The coming election in Israel

The following parties are represented following the 2013 elections:

Party	Leader	Seats
Likud	Benjamin Netanyahu	19
Yesh Atid	Yair Lapid	19
Labor Party	Isaac Herzog	15
The Jewish Home	Naftali Bennett	12
Yisrael Beiteinu	Avigdor Lieberman	12
Shas	Aryeh Deri	11
United Torah Judaism	Yaakov Litzman	7
Hatnuah	Tzipi Livni	6
Meretz	Zahava Gal-On	6
United Arab List-Ta'al	Ibrahim Sarsur	4
Hadash	Mohammad Barakeh	4
Balad	Jamal Zahalka	3
Kadima	Shaul Mofaz	2

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Israeli governments are formed on the basis of coalitions that hold the strongest positions in the Knesset by seats under control.

IMO the likely coalition of Likud/The Jewish Home/Yisrael Beitunu is likely to have more seats that a Labor/Meretz/Yesh Atid coalition and therefore  IMO it is likely that Natanyahu will head the next government of Israel.

That is unfortunate because once again IMO Natanyahu is leading Israel into a "dead end' of isolation and nationalist self absorption that does not lead  to a long term (centuries) existence for the country.

An interesting feature of this election is the apparent willingness (71%) of voters in the United Arab List to actually participate in a Herzog/Lifni  led coalition rather than standing to one side as Arab parties have done previously.

I hope I am wrong.  i would live to see Bibi disappear from the scene.  pl  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Israel

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/13/netanyahu-final-push-israeli-election-yitzhak-herzog

Comments

[confusedponderer]

"i would love to see Bibi disappear from the scene"

Amen.

[Misanthrope]

How do you think Israel will disappear? While I wouldn't shed any tears if it did, I can't see it happening while they have the US in their pocket. That doesn't look like changing in the foreseeable future.

[GulfCoastPirate]

All:

TPM has been following the Israeli election closely and has some good info on what appears to be going on with their electorate.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yes-netanyahu-is-suddenly-in-real-trouble

[confusedponderer]

GCP,
the nature of Israeli politics - that prime ministers rule from a coalition - means that lower polls does not matter nearly as much as in the US.

The Netanyahoo is like gum under your shoe.

I don't get my hopes up.

[notlurking]

Latest polls show the opposite....Likud loosing

https://news.yahoo.com/netanyahu-behind-final-polling-day-election-074847784.html

http://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-continues-to-trail-behind-zionist-union-in-latest-polls/

http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/world/wire/pm-netanyahu-trails-in-last-polls-before-israel-s-election/article_8af780d3-95e4-516f-85ba-ed9cd6eaf4b7.html

[Swami Bhut Jolokia]

The latest polls (now closed because of the 4-day rule) indicate things are still neck and neck:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

[oofda]

Colonel,
According to Haaretz, the Likud (Bib's) party is behind in polling. Also, internal polling from both parties indicate that the difference is even greater. There is hope. A lot of Israelis are tired of him
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/1.646762

[turcopolier]

All

Likud can lose the election and Bibi can still be the next PM through the process of coalition formation. The Israeli government is a parliamentary form.

I would anticipate that over the next hundred years the country's isolation would be fatal. pl

[GulfCoastPirate]

That was just the latest article they've written on this subject. The previous articles were more along the line of Colonel Lang's thinking that Bibi has the best chance to form a coalition. We'll all know soon enough.

[Dismayed]

@ PL
"I would anticipate that over the next hundred years the country's isolation would be fatal."

I expect that Europeans, especially Germans, will rue the day they were stupid enough to help Israelis develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. As much as people like to rag on the French (and it appears they were instrumental in facilitating Israel's weaponisation project), they have been the only European power farsighted enough to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent.

http://fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/

[William R. Cumming]

P.L.! IMO your analysis is correct and Bibi will survive but perhaps weakened.

[Matthew]

I take the opposite view. If Netanyahu loses then the "liberal Zionists" will continue the same policies but do a better job of hiding the horror.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I think the number of EU companies helping Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons production was 82 - domiciled in Germany, Holland, and other such bastions of humanitarianism.

After the war, a number of Iranian survivors were sent to Germany for treatment.

[Cee]

All,

I had wanted Bibi to disappear. I changed my mind. The Palestinians nor the Americans with be better off with a friendlier Zionist. An apartheid pig wearing lipstick is still an apartheid pig. That regime needs all the rope they need to hang themselves. We can free ourselves and the Palestinians.Win Bibi!

[Lord Curzon]

With Yuval Diskin endorsing Herzog, he may have done enough to tip the election in Herzog's favour....

[Charles 1]

Whatever the results in Israel proper, those pesky facts on the ground enjoy broad, if dissonant support.

[Cee]

Matthew,

Horror and views like the one in The Times of Israel about bombing Iran AND Germany.

I agree with you on Bibi.

