TheNewTeddy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21222341 It seems Berlusconi has praised Mussolini on Holocaust day. Regardless, the latest polls are as follows: 35.77% Socialist 27.85% Conservative 14.32% Moderate 13.47% Populist 4.82% Radical

In the Czech Republic, social democrat Milos Zeman has been elected as President. map: New elections for March have been added.

Yes a Democracy gets it's legitimacy from popular support, and a country gets it's legitimacy from other countries allowing it to continue to exist. Some random Canadian may not be much on the grand scale of legitimacy, but it does matter. As an American, however, your view would matter "more" if that helps.

New question: Does the recent election impact your view on a Jewish State and if it can or can not be Democratic?

You contradict yourself, regardless, your posts are off the desired topic, and I will stop responding to them. If you wish to weigh in on the democracy in a jewish state issue, please feel free.

Second paragraph first. A quote from my "rules" Responding to your first paragraph: All the issues need to be taken into account to have a proper discussion on the issue. The problem I've seen with other threads on the Israel/Palestine situation is that people base their entire argument on only a single point, and thus, there is no healthy debate, just a feast of copypasta. Israel as a Jewish State is a barrier to a one state solution. "Apartheid" in the West Bank and Gaza are barriers to Palestinians accepting a two state solution. Terrorism and the response to Terrorism are barriers for both sides, and, cause the entire world concern. Saying "Aparthed!! one state!!" ignores the Jewish State issues. Saying "Terrorism!! Two states!!" ignores the "Apartheid" issues. Etc so on and so forth. The discussion so far in this thread has been mostly calm, relaxed, non-personal, educated, and, healthy. I'd like to keep it that way, as I think that this is a good issue and a good topic for debate.

2 things 1 - You can edit the title to be accurate 2 - There is a deficit because the province depends on energy prices and royalties for it's surpluses

This is the key reason why I want to discuss these individually. I find debates on Israel turn into silly things, where, for example, I say I want a McDonalds Cheeseburger, and you say you want a Burger King Hamburger, and I say "Burger King Sucks!" and you say "Cheeseburgers Suck!". We can keep saying these same things over and over again because I'm not willing to talk about McDonalds and you are not willing to talk about Hamburgers. There are now threads on two of the main issues (prior to peace that is) and if the third comes up, I'll open a topic on that one too.

I'll go first. I say yes.The image is just a small part of it. Israel allows settlers in the West Bank to vote, but not Palestinians. It also prohibits Palestinians in East Jerusalem from voting and limits their rights, despite barking at the world that Jerusalem, undivided, is the capital of Israel. Israel may counter that the West Bank and Gaza are not part of Israel. If that is the case, then you (Israel) need to stop giving those (Jews) who live there the same rights as citizens in Israel. You need to stop using your military and your urban "planning" to force your people to settle there while not giving anyone else a say. If the West Bank and Gaza are not a part of Israel, get the hell out of there. Israel may counter that these areas are under occupation. If these are then part of Israel, you need to give rights and provide services for all the citizens, that means Palestinians. That means free healthcare for all of them, and, votes for all of them too. Israel may counter that these areas are not a part of Israel, but, are under occupation, and thus, because of that special status, only the Jews there get any rights, that the Palestinians are not Palestinians but just "Arabs" and that there are plenty of Arab countries out there, so any Palestinians not living in one of those countries, should get limited rights. I say there's a word for that. Apartheid. Remember that this is not a discussion about Terrorism. I thought that this should be made clear before any further debate takes place.

This was posted in the other thread and I thought it'd be wise to open a discussion on the treatment of those who live in Gaza and the West Bank. East Jerusalem is in play here as well as it is in the other thread. The "rules" for this thread are as follows:

East Jerusalem is considered by Israel to be within the Jewish State, thus, it is open for discussion. As well, there is no debating - given the election - that within the Jewish State (with the exception of East Jerusalem as you've outlined) - that Israel is a democracy. I will open another thread about "Apartheid" in the West Bank and Gaza, as it seems that there is a will to discuss this.

Kadima set out to build the barrier, which, would have made this: https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?authuser=0&vps=2&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214668381355121949879.0004d349473069069f564 the final border. I have my suspicious that Bibi would be generally willing to accept this, but, with military control over Palestine; something that Kadima would have been willing to live without. Bennet however, leader of Jewish Home, wants to keep the "powers of the palestinian state" to what they have now.

There is no apartheid in Jewish Israel. Any "apartheid" is limited to the West Bank and Gaza. The West Bank and Gaza are not part of Jewish Israel and this topic focuses on Jewish Israel. Within Jewish Israel, Arabs have full rights and thousands upon thousands of them used those rights to vote for one of 4 Arab based parties in the election on Tuesday, 3 of which won seats. I'm willing to start a "Is there apartheid in the west bank" thread if that topic is of interest and willing to be discussed.

This is off topic. I'd ask that everyone please stay on topic, as I think the discussion has been wonderful so far, and I'd hate it to end.

