Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Time to cut all foreign aid for this racist America hating country.  Seriously, they just re-elected the guy who said this?

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[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

So the last-minute "no statehood" pledge worked?

And the blaming Americans for having the Arabs vote.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

There is one side-effect of the Likud over-performance that I think we can all agree is good news: much hay was made earlier in the campaign of the fact that it seemed the next Knesset would have no Jews of Ethiopian heritage in it. However, Avraham Negosa, who is 27th on the Likud list and of Ethiopian heritage, will enter the Knesset. Negosa previously led the minor sectarian Ethiopian party, Atid Ehad, in the 2006 elections. He will replace Pnina Tamano-Shata, a Yesh Atid MK who was the sole Ethiopian in the last Knesset. Tamano-Shata was 13th on the Yesh Atid list this time, and it seems Yesh Atid have received only 11 seats.

No, we would have all been better off had Likud gotten fewer than 27 seats. Preferably a lot fewer.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Again, what gets to me isn't so much Netanyahu's hawkishness in general as the specific fact that a major plank of his platform is, essentially, outright refusing to try to take advantage of a situation that could, if played right, give him a fighting chance of finally putting his country at peace. How come this man has yet to be run out of the Knesset on a rail?!

I think we have to question whether a plurality of Isreali people care about that.

I have to believe that a plurality of Israeli people would rather live in a democracy at peace than a hybrid regime at perpetual war. I have to.

You have heard the old saying that Israel wants three things: the West Bank, its status as a Jewish state, or democracy, and it can have any two of those? The saying is older than I am and hackeneyed as it is, there is a lot of truth in it. Israel has made it clear that the West Bank is one of its choices.

It's pretty clear that they have chosen apartheid.