Israeli Election Strengthens Two-State Solution and Weakens Netanyahu

Result was a huge surprise, after polls predicted a swing to the right

A weakened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to collaborate with a new centrist party that advocates for a Palestinian state under certain conditions.

Israel's elections produced an unexpected deadlock, the Associated Press reports. The outcome surprised pollsters who had predicted Israel's next government would shift further to the right. Instead, there is basically a tie between conservatives and the center-left, denying the prime minister a mandate to pursue his hawkish policies, the Los Angeles Times said.

The results were a blow to Netanyahu, whose efforts to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank have resulted in strained relations with Washington. The centrist party, which gained ground in the election, opposes Netanyahu's settlement policy and supports a two-state solution. You can read the outspoken centrist leader's views on Israel-Palestine here.

Netanyahu declared victory early Wednesday and said he would seek a broad coalition, the Los Angeles Times said.

Via the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press

Are you glad to see an Israeli government more supportive of a two-state solution?

[woodtick57]

Two state solution...sure. their respective religions will prevent them from ever deciding on a solution to dividing jerusalem. this is what happens when the same mythical god gives two different sects the same plot of land...

[PoliticalSpice]

Anything that weakens Netanyahu has my support. I felt this way long before he tried to weaken obama, and after that effort to interfere with u.s. elections feel it even more.

[DARSB]

Election results sound familiar... continued swing to the right didn't materialize, more centrist party rises to prominence... weakened conservative leader...

[jessejaymes]

Any move to the center by any govt anywhere at any time is good news as far as I'm concerned.

[DARSB]

@jessejaymes Oh, yeah. Moderates aren't always right, of course, but when their policies fail it usually doesn't take the mortgage industry and housing market with them.

[Fishbone345]

@DARSB "Moderates aren't always right, of course,"
Who is?

[LazerFlash]

Sadly, the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue would be the beginning of the end for the State of Israel. Unfortunately, the Arab world will never stop until they achieve the destruction - or dissolution - of the State of Israel.

[jessejaymes]

I think you're probably right but we all know those two factions are not going to stop warring under any circumstances and with this in mind, I'm always going to support Israel. I don't how people can support a race that beats women, makes their religion mandatory and exclusionary, shoots rockets into housing tracts and generally acts like terrorists. I thought we were at war with terrorists?

[LazerFlash]

@jessejaymes A very close friend of mine was injured several years ago in a suicide bombing in a coffee shop in Haifa. The bomb consisted of high explosives, roofing nails and crushed glass; he was 12.

[jessejaymes]

@LazerFlash That's what I'm talking about right there. I think we know who the infidels are.

[ded]

@jessejaymes You're right that we win over muslims when it comes to treatment of women and attitudes to religion (although the USA could learn a lot from some more secular western societies). But we also do our fair share of shooting rockets into housing tracts (e.g. Baghdad) and generally acting like terrorists.

[jessejaymes]

@ded I don't disagree. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice should be on trial at the Hague as far as I'm concerned.

[Raptor]

It is time that Israel comes to the realisation that they must learn to live with their neighbors and that a constant state of war benefits no one, not even them.

[jessejaymes]

That time will not come until and unless their "neighbors" agree that Israel has a right to exist. PERIOD.

[LazerFlash]

jessejaymes is right, Raptor... At any given point in time, it's Israel's neighbors who are responsible for that state of war you're talking about. It's hard to be friends with someone when their position is that you not only don't have the right to exist, but is also dedicated to your annihilation.

[Raptor]

@LazerFlash Who is responsible for that state of conflict in this area of the world is the UN when it created the state of Israel in what is predominantly the land of palistine On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, in favor of a partition plan that created the State of Israel. The rest as they say is history.

[LazerFlash]

@Raptor The history you spout is incomplete... I won't repeat my post to DrFunkenstein, but the short of it is that it was the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine that rejected the U.N. plan that would have replaced the British Mandate with a three-state solution - an independent Palestinian-Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency, had already accepted the plan.

Many blame the U.N. for the creation of the State of Israel when the British Mandate expired. The true fault lies with the Arabs, who, in 1947 could've had the solution they're trying to shove down the Israelis throat today.

[ded]

The country can't go on forever with a large number of disenfranchized people, especially when they have a much higher birth rate.

[RobertJHarsh]

Like I said before....ARAFAT is the reason why Palestinian and Gaza are not a Hong Kong right now. Oslo was the Palestinians to lose...and they lost it. The only thing the centrists will do is slow down the killing of Palestinians by the IDF and the rhetoric against Iran.

[Vance1]

Netanyahu is a great man

[ConserveUSA]

Yes, indeed! Israel has a strong military and if they ever go full force on a terrorist, watch out.

[SavageMazx]

Are they taking bets in Vegas as to when the all out war will start over there?

