wish the US could stop house demolitions, but if they can stop whatever they want tomorrow why don't they stop rocket attacks, kidnappings and suicide bombings and such? Israel's response to these kinds of things are not always the most appropriate but wishing that only Israel will stop with their stuff will only lead to more blood, albeit shifted more to the other side. It will not solve anything.

Which party are you talking about right now?

From what I hear there's been some misconception about Netanyahu's position vis-a-vis the two state solution. I've heard that some people say Netanyahu no longer supports the two state solution, but Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer was on Hannity discussing this and he said it is a misunderstanding: Netanyahu does not reject the two-state solution, he just says Israel cannot negotiate such a solution with Palestinian government so long as Hamas is included in that government and continues to deny Israel's right to exist.

He lied about Iraq and how removing Saddam would make the Middle East a better place.

I can see just how it is.

Since he lied about Iraq his lying about Iran and Syria.

Dont be fooled twice.