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Showing posts from March, 2006

A comment on Israel's election & Olmert's "victory"

The Definition of Real Victory THE RESULTS are in. The pundits and parties claim a “victory” for those who propose further withdrawals from the disputed territories of Judea & Samara (the “West Bank”). Nothing can be further from the truth. This is no “vindication of Sharon” (David Horovitz, Jerusalem Post, 29 March). It can be argued persuasively that many of the votes for Kadima, Leiberman’s Yisrael Beitenu, the new Pensioners party and the many smaller parties who did not cross the threshold for representation are in fact protest votes. Israel voted against the corruption and economic callousness of Likud, against the appeasement and economic socialism (and corruption) of Labour, against the ideological anti-religious stance of the hard-left and against the impractical inflexibility of the hard-right. And of course the majority of the electorate – of the 63% who voted, that is – voted against Kadima and Olmert by voting for other parties. 28 seats, representing less than 25% of