Israeli Citizens Vote

[Big Guy]

Next week, there is a general election in Israel that may have a major influence over what happens in the Middle East;

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/13/us-israel-election-opposition-idUSKBN0M90TL20150313

So far the polls indicate that the Netanyahu rule is coming to an end and a middle-left party will take power. Like most Israeli elections, the results will require coalitions with other parties. If the Zionist Union Party does win, being led by Issac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, it is anticipated that part of their coalition will be the Arab List Party.

Looks like that last minute move by Netanyahu in Washington did not pan out.

It will be interesting what the relationship between a new center-left government in Israel will have with a Democratic president of the USA and the negotiations between Iran and the USA.

[jacee]

Very interesting. Awesome!

At least to anyone who would like to see a successful negotiation for peace in the middle east.

.

[Shady]

I think we should all be celebrating Israel's democracy. It's too bad there weren't more countries like them in the Middle East. Peace would have been achieved decades ago. Regardless, there have been many left of centre governments, and many right of centre governments, all failing to achieve peace. Primarly because of their negotiating partners on the other side. See, 2000, Bill Clinton's attempt.

[eyeball]

It's too bad there weren't more countries like them in the Middle East. Peace would have been achieved decades ago.

So am I supposed to believe if you had a time machine you'd go back and stop operation AJAX?

[Moonlight Graham]

Netanyahu makes it quite clear that he has no aims for peace with Palestinians or neighbouring Muslim countries. He doesn't extend the olive branch, but rather threatens war or makes war, and that has only increased hatred and resentment towards Jews by Muslim peoples and leaders in the region. He's a horrible diplomat. He's a very dangerous man for middle-eastern and global security. I hope his party is trounced in this election.

[Shady]

Netanyahu makes it quite clear that he has no aims for peace with Palestinians or neighbouring Muslim countries. He doesn't extend the olive branch,

That's just not true. It takes two sides to negotiate. How do you suppose he's to extend an "olive branch" to a group of people (Hamas) that have it in their charter as the goal of the destruction of the state of Israel? Where do the negotiations start? We don't want any of Israel destroyed, you want all, so let's settle at half? You guys crack me up. Oh, and the neighbouring countries have made peace with Israel. Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are on the SAME side as Israel when it comes to Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Shady

[bush_cheney2004]

Yeah....Canada sure showed PM Netanyahu what for by negotiating updates to the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement:

On January 21, 2014, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel, announced the launch of negotiations to expand and modernize the CIFTA Agreement (See News Release: PM Launches Negotiations to Expand Free Trade with Israel).

The first round of negotiations took place in Israel from February 3-9, 2014 (See News Release: Canada Welcomes First Round of Negotiations to Expand Free Trade Agreement with Israel). The second round of negotiations took place in Ottawa from May 26 to 29 (See News Release: Canada Kicks Off Second Round of Negotiations to Expand Free Trade with Israel). The third round took place in Israel from December 7-11, 2014 (See News Release: Canada and Israel Begin Third Round of Trade Expansion Talks).

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/israel/index.aspx?lang=eng

Canada is sure teaching that "bully" Netanyahu a thing or two !!

[Hudson Jones]

So am I supposed to believe if you had a time machine you'd go back and stop operation AJAX?

Owie.

Please stop interjecting reality into Shady's superficial world.

[Bonam]

The last set of negotiations under a more left party, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, also ended without any agreement, despite many concessions offered by Olmert, including sharing Jerusalem and allowing some Palestinians to immigrate to Israel. As usual, rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

Given the track record, I don't think anyone should raise their hopes for a final agreement, regardless of what party wins. The Palestinian leadership would rather stick it to Israel and maintain Israel in a situation that garners international criticism, rather than actually get their own state.

[Hudson Jones]

The sad part is that Ehud Olmert is considered a Lefty Prime Minister in Israel. This is the same guy who launched the first Gaza carnage. It just goes to show you the state of Israel.

In Israel, you cannot speak against the military industrial complex and the settlement industry and be a Prime Minister. Both industries make a lot of money for a lot of people. They both need to create reasons for them to continue and they both need the sheep to propagate the masses.

Israel has reached a peak. The masses have been fed so much hysteria, for so long and the reaction by the Palestinians in the past, through suicide attacks, has been the perfect response to continue this hysteria of forever victimhood. Racism in Israel is at an all time high. They no longer pretend. It's out in the open. This is how Hitler got all those Germans behind him - Through hysteria.