Labour now says it will join a coalition, but, only if it is drowned in other moderates. Their preference (and I presume this is without Leiberman's party) is for the following Likud - 21 Lapid - 19 Labour - 15 Hatnuah - 6 Kadima - 2 This would give them 63 seats, a majority. Meanwhile, over in Italy (yes, there are still other countries!) Not much has changed. The average of the last 2 polls is as follows: 37.3% - Socialist 28.3% - Conservative 14.5% - Moderate 12.8% - Populist 4.4% - Radical Things are pretty static. Then again, things were static for the longest time in Israel, but the end results did not exactly match the projections.

Hamas and Fatah did not win any seats in the Knesset.

Good news everyone! The Islamists have lost a seat in the final counting, that seat will go to the Jewish party. Final results are thus as follows: 21 - Likud (In a Conservative alliance) 19 - Yesh Atid (AKA Lapid) 15 - Avoda (AKA Labour) 12 - Jewish (AKA Jewish Home) 11 - Shas (The Orthodox Party) 10 - Yisrael Beitanu (In a Conservative alliance) 7 - Torrah (United Torrah Judaism) 6 - Hatanuah (Livni's "Liberals") 6 - Meretz (Progressives) 4 - UAL/Taal (Islamist) 4 - Hadash (Jewish/Arab/Communist) 3 - Balad (Arab Nationalist) 2 - Kadima (Kadima) I've included a picture explaining how Israeli's vote:

I decided to use the map to try to estimate what the election would have been like if Israel had FPTP. Jerusalem 4 - Likud 4 - Torrah West Bank 1 - Torrah 2 - Jewish 1 - Likud Arab Areas 6 - Islamist 6 - Hadash Strength Areas 3 - Torrah 2 - Labour (if they are lucky) 2 - Shas (if they are also lucky) And an estimated 37 - Likud 37 - Lapid Plus an estimated 15 - Likud As the areas Lapid won were all close, but the areas Likud won were by larger margins. Result: 57 - Likud 37 - Lapid 8 - Torrah 6 - Islamist 6 - Hadash 2 - Jewish 2 - Labour 2 - Shas Estimated of course. If only half the seats were FPTP, and the rest Paralell (as proposed by some) -Parties with "Strength Areas" are hurt the most by this, sa those areas end up less and less concentrated. -Parties in other areas only end up winning half the seats, as, the seats are halved. -I should also do the likely realistic thing, and try to gerrymander a few of the arab seats away. Jerusalem 2 - Likud 2 - Torrah West Bank 1 - Likud 1 - Jewish Arab Areas 3 - Hadash An estimated 22 - Likud 22 - Lapid And an estimated 7 - Likud For the following results: 32 - Likud 22 - Lapid 3 - Hadash 2 - Torrah 1 - Jewish Half the PR results: 16 - Likud 9 - Lapid 8 - Labour 6 - Shas 5 - Jewish 3 - Torrah 3 - Meretz 3 - Liberal 3 - Islamist 2 - Hadash 1 - Balad 1 - Kadima Combined results: 48 - Likud 31 - Lapid 8 - Labour 6 - Shas 5 - Jewish 5 - Torrah 5 - Hadash 3 - Meretz 3 - Liberal 3 - Islamist 1 - Balad 1 - Kadima The reality is, however, that this system would change how people vote, draw them to the larger parties. Not to mention such a change would likely also result in the upping of the vote threshold. My estimate for an actual election run on these results would be as follows: 55 - Likud 35 - Lapid 9 - Unified Arab 7 - Labour 6 - Shas 4 - Torrah 4 - Jewish Which would actually be a bit less stable than the Knesset that was elected.

I've been examining the results map: http://www.youtube.com/2013ynet?x=/map (don't ask me why you need to go to youtube to get to google maps) I've focused specifically on the settlements. There seems to be a trend among them. Where Likud does well, Lapid does well. In short, these settlements vote like the rest of Israel does. Where Likud does not do well, the Jewish party does very well. These settlements do not vote like the rest of Israel does. Outside of the West Bank there are a few other things I note Where the Torrah party does well it does VERY well, and where it does not do well, it does very poorly. Note how it "won" Jerusalem but was hard pressed to make 1% in Tel Aviv.

I've decided to take the current Israeli election results and apply to it - as an addition of seats - the most recent Palestinian election. The results are as follows: 31 - Likud 19 - Lapid 16 - Hamas 15 - Fatah 15 - Labour 11 - Shas 11 - Jewish 7 - Torrah 6 - Liberal 6 - Meretz 5 - Islamist 4 - Communist 3 - Arabic 2 - Kadima The 5 arab parties would have a total of 43 seats in this 151 seat assembly.

