Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

Bibi gettin kinda desperate

"No palestinian state if i'm reelected" he now says

not so different from his Palestinian state is "irrelevant" comment a week (or few?) ago but i guess more pointed

from 3/8

“Simply irrelevant” is how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described his former support for a demilitarized Palestinian state on Sunday.

“In the situation created in the Middle East, any territory that will be evacuated will be taken over by radical Islam and terrorist organizations supported by Iran,” Netanyahu said. “Therefore, there will not be any withdrawals or concessions. The matter is simply irrelevant.”

The prime minister’s statements came in response to questions about an article that appeared in the popular religious-Zionist pamphlet Olam Katan (“Small World”).

The article claimed that the Likud’s answer to a question as to its leader’s position on Palestinian statehood was: “The prime minister told the public that the Bar-Ilan speech [in which he advocated a demilitarized Palestinian state] is canceled. Netanyahu’s entire political biography is a fight against the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

what an ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CzqrB7aQgs

those parents look very scared

i like the one with the "hipster"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBN0nqQX5xo

In 2009 Bibi said he supported a 2 state solution, but no more as noted. I wonder if his advisors polled internally the below statement before he made it. Seems calculated at this point:

On the final day of his reelection campaign, Benjamin Netanyahu said that as long as he serves as prime minister of Israel, there will not be an independent Palestinian nation.

My money's on Zionist Union winning the most seats but Netanyahu (he ain't Bibi to me) still ending up as PM.

Israeli politics is insane tbh.

in the end i'm kinda rooting for a herzog govt just to see something new, but i agree that bibi PM most likely (or maybe a unity govt is most likely w/ bibi/herzog rotating)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Begs Right-Wingers To Vote Because Leftists Are Busing Arabs To Polls

dude would have a future as a Republican

apparently voting numbers are down from same time of the day last election

This week in chutzpah: Bibi complains American Jews are spending money to help his opponents

dude would have a future as a Republican

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 17, 2015 3:41 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hes funded by the same people so whats the difference

Channel 10 exit poll numbers: Likud 27, Zionist Union 27, Joint List 13, Yesh Atid 12, Kulanu 10, Jewish Home 8, Shas 7, UTJ 6, Israel B 5, Meretz 5

looks like Netanyahu pulls it out by successfully convincing people to his right to vote Likud instead of Bennett?

if exit polls are right it all comes down to kulanu (assuming ZU can get joint list support - w/out that i don't see any ZU road to a govt)

It seemed like people thought Bibi could possibly form a government if he got 21, isn't it almost certain he can form one with 27 or 28?

idk, i mean i assume so. likud + jewish home + shas + UTJ + israel B = 53, he'd still need Kulanu to make a govt

Nevertheless, on the day of the Israeli election, 17 March, 2015, Netanyahu's Likud party admitted to having forged a recording of Kahlon promising to support Netanyahu, which was distributed to voters the night prior. Calling the forgery "criminal", Kahlon asked for an investigation by the election committee.

these fucking assholes

that's some clumsy bridge-burning there

nice of them to admit it tho

what a relief to know that we Americans aren't alone in jingoistic get out the vote campaigns.

When discussing the origins and motivations of Isis as a movement, Faisal, hitherto factual and down-to-earth, falls back on conspiracy theories. Because he believes that the actions of Isis will be very damaging to the Sunni in the long term, he is convinced that it must be under the control of the Sunni’s traditional enemies. “To me, Isis is an Iranian-American project and, when its mission ends, Isis may leave the region,” he says. “Most of the Sunni people who experience the rule of Isis do not believe it is establishing a state, but intends to destroy Sunni areas.”

Goddammit

so, the pre-election analysis we got from Major Media was essentially bullshit; how unusual.

What a fucking downer.

I honestly wasn't that surprised. Once Bibi was willing to stoop to straight up racism, I was guessing he would win pretty decisivly. Because I've seen that happen every other place, why should Israel be different?

I hated when Obama did it.

Lol, is that an argument? Romney/McCain would in no way have gotten as close without racism, had the election been any way as close as Israel was, racism would have given them the edge. Also, you do know there are other countries in the world than the US, right? Quite a lot, actually.

Of course, Israel IS different. With them occupying a large Arab minority, and with much of the rest of the world always looking for a way to excuse their anti-semitism, it could be quite disastrous to have the prime minister win his re-election through lies, racism and war-mongering. I'm guessing much of his international credibility is pretty much gone.

so what is going on in Tunisia today? shots fired in Parliament, hostages, but nothing clear about who or why.

200 hostages reported, wow

and explosions

ok no only 20 hostages, 200 tourists were there

sorry for live blog

8 tourists dead it seems, fuck

Lol, is that an argument? Romney/McCain would in no way have gotten as close without racism,

I was joking but the 2008 and 2012 elections weren't close at all. In fact, the coverage of Israel's election reminded me of the horserace shit in 2012 in which the press reported breathlessly how neck and neck Mittens and Obama were; there was even talk about an electoral/popular vote split.

x-post--Tourists killed were in a museum next to the Parliament building in Tunisia it seems

now 17 dead, plus a cop (and the attackers). ugh.

so when Bibi says "no Palestinian state" does that mean he just intends to subjugate the entire Palestinian population into some kind of permanent ghetto ruled over by Israelis? like, that's his endgame? how fucking stupid is that

obviously he has no intention to forcibly integrate Palestinians into Israeli civil society

first of all, there are many palestinians, or "arab israelis" who are already integrated into Israeli civil society, who live in israeli cities, vote, work at israeli hospitals, courts, universities, serve in the IDF, etc. he either means keeping the occupation going indefinitely, or some variation on the bennett annexation plan which presumably would involve the integration of west bank palestinians into israeli civil society.

i heard someone suggest this morning that bennett will get the foreign ministry and have the next 3 years to go around and try to sell his plan (which is basically annexation + integration - i don't know about the "forcibly" part)

yes yes I know that thought it would be obvious I was referring to the occupied territories. indefinite occupation just seems crazy I dunno how anyone can think that's sustainable or a path to stability

xp

(which is basically annexation + integration - i don't know about the "forcibly" part)

I honestly don't think annexation+integration is a terrible option, but there's got to be large portions of the Palestinian population in the west bank that don't want to be part of Israel, and how do you deal with that without force.

maybe same way they did it in East Jerusalem? if you want citizenship, you can have it. if you don't, you don't need to become a citizen. obv keeping Ramallah or Hebron from exploding is going to be a much bigger/different challenge than East Jerusalem

When you annex and integrate someone against their will, it's pretty much by definition 'forcibly'.

"force is awesome" = first line of the Israeli anthem

maybe the federation idea will get off the ground. i assume that no matter what happens there will always be a palestinian nationalist movement of some sort, but there's still a faroese independence movement too so no one is immune to separatists.

well some separatist movements are more troublesome than others...