What should have israel done instead?

Thanks for the link it should be an interesting read. Even as just an 18 year old going through the region, as soon as i arrived in Israel i knew something had changed in the people around me. Easy humour seemed to vanish, and there was a general tightness around the eyes of every Israeli you met, even as a part jew doing a kibbutz thing i was an outsider. It was a real shame imho, and a small indicator maybe about the way we live our lives and the rights and wrongs of that.

That is not to say Israeli’s had not been dealt a duff hand to start with, due to the half finished nature of their nations creation that the rest of the world helped give them back. And this is why it is still important we never let them push us all too far away diplomatically. That hardness around the eyes suggests a ‘people’ that purely left to their own might self-destruct? They need to feel wanted on the world stage, part of it, and the more extreme they become, and we let them, the less that will be a reality sadly.

No, Zak, it’s PTSD.

Dunno man, I’ve been to Israel a couple times and I’ve also been to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Usually arriving in Israel is a giant sigh of relief. FINALLY, a place where the attitudes towards women aren’t fucked up. I feel a heck of a lot safer (even though personal crime is extremely rare in Muslim countries) and more comfortable, it’s so modern and friendly and clean.

It might be a timing issue. I was there a while ago, and while at that time travel around the middle east was very friendly, that was a pre Iraq War I time. No way in hell would i travel (as a white westerner) anywhere in that region now, that is just playing russian roulette imho. But i understand why.

@Starlight, yeah could be, i can understand that.

Netanyahu says “indeed” when asked if there will never be a Palestinian state while he’s PM:

The prospect of a Palestinian state is nil so long as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stays in office, Netanyahu said in a Monday interview.

Asked by an interviewer with the Israeli news site, NRG, if it was true that a Palestinian nation would never be formed while he’s prime minister, Netanyahu replied, “Indeed.”

His interview with NRG came as he courted conservative supporters a day before Israelis head to the polls for national elections.

“Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving a base for attacks to the radical Islam against Israel,” he said. “This is the true reality that was created here in the last few years.”

Netanyahu went on to say that any opponents on the left who might argue otherwise are “sticking their head in the sand, time and time again.”

He further said a strong government led by his Likud Party is necessary to beat back international pressure to divide Jerusalem and return Israel to its pre-1967 borders, according to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report on the NRG interview.

“I do not give in,” Netanyahu told NRG. “We stood fast against huge pressure, and we will continue to do so.”

And the cycle of violence is thus guaranteed to continue. I see Israeli settlements and the failure to establish a Palestinian state as one of the two most important sources of conflict in the Middle East, the other being post-colonial fallout (nonsensical borders, strongmen, etc.). The region will never know peace until Israel recognizes the consequences of its actions and “gives in.”

So you’re saying that unless he’s re-elected, Israel’s gone?
Well, there you go supporting him.

Post by Netanyahu on his Facebook page:

שלטון הימין בסכנה. המצביעים הערבים נעים בכמויות אל הקלפי. עמותות השמאל מביאות אותם באוטובוסים.

Translation:

The right wing government is in danger, Arab voters are coming out in droves

Just disgusting that this type of out and out racist post is considered acceptable in Israeli society. The Washington Post says “It’s also unclear whether Netnayahu’s claims on Tuesday morning about a surge in Arab voters was even true. Some observers suggested that Arab voting trends this year were consistent with previous elections.”

It’s a very sad commentary on Israel that this kind of racist statement can be made without even bothering to turn it in to a dog whistle the way politicians in the US would.

It is. My support for Israel has waned steadily over the decades. In the 70’s, I was pretty much 100% on their side. Since then, I’ve been on a long slide down. Settlements, failure to create a Palestinian state, overt racism, espionage of and theft from the US…the list is long and depressing. As I said in my last post, they are largely to blame for the endless chaos in the region. The US needs to use its economic and military leverage to force some real changes. If Israel won’t make them, we should end our aid. Earn it or lose it.

Per 538, just don’t expect a full resolution on where Israel will be after today - it could take weeks, or more:

ut Israelis might not know even by the next week or month who their prime minister is, said Jeremy Saltan, a 31-year-old political insider and commentator who has become a leading poll analyst and election forecaster. (He’s also a comedian and comedy-club owner.)

Even in 2013, when Netanyahu was the clear front-runner, nearly two months elapsed between the January vote and the formation of a coalition government. “It’s very complicated,” Saltan said in a telephone interview. Saltan and other election analysts in Israel who have been watching every poll for months generally are loath to predict exactly how coalition building will go.

Yeah, the Knesset is a Charlie-Foxtrot when it comes to forming a government, and what results could well be so cobbled together it’s ineffective. Which might be better than a whacko but effective coalition I guess.

Erm? There’s a flipping firestorm going on in the press, and demonstrators out in Jerusalem.
Even most of his allies have condemned it (except the usual suspects), and it’s lead to Kahlon hardening his stance against a assumed coalition with Likud, for instance.

Bah, well no peace in the middle east for a while longer, and expect a large influence from Israel in american politics going forward (in terms of seeing Republicans back in power and all that entails globally (wars, more man made climate change etc)).

Huh. That really does defy the pre-election and exit polls in quite a few ways. (The right are still down 6 seats, I note)

It seems clear that the ~5% swing to the right after Abbas went ahead with the ICC move was decisive in securing the right victory, just as I feared.

Change is something that takes a good long while sometimes. You don’t win it in one election.

Almost certainly true.

Maybe, maybe not. Netanyahu pissed off the Democrats in general and Obama in particular with his recent round of silliness. For the next couple years, Obama will determine what happens with Israel much, much more than the GOP-led congress - and after Netanyahu’s visit, Obama has insinuated that the the US vote on the UN Security Council (which he controls) may not be as automatically pro-Israel as it has been in the past.

More to the point, Netanyahu’s antics have managed to make an awful lot of middle-of-the-road Americans look askance at the Israeli government for the first time in a while. The GOP’s stance isn’t going to win them New York’s electoral vote, no matter how many Jews live in NYC… but it may actually lose them Virginia and North Carolina. If the Democrats win back the Senate in 2016 (as seems increasingly likely), I doubt the Israeli Right is going to look back on the last couple months with anything but regret. I think that in the long run, you’ll see LESS Israeli influence in US politics because of this, not more.

So…doesn’t Netanyahu’s denouncement of two states essentially put him at complete odds with the UN and world community at large?

I mean, he won, but it just feels like it took scorched earth to do it and now he’s painted himself and his international supporters into a very difficult corner.

Well, Israel has already been at odds with the UN and world community at large. I don’t think it really matters to them at this point.

It’s possible that by rejecting the whole idea of the two-state solution at this point, that it may actually bring Palestinians to the table, out of fear that they’re just gonna lose more if they don’t start negotiating in good faith.

Not here in Canada. The Harper Conservatives support Israel without question. It does not matter what they say or do, our government will cheer.

It would if that wasn’t already the case. His statement is really just a public acknowledgement of what unofficial Israeli policy has been for a long time now. Two states has been given lip service while settlement expansion and wall building continued apace. The only thing it might do is wake up a few Israel supporters in the US to the realities there.

Israel and the Republicans have a lot in common for me. There was a time I was a big supporter of both. Now I’m a huge detractor.

Pretty much all of this.