[confusedponderer]

I agree that the ugliness in Israeli politics transcends Bibi. He is just the greatest nut and most baleful as far as US-Israeli and International-Israeli relations is concerned. And for that alone - good riddance.

But there is a consesus in Israel on expropriating Palestinians and maintaining their subjugation.

Just listen to the likes of Liebermann or Bennett.

[AEL]

And now, a Jerusalem Post article, quoting a Wall Street Journal article that Israel is treating wounded Al Qaida fighters and, once healed, sending them back into action in Syria.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Israel-treating-al-Qaida-fighters-wounded-in-Syria-civil-war-393862

[confusedponderer]

Cee,
charming.

Pondering the unthinkable - I wonder whether NATO's collective defence and in particular NATO's nuclear umbrella would work then.

Given their craven deference to all things Israeli, would the US be willing to retaliate against such a genocidal attack on a NATO member? What about the Brits? The French?

Does Germany need nukes, or missile defence, after all?

The article was on Israel National News, an organisation owned by the far right settler yeshiva Beit El Yeshiva in the West bank settlement of Beit El near Ramallah in the West Bank.

Here are the links:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/op-ed-calls-on-israel-to-nuke-germany-iran/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arutz_Sheva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_El_yeshiva

[confusedponderer]

"After the war, a number of Iranian survivors were sent to Germany for treatment."

Babak, during the war. The first casualties came to Germany in 1984.

I remember that back then my father was in the university clinic in Aachen after a heart attack. There was a sealed off area. Staff told us that they wrere treating Iranians there.

The technology the Iraqis acquired in Germany was dual use. Iraq maintained they were needed to produce pesticides. That was, given the technology, plausible.

The Iraqis had exccellent technological know how. During my first job, I worked in a large engineering company that had delivered cement production plants to Iraq. I shared the office with one of the old hands he who had gone there to oversee construction. He was quite impressed by their industry ministry engineeers. He told me that Iraqis gave him specific instructions on how to improve their plant, based on insight they had gained analysing competing designs.

The Iraqis sidn't need Europeans and Americans to build them a CW factory. They ordered what they needed under the pretext of civilian use and built it themselves, secretly.

I read the account of Rick Francona, "Ally to an Adversary" who was at the time DIA liasiion to the Iraqis and how he discovered the obvious signs of Iraqi CW use (iirc atrophin auto injectors, traces of decontamination) when he was shown captured Iranian quipment.

Germany did have clues, and so had the US and the other European powers. The only open question is if, and if, to what extent, they looked aside. IMO, they didn't look aside.

When Saddam's use of CW became a known fact that the West - started to implement sharper export comntrols of relevant dual use checmical and industrial products. Germany prosecuted companies who delivered the technology to Iraq. So did the US, UK etc.

It will be small comfort to you, but it appears to me that while the West was perfectly happy to deliver arms to Iraq to keep Iran at bay, of which at the time everybody, fairly or unfairly, was scared, they, however late, drew a line at CW.

Here's an old article from the ZEIT archives, in German:

http://www.zeit.de/1984/16/ihr-werdet-nicht-mehr-atmen-koennen/komplettansicht

[confusedponderer]

Point I forgot to add about Francona and the captured Iranian equipment: He addressed the Iraqis about the CW use, and they lied about it.

[turcopolier]

CP

"was at the time DIA liasiion to the Iraqis and how he discovered the obvious signs of Iraqi CW use (iirc atrophin auto injectors, traces of decontamination) when he was shown captured Iranian equipment" Francona at the time you describe was one of my personal assistants. He was "a" liaison to the Iraqis while working under my direction. He was a captain. Captains, however noble or handsome, are not major actors on the world stage no matter how much they write about themselves. His statements should not be taken as literal truth. He knew that Iraq was using CW among its fires because they took him to the Fao battlefield after they retook the peninsula. The Iraqis made no effort to conceal from him that they had used chemical fires as well as HE, and smoke ammunition in the fire preparation for the assault. He came back and told me about it. (He happened to be in Baghdad then on a mission for which I had dispatched him in his role as an officer courier.) Iraqi use of chemical weapons ON THE BATTLEFIELD against troops was not a major legal concern then for the US because the international convention against CW had not gone into effect and we did not participate in their use (CW). pl

[The Beaver]

@ Charles 1

sorry to be OT, however I would like to know your thought on this:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/13/safety-minister-silent-amid-claims-that-the-spy-accused-of-helping-girls-join-isis-was-working-for-canada/

I am posting NP in lieu of G&M because it seems that NP is not afraid to publish the scuttlebutts about this news event. Harper wants to be at the big-boys table but he doesn't know the Turks ...

[Will]

it does matter who gets the most votes. the president gives them the first dibs at forming a coalition. Livni lost be a few votes last go around or it was tied and the Netanyahu had the first go at forming a governing coalition and he succeeded.