Winds Of War Blow Netanyahu's Way

[Purveyor]

While Labor Party chairman and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, and Kadima Party chairwoman and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni quarrel about who deserves the credit for Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, which so far has been successful, it seems that the public is in no doubt: the winds of war are blowing the Likud's way.

A "Globes" survey, in collaboration with Geocartography, predicts sweeping victory for the Likud if the elections were to be held today, giving it 38 of the Knesset's 120 seats. The right-religious block has jumped to 68 seats. The results are a surprise considering the public mood and the polls published in the past few days, that show the Labor and Kadima parties strengthening, and the center-left block running neck and neck with the right.

Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu can be almost content, but not quite: although, according to the survey, he has managed to repeat the success of his predecessor in the post, Ariel Sharon, under whom Likud gained 38 seats in the 2003 elections, and has even won back voters that Sharon took with him to Kadima in 2006, at the same time the large number of projected seats means Moshe Feiglin and his followers have a real chance of entering the Knesset on the Likud list, and that, one may assume, Netanyahu would rather have done without.

The survey finds that, were the elections to be held today, Kadima would win just 22 seats. Livni, who has consistently called for action against Hamas, finds herself in an inferior position even to Leader of the Opposition Netanyahu, who is only updated on the operation, and is nota partner to it.

Anyone who thought the operation in the Gaza Strip would make the race for prime minister three sided Netanyahu-Livni-Barak has been proved wrong. The Geocartography poll is a blow to Barak, giving the Labor Party under him only 12 seats. This, it should be pointed out, is in contrast to other polls, that project 2-4 additional seats for Labor in the wake of the fighting in the south. The current poll finds that, if there is to be a three-horse race, it will be Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) chairman Avigdor Lieberman who will challenge Netanyahu and Livni for the premiership. Lieberman's party has strengthened in the first week of the military operation, and it is now projected to win 15 seats. This means that if Netanyahu wins as predicted and chooses to set up a right-wing coalition, Lieberman will be a senior figure in the government.

MORE...

GLOBES: http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000412980&fid=942

[Ken Burch]

1. Clearly, if Likud gets that kind of victory, The U.S. should end all military aid to Israel.

Because everyone who votes for Likud wants war and the slaughter of Palestinians to go on forever. It's impossible to vote for Likud with humane, positive intent.

"Crushing the foe" isn't possible, and those who want the foe crushed are against peace.

[Idealism]

2. Israel has two paths they are considering:

Staying Right-wing with a monstrous military-industrial complex

OR

Going Far Right-wring with a gargantuan military-industrial complex

[Ken Burch]

3. ...and, in either cases, STILL insisting on being able to call themselves helpless innocent victims.

whom no one has any right to criticize.

God, I hope Meretz-Yachad gains seats. It's only the people who vote for them that have any right to claim to be for peace.

The Labor Party should just do the decent thing and dissolve itself. It's stopped being any different from Likud now.

[Idealism]

4. Indeed

Its like a Neocon love-fest over there, with Labor and Likud just trying to out-hawk each other.

[Vegasaurus]

5. THere are more people than ever who now believe that peaceful solutions

have never worked with the Palestnians.

The hawks and Likud followers have always wanted to use a lot of force, but the left wing and peaceniks have (and still try) to find peaceful solutions.

Ongoing terrorism, despite Gaza disengagement, ongoing rockets no matter what Israel does, has turned a lot of formerly left or moderate people, more in favor with Likud and the right wing.

If that was Hamas's goal, they have succeeded.

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. Hamas' goal?

Don't you mean the goal of those who created Hamas in the first place?

[Vegasaurus]

10. Hamas;s goal was to get Israel to respond militarily

and they succeeded.

They have also gotten most citizens of Israel to become more hawkish.

That's what living with decades of terrorism, no matter how many concessions are made, will do.

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. You must get all your info from the Jerusalem Likud Post?

Hamas was a Mossad creation. You're right about them wanting to make Israeli citizens more "hawkish" though. Because the one thing that will always be unacceptable to the Israeli right wing (just as with the US right wing) is peace.

[Vegasaurus]

14. The Israeli right wing has grown due to terrorism

It;s too bad you can't see the truth.

[thunder rising]

18. The Israeli right wing has grown because Isreali's want the land. What happens after they kill all

Palestinians. Then the real war starts. Right now it's much like the Nazi internment of the Jews and nobody wants to interfere, but soon it will be an international war.

[Sebastian Doyle]

21. But where did the "terrorism" come from.

As I said, Hamas was an Israeli creation, just as Al Qaeda was by the Poppy Bush CIA. The only real question is whether those two "organizations" remain on the payrolls of the respective governments that created them, or whether they now operate independently. Certainly the right wing politicians and "defense" industries of both countries benefit from their existence.

