Israeli Election

It's negotiable...

All of the Golan Heights, including the Shebaa Farms salient, was captured in the Six Day War 1967, and not in the Lebanon War of 1982. It was captured from Syria, not Lebanon. That bulge is a small, but vital, sector in the fortifications along the line which Israeli Defense Forces hold, and have held, since June 1967. It is likely negotiable, should the Syrians wish to enter negotiations, face-to-face, in order to end their official state of hostilites and I would venture the Lebanese could also sit at the table and put their claim forward with the Israeli government (after this election concludes, it will be Arik Sharon, again).

Other than a negotiated outcome, the Hexbollah can pound sand.
Their use of force of arms to "reclaim" the sector is merely an extension of the state of war, and can only be met with Israeli force in retaliation, in spades. To tell the truth, it is entirely possible, the next time those terrorist maniacs try to do what they did against the IDF, Arik Sharon might well order the IAF to fly right into the heart of Damascus and respond to the source. Or even manage a sortie to Natanz, Iran, and send a little message to those chief supporters of terror, and end their nuclear-reprocessing capabilities in the bargian.

Next case.
 
Shenanigans by Netenyahu or black propaganda? You decide.

Peretz: I turned down offers to form new, social government
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/653527.html

There were numerous irate responses among Knesset factions Sunday to a proposal by Likud sources to round up the support of 61 MKs to obligate President Moshe Katsav to invite MK Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new government (if Netanyahu wins the Likud primaries). Shas, National Religious Party and United Torah Judaism announced that they would not support the initiative to form an alternate government headed by Netanyahu, which would postpone elections scheduled for March 28.
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Shinui Chairman Yosef Lapid confirmed Sunday that Likud MKs had asked him to support a minority government. Shinui officials claim that Netanyahu approached Lapid and offered support for the party's civil union initiative in exchange for Shinui MKs' support, which would postpone Knesset elections, to which Lapid said he would support anything that would promote the civil union initiative.
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Shinui are getting squeezed in the centre and facing melt-down. Everybody else comes out against it - if it ever existed. (Truth is the first casualty of elections.)
 
Boring they may be for some, but the elections seem to be taking their toll on the fatman.

Sharon rushed to Jerusalem hospital after minor stroke
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/659324.html

Close to midnight, Sharon repeated this message in a conversation with Haaretz. "I'm fine," he said. "Apparently I should have taken a few days off for vacation. But we're continuing to move forward"  a play on the name of his new party, Kadima, which means "forward."
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Such a card. And always on message : "It's not the Sharon Party, it's Kadima".
"It's true that the 77-year-old prime minister is under great strain, but he has no medical problems," Dr. Goldman said.
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So he's in hospital for, what, marital problems?

(Does anyone know if stress is a risk-factor for strokes? I'm pretty sure obesity is.)


This news is Solstice come early for some.

New on the elections agenda - Sharon's health
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/659337.html

No matter the results of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's medical examinations, his health will from now on become an item on the public agenda, and form part of the election campaigns.
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Does Netenyahu jog or work-out? Expect to find out.

Can Likud come back from the dead? Fat chance. :)

A worthy punishment for the Likud
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/658966.html

Benjamin Netanyahu's people say that if Silvan Shalom loses tomorrow's bid for the Likud party leadership, he will defect to Kadima, whereas Shalom's associates say that if Netanyahu is beaten, he will decamp overseas. It is hard to recall another time when the very loyalty of the main candidates competing to lead the ruling party was in doubt, and this issue was considered an effective weapon in the primary campaign. Embarrassingly for the Likud, this is now the case. It is a risible spectacle: Two famous politicians have pretensions to lead their party, while at the same time they are declaring the transience of the other's ties to it.
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If Shalom does lose and Kadima takes him in, we move from tawdry to repellant.

Not exactly a showcase for democracy, is it?
 
CapelDodger asks --
So he's in hospital for, what, marital problems?
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You, sir, are totally clueless in your remarks on this forum. No wonder you are posting replies to yourself.

Arik Sharon's wife, Lily, passed away in 2000.
 
It's your lack of a sense of humor that I find offensive. And Capel Dodger's.

It is almost as if the two of you would wish to be out in the streets of gaza, cheering along with these guys:
celebrations.jpg

Celebrations at the news of Sharon's illness.
 
webfusion said:
Arik Sharon's wife, Lily, passed away in 2000.
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Couldn't take the weight anymore, I imagine.

You, sir, are totally clueless in your remarks on this forum. No wonder you are posting replies to yourself.
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I've been refraining from the historical Israel threads in part to see whether Israel-lovers actually take much interest in what Israel is rather than what non-Israelis have done, or might yet. Israel as a democracy, and thus superior to the surrounding region, is often touted as a plus-point for Israel, yet the democracy itself in action attracts no attention from the likes of you. Israeli democracy exposed to the light of day is not easily defended. Go on, try. Without making reference to Syria, Burma or any other society that you find lacking in some regard.