[DrFunkenstein]

The Palestinians deserve a chance to live and the Israelis need to stop fighting a war of attrition against them. I realize that most Americans don't pay attention but what Israel is doing to the Palestinians would be like Canada closes off all of the US borders, blocks all imports of food and medical supplies, destroys our crops and then floods the fields with sewage, periodically bomb the United States and "settle" a state by just taking it and throwing the people that lived there into the streets. Then after they have Americans dying of malnutrition and starvation they use F-18s and tanks to battle the crowds of Americans holding rocks and protesting their abuse.

[LazerFlash]

@DrFunkenstein: You need to brush up on your Middle East history. The "war of attrition" you mention is the other way around....

Many don't know (or choose to forget) that in 1947, the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee of Palestine vehemently rejected the U.N. plan that would have replaced the British Mandate with a three-state solution - an independent Palestinian-Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem. The recognized representative of the Jewish community, the Jewish Agency, had already accepted the plan. As 1947 came to a close, the Arab Higher Committee declared a strike. Roving bands of Arabs attacked Jewish - not British - targets. As this forgotten civil war ran its course, the Palestinian-Arab economy collapsed and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian-Arabs fled to surrounding countries. There, they were herded into ghettos and promised by the leaders of those countries, an "imminent return" to Palestine and the "elimination" of the Jews there. On May 15th of 1948, the day the British Mandate expired (and the day after the State of Israel was established), every bordering Arab country attacked the fledgling State of Israel. By the time that round of fighting ended in 1949, almost three-quarters of a million Palestinian-Arabs had fled to the ghettos in surrounding countries. To this day, many of those refugees (and their descendants) have never been offered citizenship in those countries.

Historically, Doc, it's been the Arab/Muslim world that has waged war against Israel... going all the way back to 5th and 6th centuries CE. One could argue that the solution the U.N. crafted in 1947-8 that created solely a Jewish state out of the former Palestine was incorrect. The other side of that coin is that it was the Arabs who rejected the solution they're clamoring for today. Now that the Jews have done more with that land in 70+ years than the Arabs did for 1300+ years prior, the Arab world wants a 'do over'. Sorry, it's too late for that. "Flooding the fields with sewage"? How's about making the desert bloom?

I often wonder how different the region would be today if instead of outright warfare, the Egyptian, Syrian, Transjordanian, Iraqi and Saudi leaders had picked up an olive branch? Think of all the resources that have been simply wasted - on all sides - just to fight. Unfortunately, radical Islam doesn't work that way.

[DrFunkenstein]

@LazerFlash I know history but I am talking about RIGHT NOW. This very second Israel is fighting a war of attrition against the palestinians, you might want to brush up on RIGHT NOW because if we are applying things done 70 years ago to today then we need to do something immediately about Hitler, let's bomb Berlin.

[LazerFlash]

@DrFunkenstein No, sir, I'm not proposing that we apply things done 70 years ago to today. What I am saying is that to simply ignore the past is foolish. The reality is that the Arabs created the situation that the region is in today. Not the U.N. Not that British. Not the Jews. I don't agree that we should turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the historical perspective of how things ended up the way they did. I also don't agree that they Palestinians are owed a do over. Why is it that people like you aren't as incensed over the fact that those hundreds of thousands of Palestinian-Arab refugees who fled to surrounding countries weren't offered a solution there? They were herded into ghettos and left as second-class non-citizens for decades - all because their leaders refused to give up on the fight against Israel. Where's the damnation and outrage over that?

FWIW, your Hitler analogy doesn't hold up because it's not relevant; there are no bands of hidden Nazi terrorists blowing themselves up in coffee shops, killing innocent civilians. The Nazis lost the war, the German people accepted the solutions given them in the 1940's and have moved on. If the Arab world had done the same thing in 1948, we wouldn't be having this discussion today.

[1adam2]

i am not concerned, with what any of you against G-D want. i am concerned what G-D, Truly wants for Ysrael. peace shall never happen, with any rebellion against G-D'S desires for any of us. this is why this worlds rebellion against G-D, has never truly seen any peace.

[tomincali]

do they have voting machines,if so that would explain why polls do not match votes.

[LazerFlash]

Sure they have voting machines. Elections in Israel are at least as advanced as they are here in the U.S.(Of course, that's a whole other topic for discussion, isn't it? ;-))

Seriously, though, Israeli politics is incredibly more complex than it is here, with our two-party system. It's an extraordinarily rare occurrence when the elected P.M. doesn't have to build some sort of coalition with several of the other parties. Think of how it is here, where we basically have two sides. Now, imagine it with 4-6. Now factor in that at least two of those sides are based upon religious beliefs that rarely agree. Next, factor in a side that represents a growing minority that is hellbent on pulling out of your government and creating their own country. Next, consider that there's at least one side that wants to fight to the death that side that wants to pull out and another side that wants peace at all cost. Get the picture? And, based upon what friends who live there have told me, this is actually the SIMPLIFIED version!

[Chomsky0]

The US and Israel has been blocking a two state solution for 50 years against the objections of the rest of the world. We'll see how this goes.