And we can ask how it's been working, or what he plans, but I just want to focus on what he's done the last couple days, because I am not qualified to actually discuss Israeli politics, but as for politics in general, I know some desperate when I'm looking at it. Using the speech he made to the US Congress in an ad was probably to be expected. But a recorded spot from Chuck Norris is a little out-there.
Switching from supporting a two-state solution regarding Palestinians to being a one-state kind of guy was a pretty major thing, I would have thought. That looked like some really last-minute, grab the right wingers stuff, right there.
But this odd bit about thinking the Israeli-Arabs were messing with the vote by their lawful participation was just plain...racist? Would you call delegitimizing the votes of a bloc of people solely because you know they damn well won't vote for you and are of an ethnic and religious minority sort of racist? It's like he's saying that if he lost, it was because of some conspiracy--like ACORN in the Negev or something. But it looks like Israeli-Arabs didn't vote in a particularly above-par way. So that was some kind of...?
To me, he looked like a guy whose internal polling was saying "Are you sitting down?" But Likud did a little better than exit polling would have suggested. Not my country, so I know I don't understand everything, but will the kind of weird behavior he's displayed the past couple weeks leading up to the election pretty much negatively effect his current term? And overall, does it look like his coalition is a little weaker?
I guess this answer is still evolving.
(If not for the speech before Congress, I wouldn't have these questions at all.)
3 comments:
Not my country, so I know I don't understand everything
Ditto. But I understand this: With allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies?
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Hi Vixen, the vote for Netanyahu was even better than his party expected.
Some countries' elections, like France, are interesting because they're full of celebrity sex scandals of the most satirical and outrageous sort. Israel, not so much.
It has caused me to add a third of my Wise Rules to Observe: never trust big business; never trust big government; and never trust big media. In fact, the public sphere has been so contaminated in this post-modern era that there is very little to be seen other than egoism, narcissism, and bias.
This is all very consistent with the Kali Yuga and the counter-initiation. You literally have to move into subjects that receive little public discussion to get into an area that has not already been thoroughly contaminated.
Foreign policy by petulance is less than we had hoped.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
– Yeats
The odd thing is, I feel like the outcome of the election had very little to do with the US anyway, and didn't quite see any point in partisans in the country making too big a deal of it, because Israel isn't a two-party system and has these coalitions things--even if Netanyahu was squeaked out, the likelihood that this would overwhelmingly change things like foreign policy don't really seem that great. I suppose if one takes stock in the idea that personal coolness between Obama and Netanyahu drive anything, policywise, then, maybe a change of faces would make like, 1% worth of difference.
There are days when I take a certain pride in lack of convictions...
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