Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

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...

i agree w/ bennett on this point that the primary mover of politics is quality of life and if the WB economy + quality of life was greatly stimulated by an annexation + integration i think that would quiet a lot of the nationalism. i was thinking a bit about this today bc i keep reading that the WB no longer believes that a palestinian state is possible and that the current trend is for a 1 state solution, 1 person 1 vote, etc. which would obv fit very easily into an annexation/integration model.

(that harpers round table from a few months ago that i think i linked here discussed nationalist v. egalitarian aspirations in the WB pretty candidly)

Well, but then the Israeli foreign minister goes out and states that arab-israeli people should be decapitated, and all of a sudden it doesn't seem so nice to be annexed + integrated by Israel. The comparison to Faroe Islands is pretty facile (at least use Greenland if you want to throw shade at DK)

Also, the idea that WB economy improves would mean tearing down the wall and stopping forcibly evicting palestinians to make settlements. Is Israel ready to do that?

I think it's obvious that once you give Palestinians in the territories citizenship, there are still going to be huge issues of inequality and institutionalized racism to contend with

Well, that is a bit off, I think. The inequality between Israelis and WB Palestinians isn't at all 'institutionalized racism' at the moment, it's rooted in different ways of treating citizens and non-citizens. Look at how every government treats non-citizens such as refugees etc, massive discrimination compared to how citizens are treated, but understandibly so, kinda. If Israel just overnight granted citizenship to WB Palestinians and called all of it 'Israel' it wouldn't be 'stil huge issues'. Those issues would change overnight as well, from problems concerning occupation and security, into institutionalized racism.

US to ‘evaluate’ stance after Netanyahu rules out Palestine

State Department spokesman Jen Psaki says that Netanyahu’s comments on a Palestinian state mean that “the US is in a position going forward in which we will be evaluating our approach to achieving a two-state solution.”

She also did not rule out rescinding its UN Security Council veto against anti-Israel resolutions.

“The fact that (Netanyahu) has changed his opinion certainly has an impact,” Psaki adds.

Psaki says the US and Israel will continue their close military, intelligence and security cooperation.

She adds that “we don’t think that his win has impacted the Iran negotiations or will.”

– Rebecca Shimoni Stoil

figure that should thrill some. i do wonder about the practical implications of the US withdrawing its automatic veto tho. let's assume they'd continue to veto hostile measures like sanctions + military interventions - what does that leave? lots of condemnations no doubt, resolutions for establishment of a pal state maybe, but anything that might make an actual impact on Bibi admin policy? you can't force Israel to end the occupation w/out actual leverage...

AIPAC bloc in US prez election would now be delivered to Donald Trump

AIPAC is pretty strongly committed to bipartisanship, and they are really unhappy w/ the Bibi/Obama relationship. I think maybe ZOA bloc is more what you're thinking.

I don't think O has the domestic support to really call Bibi's bluff here.

xp

I assume AIPAC and Hillary love each other

O is unilaterally in charge of all US UN policy isn't he? And he's not running for reelection. Presumably he can do what he wants?

that's technically true but idk if he'll conclude it's worth it

for one thing it would make Hillary run to his right on the issue (which the GOP will already do), and whatever short-term accomplishments he got would then be undone by the next administration

well esp if it won't have any effect beyond demonstrating his displeasure - then it's an expensive symbolic move