Do you have a favoured party? A favoured coalition? If so, why? How do you respond to the messages being sent by the parties? How are Israelis, in your experience, responding to the election? You could contribute rather than ignore or, at best, disparage.
 
CD, back on page one, I offered my analysis:

post #8. These elections are going to be dull & uneventful, and not the stuff of exciting forum conversations.

post #12. The election in Israel will be swift, and the vote will surprise nobody.

And I even hinted that the elections are for Ehud Olmert to become the de-jure PM, not Arik Sharon.

After the revelations of Arik's stroke(?) today, this is all the more true.

I have neither ignored this thread nor disparaged it.
The elections are not particularly fascinating to me.
Perhaps you will convince others of the fascination in an otherwise non-event, good luck.
 
webfusion said:
CD, back on page one, I offered my analysis:

post #8. These elections are going to be dull & uneventful, and not the stuff of exciting forum conversations.

post #12. The election in Israel will be swift, and the vote will surprise nobody.

And I even hinted that the elections are for Ehud Olmert to become the de-jure PM, not Arik Sharon.

After the revelations of Arik's stroke(?) today, this is all the more true.

I have neither ignored this thread nor disparaged it.
The elections are not particularly fascinating to me.
Perhaps you will convince others of the fascination in an otherwise non-event, good luck.
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After page 1, and the analysis you bestowed on us, has nothing influenced said analysis? Stuff has happened.

"Dull and uneventful." The Israeli political scene has been torn asunder as politicians coalesce around the current Big Man, and the remnants scramble for straws to grasp at. The current Big Man is aged - you do indeed hint at that, but you could equally as well have been hinting at Olmert's arse-kissing proclivities. De jure Olmert, de facto FatMan confined to a bed. What substance does Olmert have except as a conduit for the Big Man's will? None.

"The election in Israel will be swift". To my mind, next March is not swift. What does it say of a democracy that it requires such a long time to organise an election? It can be done in 6 weeks in the UK.

Sharon is 76 now, will be 77 come the swift elections. Which will follow the Palestinian elections, and perhaps even be influenced by them - a neat reversal.

After Sharon - even if he survives to impose a solution on Israelis and Palestinians - what? What is Kadima other than the Sharon Party? What next? I ask what because there's no obvious who, and that's new territory for Israel.
 
Stuff has happened.
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Nothing has 'happened'. Yet.

I might even go so far to say that there will be no early elections held at all, since the Knesset is allowed to postpone the elections by an 80-MK majority vote "if special circumstances occur which prevent holding elections on their planned date."

What circumstances?

Arik Sharon might well step-down as PM and give Ehud Olmert the job as "interim prime minister", and Olmert would be authorized by law to exercise all the powers granted to the prime minister for a period of 100 days, at the end of which the serving prime minister (Sharon) would technically be viewed as having resigned his post, triggering the resignation of the entire government.

At the end of the 100-day period, the Israeli Basic Law on The Government mandates that the president begin the process of forming a new government. In light of the fact that elections for the 17th Knesset are scheduled for March 28 (100 days from Sunday), it is entirely probable that the Knesset will wish to postpone the elections, and let the chips fall where they may over the spring and summer and fall of 2006, and go to the regularly-scheduled November elections.

If Olmert takes over, with Arik Sharon deciding to step aside for heath reasons, then I'll join the discussion again.

Until then, have fun.
 
webfusion said:
It's your lack of a sense of humor that I find offensive. And Capel Dodger's.

It is almost as if the two of you would wish to be out in the streets of gaza, cheering along with these guys:
celebrations.jpg

Celebrations at the news of Sharon's illness.
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I really wish you wouldn't post things like this. Rolling my eyes that hard hurts.
 
FWIW, I've reread this page a couple of times and have just one comment to make.

I personally tend to side with Cleon's/Capel Dodger's arguments more often than with webfusion, but he called you, CD, on the death of Ms. Sharon, and was indusputably correct--you had erred.

Instead of just making the appropriate 'oops' and continuing on, you chose to trivilalize and 'make light of' the death of Ms. Sharon (whom as far as I know is not a topic of any previous conversation here). For the record, the comments I personally consider 'making light of' of her death are:

Well, death would be a marital problem, wouldn't it?
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by Cleon

Couldn't take the weight anymore, I imagine.
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by Capel Dodger

I look to you two for intelligent and often classy posting. This was neither.

IMHO, as always.
 
CapelDodger said:
Couldn't take the weight anymore, I imagine.



I've been refraining from the historical Israel threads in part to see whether Israel-lovers actually take much interest in what Israel is rather than what non-Israelis have done, or might yet. Israel as a democracy, and thus superior to the surrounding region, is often touted as a plus-point for Israel, yet the democracy itself in action attracts no attention from the likes of you. Israeli democracy exposed to the light of day is not easily defended. Go on, try. Without making reference to Syria, Burma or any other society that you find lacking in some regard.
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I'm somewhat puzzled by your attitude here. What is it about "Israeli democracy" that needs to be defended? Is there something different, worse, better, more/less interesting than Greek, Spanish or American democracy?
 
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