Israel and Israelis will not get on the correct path on their own. The only way is through international pressure, such as the BDS movement and the continuous pressure on the Western governments to reject the human rights violations that have been going on for decades.

[WWWTT]

Yeah....Canada sure showed PM Netanyahu what for by negotiating updates to the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement:

On January 21, 2014, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel, announced the launch of negotiations to expand and modernize the CIFTA Agreement (See News Release: PM Launches Negotiations to Expand Free Trade with Israel).

The first round of negotiations took place in Israel from February 3-9, 2014 (See News Release: Canada Welcomes First Round of Negotiations to Expand Free Trade Agreement with Israel). The second round of negotiations took place in Ottawa from May 26 to 29 (See News Release: Canada Kicks Off Second Round of Negotiations to Expand Free Trade with Israel). The third round took place in Israel from December 7-11, 2014 (See News Release: Canada and Israel Begin Third Round of Trade Expansion Talks).

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/israel/index.aspx?lang=eng

Canada is sure teaching that "bully" Netanyahu a thing or two !!

When did Netanyahu address Canadian parliament again?

WWWTT

[Shady]

The last set of negotiations under a more left party, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, also ended without any agreement, despite many concessions offered by Olmert, including sharing Jerusalem and allowing some Palestinians to immigrate to Israel. As usual, rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

Given the track record, I don't think anyone should raise their hopes for a final agreement, regardless of what party wins. The Palestinian leadership would rather stick it to Israel and maintain Israel in a situation that garners international criticism, rather than actually get their own state.

The deal brokered by Bill Clinton, and turned down by terrorist leader Yassar Arafat is as good of a deal as they're going to get. It was more than generous, and Arafat walked away from it for very little reason, other than not getting everything he wanted. And the Palestinians suffer today because of that decision.

[eyeball]

Yep. They should call this the Era of Consequences.

[Bonam]

The deal brokered by Bill Clinton, and turned down by terrorist leader Yassar Arafat is as good of a deal as they're going to get. It was more than generous, and Arafat walked away from it for very little reason, other than not getting everything he wanted. And the Palestinians suffer today because of that decision.

As they will continue to suffer as their current and future leaders continue to decline any deal Israel might offer them in the coming decades. What can one say... sucks to have bad leaders.

[GostHacked]

As they will continue to suffer as their current and future leaders continue to decline any deal Israel might offer them in the coming decades. What can one say... sucks to have bad leaders.

Yesterday there was no Israel, today there is. Right where you live. What do you do about it?

[Moonlight Graham]

The last set of negotiations under a more left party, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister, also ended without any agreement, despite many concessions offered by Olmert, including sharing Jerusalem and allowing some Palestinians to immigrate to Israel. As usual, rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

Given the track record, I don't think anyone should raise their hopes for a final agreement, regardless of what party wins. The Palestinian leadership would rather stick it to Israel and maintain Israel in a situation that garners international criticism, rather than actually get their own state.

They were very close to a deal under Olmert, which didn't have time to be finalized because Olmert resigned for unrelated political reasons. The Palestinians had legitimate terms they wanted to still work out, like the right to return and land swaps for West Bank settlements.

You're saying the Palestinians were wrong to reject the terms presented? Why exactly? How were the Palestinians being unreasonable?

[Moonlight Graham]

As they will continue to suffer as their current and future leaders continue to decline any deal Israel might offer them in the coming decades. What can one say... sucks to have bad leaders.

Arafat wasn't a good leader, but both sides wanted some ridiculous concessions. Why should the Palestinians accept deals when they're full of double standards or just plain crap? Israel has often tried to push unfair deals on the Palestinians because they can, because they have massive power superiority over them and want to maintain their military hegemony in the region.

[Bonam]

You're saying the Palestinians were wrong to reject the terms presented? Why exactly? How were the Palestinians being unreasonable?

Because an imperfect deal is a heck of a lot better than no deal at all. As we say in engineering, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

The Jews in Israel in 1948, too, were very unhappy with the deal presented by the UN. And yet they accepted it (though the Arabs did not, leading to the 1948 war).

Would you prefer to live under "occupation" by a foreign power that you hate, or live in your own state that exists on 90-98% of the territory you were hoping for? I know for anyone remotely rational the answer should be obvious. Even if you really think you want those 2-10% too... you can always seek further negotiations later, or even seek to gain said territory through war later. But why not take what is openly offered?

