Comments on: Israeli Elections: The Morning After

By: Charles B. Hall

Charles B. Hall — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 04:42:44 +0000

‘With Kadima, Labor, Meretz and the new “Gil” Pensioners party, you have 59 seats’

It is now up to 61. That is a majority:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/700780.html

By: Bob Miller

Bob Miller — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:42:49 +0000

Aryeh,

The foreign countries would not necessarily provide support for the specific policy you outlined. But they would support whatever policy they decided on, and the new government would follow it. The recent disengagement appears to have been an Israeli initiative! It appears to me that the initiatives in the near future will come from the outside.

By: Aryeh

Aryeh — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:08:39 +0000

Bob, I think you’re way off on this one. I don’t see US and French troops fighting people in Itamar and Elon Moreh. And I don’t see them paying IDF to do it either. Last time Sharon wanted to get $3 billion for the disengagement and then Katrina happened. TI don’t see any US administration giving him the billions it would take. Of course, they could dispense with resettling people and just bulldoze their houses and leave them on the street. But I don’t think that’s going to happen if only because it’ll make them fight so much harder.

By: YM

YM — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:51:12 +0000

With Kadima, Labor, Meretz and the new “Gil” Pensioners party, you have 59 seats,
which is not enough to form a government. I don’t think that either Shas or UTJ would agree
to unilateral withdrawl: Shas wouldn’t go for it the last time, and UTJ entered the coalition
when it was clear that it was going to go through regardless.

I think Kadima is going to have a very hard time - I don’t see a coalition of 61 that
supports unilateral withdrawl here. Interestingly, there are more than 61 votes for
unilateral withdrawl, but only because the arab parties would vote for it from outside the
government. Kadima is going to be forced to have one coalition to approve the prime
minister, form the government and pass the budget, and a separate coalition to approve
the withdrawl.

I don’t think this goverment is going to last very long. Man plans and G-d laughs.

By: Ben Chorin

Ben Chorin — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 18:58:40 +0000

Jonathan,
I think you’re overestimating the magnitude of what happened yesterday. See http://benchorin.blogspot.com/2006/03/well-something-happened-in-yesterdays.html

“Ben”

By: Bob Miller

Bob Miller — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:46:17 +0000

We should expect the new government to do its utmost to comply with all wishes of its international partners, whether or not there is a voter mandate, and whether or not there appears to be any practicality. No government declarations to the contrary will have any meaning. If money or manpower to implement an imposed policy is lacking, the countries pushing the policy will gladly provide it.