According to http://www.haaretz.com/ and http://www.votes-19....nationalresults the "Final Results" are as follows: 31 - Likud (21 Likud, 10 Leiberman) 19 - Lapid 15 - Labour 11 - Shas 11 - Jewish 7 - Torrah 6 - Liberal 6 - Meretz 5 - Islamist 4 - Communist (Hadash has support from the Communists) 3 - Arabic 2 - Kadima 0 - Nationalist 0 - Not-Shas 0 - Libertarian Pot Party (No, they actually did finish in this spot, that's not a joke) 0 - Pro Disabled Religious Party (yea, things get pretty special interest this far down the list) 0 - Left Wing 2 State Pro Arab Anti Corruption US Congressional Investigation Style Party ( :| ) 0 - Get rid of pure PR and add a FPTP element to stabilize govermment party 0 - Young Greens 0 - Pensioners Party 0 - Pro Poor Party 0 - Party that Bud posted that ad to with that arabic girl in it a few pages back party 0 - Party created by Arcadi Gaydamak to support Bibi before he was Likud leader Party. 0 - Pro Disabled and Pro people from Ethiopia and India party 0 - Pirate Party 0 - The Happy Joy Peace Unity pro Rabbi party 0 - The 'economics party' lead by a guy nicknamed 'confused' party 0 - Progressive Liberals 0 - Separation of Chruch and State party 0 - The minimum wage, separation of church and state, arab-jewish party 0 - Hope for Change party 0 - The waiting for the Messiah party (capturing an entire 0.01% of the vote) COALITION POSSIBILITIES The Arabic parties won't be in any coalition, so the coalition possibility parties do not include them. Likud, meanwhile, will be split here just in case Leiberman decides to bolt at some point. The two parties will be indicated with a * 21 - Likud* - Conservative with Nationalist undertones 19 - Lapid - Vehicle for Yair Lapid; Centerish, light on actual substantive policy 15 - Labour - Centre-Left but still Zionist 11 - Shas - Ultra Orthodox, ethnic based (Sephardi) 11 - Jewish - Religious but not "Orthodox" per se 10 - Lieberman* - Ethnic based (Russian) and both Conservative and Nationalist 7 - Torrah - Ultra Orthodx, slightly ethnic based (Ashkenazi) 6 - Meretz - Progressive and Left, borderline not even being Zionist 6 - Liberal - Vehicle for Tzipi Livni; Centerish, some substantive policy half an inch left of centre 2 - Kadima - Former vehicle for Ariel Sharon (RIP) 61 seats is the goal. The Conservatives* plus Lapid and Jewish make for a majority. So too if Jewish is replaced with Labour. The benefit of Labour over Jewish, and why I split Leiberman, is if he decides to bolt, and the coalition is with Labour, they could invite in the Liberals and still maintain a majority. Note that the seats for Kadima, Liberals, and Lapid is a total of 27, only 1 less than the 28 Kadima got last election when Livni was leader and Lapid's supporters voted Kadima Last election Likud took 27 and Leiberman's party took 15. The two parties that make up the Jewish party took a total of 7. Likud lost 6, Leiberman lost 5. Labour is up from 13 to 19, a gain of 6. Note that just like "very religious" people here, not all "Ultra Orthodox" parties are super right-wing. Remember that Bill Blaikie, famed NDPer, and Tommy Douglas, NDP founder, were both religious preachers.

Live Results, 86% of ballots counted 31 - Likud 19 - Lapid 15 - Labour 12 - Shas 11 - Jewish 7 - Torrah 6 - Liberal 6 - Meretz 4 - UAL 4 - Hadash 3 - Balad 2 - Kadima The most likely coalitions all include Likud and Lapid, for a combined 50 seats. They need 11 more seats, and are a few ways they can get those seats. With Labour Labour, however, would like to not sit with Likud if they can avoid it. With Shas Likud seems to be unwilling to sit with Shas again for some reason. With the Jewish Party At the moment, this seems the most likely outcome.

Latest news updates on Israel: Shas wants a coalition with Lapid, and Lapid seems to want the same. Depending on final results, Shas, Lapid, and Likud should have a majority. Of the expected 31 seats for the Conservatives, 21 are Likud, and 10 are Yisrael Beitanu. Compare this to Lapid's 19. Shas could be out of the coalition altogether. The Jewish Party is apparently seen as more appealing to Likud? Teddy is going to bed. Check the last page for the latest. updated for 8pm. going back to sleep.

3rd - http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 - Liechtenstein 3rd - http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2008 - Monaco 17th - http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 - Cyprus 17th - http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 - Ecuador 18th - http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 - Armenia 25th - http://en.wikipedia....eneral_election ITALY MARCH 4th - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenyan_parliamentary_election,_2013 - Kenya* 11th - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_referendum,_2013 - Falklands, referendum* Countries in ALLCAPS will get focus by me, while those with an asterisk* after them will get a "minor focus" (similar to Romania or Lower Saxony) Other big elections this coming year http://en.wikipedia....ederal_election GERMANY - Sept? http://en.wikipedia....ederal_election AUSTRALIA - Nov? http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 WA (AUSTRALIA) - March 9th http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 Iceland* - Apr 27th http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 Lebanon* - http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 Nepal* - Apr/May http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 Pakistan* - March http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 Palestine* - http://en.wikipedia....eferendum,_2013 Zimbabwe Referendum http://en.wikipedia...._election,_2013 Zimbabwe Presidential BE SURE TO CHECK THE BOTTOM OF THE PREVIOUS PAGE FOR MY MOST RECENT POST!!! ISRAEL: LIVE RESULTS: http://www.mapleleaf...255#entry876292 EXIT POLLS: http://www.mapleleaf...255#entry876287 ANALYSIS: http://www.mapleleaf...255#entry876293

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