[Rue]

Moonlight why don't you go find out why Arafat ripped the deal up. You live in a selective world where it was based on what exactly?

You even know?

Because if you did you would know Arafat never ripped the deal up because of what the terms were.

Zip over your head too. Another arm chair political expert.

[Rue]

The fact that arm chair experts would start a thread claiming to know what is best for Israelis and how they will vote is par for the course. The very people who engage in this presumptuous exercise once again play the role of the noble white man telling Jews their place and what is good for them.

What I find fun fun fun though is now the attempt to revise Arafat as someone who turned down peace deals because they were unreasonable.

Dennis Ross the US negotiator wrote an article entitled Think Again: Yasor Arafat in July of 2002. In it he stated Arafat never had any intention of signing ANY peace deal of any kind.

In May 1994, Arafat stated in a Mosque in Johannesburg,South Africa something he had repeated numerous times in the Arab media, a reference to to the 628 Treaty of Hudabiyah. In that reference he made it clear any peace negotiations were a sham, just a stalling tactic until the true agenda of taking back all of Israel was able to be achieved.

He again repeated this at a world conference n Stockholm in 1996. Arafat openly made it clear repeatedly and until he died. that Clinton, Reagan, Begin, Rabin, Barak, Sharon, Netanayahu. they all knew, the whole world knew, he would not stop until all of Israel, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza was a Palestinian sharia law state led by him.

After his death Mr.Abbas has repeated that agenda repeatedly.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Rue

[Big Guy]

With his back to the wall and hours from the election, Bibi has gone back to his true colours;

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_ELECTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-03-16-14-45-30

Bibi's REAL position is ; no Palestinian State, keep those new settlements going up and the hell with what the rest of the world says.

And the USA has been backing this guy for 6 years?

[Bonam]

Bibi's REAL position is ; no Palestinian State, keep those new settlements going up and the hell with what the rest of the world says.

So your opinion is that a politician's "REAL" position is the one he hurriedly expresses with a day left before an election?

[bush_cheney2004]

....And the USA has been backing this guy for 6 years?

Longer than that....and so has Canada....shoulder to shoulder...with Israel.

[Big Guy]

To Bonam - I would assume that his "real" position is his latest stated position.

Perhaps you can tell me what you think his "real" position is ...for to-day at least.

[Moonlight Graham]

Because an imperfect deal is a heck of a lot better than no deal at all. As we say in engineering, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

The Jews in Israel in 1948, too, were very unhappy with the deal presented by the UN. And yet they accepted it (though the Arabs did not, leading to the 1948 war).

Would you prefer to live under "occupation" by a foreign power that you hate, or live in your own state that exists on 90-98% of the territory you were hoping for? I know for anyone remotely rational the answer should be obvious. Even if you really think you want those 2-10% too... you can always seek further negotiations later, or even seek to gain said territory through war later. But why not take what is openly offered?

The Palestinians don't need a perfect deal, but they need a fair deal they can live with. Territory wasn't the only sticking point in the last round of talks, as you state they were only disagreeing on a small bit of territory. There are differences over the rights of Palestinian refugees to return (or be compensated) to their homes/land in what is now Israeli territory. ( Let's not forget that in 1948, following an illegal attack by Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states, Israel illegally occupied and annexed land where majority of Arabs lived and which was accepted by Israel to be Palestinian land under the UN Resolution 181 and many Arab civilians were permanently driven out/fled).

Would you prefer to live under "occupation" by a foreign power that you hate, or live in your own state that exists on 90-98% of the territory you were hoping for?

...you can always seek further negotiations later, or even seek to gain said territory through war later. But why not take what is openly offered?

The deal Israel had on the table called for any Palestinian state to be de-militarized. When Israel can secretly have nukes, and Palestine can't even have a tank, it sounds like the occupation would continue under another name. Palestinians have never gained any territory through war, and without its own military, that will never happen.

In a perfect world, some kind of deal would be better than no deal, but I have little faith that anything in Palestine's favour could be worked out after an initial deal, other than very minor details.

The Jews in Israel in 1948, too, were very unhappy with the deal presented by the UN. And yet they accepted it (though the Arabs did not, leading to the 1948 war).

As far as I know most Jews were happy with the 1948 UN partition plan, and Zionists lobbied hard for the members of the General Assembly to pass it. Seems about right since, according to Wikipedia, Jews at the time made up 33% of the population in Mandatory Palestine but only owned 7% of the land.