[The Magistrate]

19. That Statement, Sir, Is Nonsense

Hamas arose independently, as an off-shoot of the Moslem Brotherhood movement. Some elements of this in Arab PPalestine were encouraged on a small scale by Israel, common wisdom at the time being that rightist conservatism of religious bodies was hostile to the leftist coloring of the P.L.O., which gained it support from the Soviet Union and radical left groups around the world. The encouragement was neither creation of these elements, nor fostering them in a condition of dependency. There was never any capacity to control them in Israeli hands. The charge, Sir, is the sign of an amateur here....

[Sebastian Doyle]

22. They were used as a tool to undermine the PLO

I'm sure you're familiar with the expression "Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas"??

My point still stands that right wing regimes "need" an enemy to keep themselves in power, and their industries well funded. It's the same in Israel as it is here. I don't know what their TV news coverage is like over there, but it must be as bad as FAUX and CNN for the people to keep buying into Likud's deadly game. :evilfrown:

[The Magistrate]

23. The History Of the Matter, Sir, is Wearily Familiar To Me

And the manner in which you have presented it here is hopelessly exaggerated.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Vegasaurus]

12. The predictable Israel=Nazi response

Of course, Jews never provoked the Nazis, never terrorized them, suicide bombed them, rocketed them, tunneled and kidnapped them, created general mayhem.

So, there is a difference in the punishment being eked out for Hamas (which they have deserved) and those for the Jews (which they didn't).

The innocent Palestinian loss of life is regretable, but Hamas has endangered their own citizens by refusing to stop the terrorism which would have prevented this whole action.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ken Burch]

20. Those who vote against Likud still have the right to be considered human.

As do the Shiministim.

Only those who vote Meretz-Yachad or Green have the right to say they want peace. The rest are just imperialists.

[The Magistrate]

24. All Human Beings, Mr. Burch, Must Be Considered Human

It really ought not to be necessary to say this here, but apparently it is....

[Ken Burch]

25. The ones who vote Likud are human, but not humane, then.

They've given up on life and just want more killing. They don't care if their kids have a future or not.

[The Magistrate]

26. What A Difference A Vowel Makes, Eh, Sir?

[LeftishBrit]

29. Do you also think that Republican voters aren't human?

Do you agree with extreme people on the other side who think that Palestinians who voted for Hamas are not human?

My country has been IMO badly damaged to this day by Thatcherism. Should I say that those Brits who voted for Thatcher were not human?

Saying that people are WRONG is one thing. Saying that they aren't human is one step on a very slippery slope.

By the way, I am very anti-Likud and would indeed vote for Meretz-Yachad if I lived in Israel.

[Ken Burch]

31. I amended the statement later.

It was too late to edit the post that contained the original statement.

[LeftishBrit]

32. Thanks; duly noted

[Idealism]

16. Its called warmongering

I saw it in the US before Iraq. Most people supported that atrocity in the US, too. Doesn't make it right.

[Ken Burch]

17. The pullout from Gaza was a unilateral Israeli government action designed to PREVENT

the inclusion of the West Bank in a Palestinian state. It was meant to say to the Palestinians "Here, we're giving you this, you have no right to expect anything else. Shut up and know your place".

The peace movement in Israel knew this could never work and would only make things worse. They've been proven right. This situation is the result of Ariel Sharon's hawkish arrogance.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[thunder rising]

11. All of Israel needs to look in a mirror. This shit has got to stop.

[EFerrari]

7. Netanyahu's nephew is a well known refusenik

and he was on Amy's show this week. I don't remember when -- maybe Tuesday. Here's a story about him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/09/israel

And here's to a younger generation doing better.

[Doctor_J]

27. Yep, he hit the trifecta just like his alter ego in the WH

[High Plains]

28. I wish the Israelis were smarter than electing that fucking pig.

The US should not be supporting Likud. Just like it doesn't support Hamas.

[LeftishBrit]

30. They have not elected him yet. Let's hope they don't.

[THUNDER HANDS]

33. are the hawkish RW parties in Israel...

right wing on all issues, or just the one's concerning the military?

I mean, I know Israel was founded as a socialist country, so there's probably a lot of economic leftists there. Anybody know how these parties break down along social or economic lines, aside from the military ones?

[Ken Burch]

34. No one who's voting Likud retains ANY leftist or humane values.

The people who now back Israel's right do so only out of a twisted obsession with holding land for the sake of holding land. All the ideals of 1948 have been forever cast aside in that country.

[LeftishBrit]

35. The Israelis on the list will know more than me, but so far as I know:

Likud are economically conservative, but not extreme in this respect: more akin to Europaean mainstream Conservatives than American Republicans.

Shas are actually relatively left-wing on economic/welfare issues.

I don't really know about the other RW parties.