Netanyahu, Likud Get Plurality In Israeli Election

Posted by | March 18, 2015 00:38 | Filed under: Politics Top Stories

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There’s nothing quite as effective as last-minute trash talk to leverage an election win:

After a bruising campaign focused on his failings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel won a clear victory in Tuesday’s elections and seemed all but certain to form a new government and serve a fourth term, though he offended many voters and alienated allies in the process.

With 99.5 percent of the ballots counted, the YNet news site reported Wednesday morning that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party had captured 29 or 30 of the 120 seats in Parliament, sweeping past his chief rival, the center-left Zionist Union alliance, which got 24 seats.

Mr. Netanyahu and his allies had seized on earlier exit polls that showed a slimmer Likud lead to create an aura of inevitability, and celebrated with singing and dancing. While his opponents vowed a fight, Israeli political analysts agreed even before most of the ballots were counted that he had the advantage, with more seats having gone to the right-leaning parties likely to support him.

It was a stunning turnabout from the last pre-election polls published Friday, which showed the Zionist Union, led by Isaac Herzog, with a four- or five-seat lead and building momentum, and the Likud polling close to 20 seats. To bridge the gap, Mr. Netanyahu embarked on a last-minute scorched-earth campaign, promising that no Palestinian state would be established as long as he remained in office and insulting Arab citizens.

Putting together a coalition is not a given, however, and Bibi’s election eve scaremingering did not ingratiate him to a whole lot of people outside of Israeli right wingers and their pals in the GOP, leaving…

a cloud over his apparent turnaround, the result of an increasingly shrill campaign that raised questions about his ability to heal Israel’s internal wounds or better its standing in the world.

He said there would be no Palestinian state under his watch.

He railed against Israeli Arabs — because they had gone out to vote.

From the capitals of Europe, to Washington, to the West Bank, to the streets of Israel, even while his critics said Mr. Netanyahu had reaffirmed his reputation as a cynical, calculating politician, it appeared that his approach succeeded in drawing votes from other right-leaning parties.

But along the way he angered the president of the United States with a speech to Congress and infuriated European leaders eager to see the peace process move ahead to create a Palestinian state.

David Axelrod, President Obama’s former senior adviser, said Tuesday evening on Twitter that Mr. Netanyahu’s last-minute stand against a Palestinian state might have helped ensure him another victory. “Tightness of exits in Israel suggests Bibi’s shameful 11th-hour demagoguery may have swayed enough votes to save him. But at what cost?” he wrote.

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Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.

47 responses to Netanyahu, Likud Get Plurality In Israeli Election

  1. Anomaly 100 March 18th, 2015 at 00:47

    Conservatives on Twitter are saying sh*t like this. (By the way, this was in response to a retweet about Open Carry).

    https://twitter.com/YerOpinion/status/578050380975603713

    • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 19:17

      I’m going to guess..since I have Twitter comments blocked…
      That I’m not missing anything..:)

      • Anomaly 100 March 18th, 2015 at 19:43

        All Caps Lock Guy is still going at it on my site’s Twitter account timeline. He’s a special kind of stupid.

        • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 21:01

          In my bet Bill Clinton voice..”I feel your pain”..(bites lower lip)..
          This is just one reason I dont do Twitter..
          The other reason is…(I’ll have to get back to you on that cause 140 characters is just not enough to express myself fully in most heated circumstances when I am fired up.)
          See what I mean.

  2. MR. RIGHT March 18th, 2015 at 00:52

    Can we have our war now? Pretty please with a cherry on top???

    • granpa.usthai March 18th, 2015 at 00:53

      our war?

      • MR. RIGHT March 18th, 2015 at 00:54

        Yes, we get to fight it for them. Why do you hate Israel?

        • jybarz March 18th, 2015 at 09:35

          Hahaha. Should you be believed? Let chickenshit go first alone. I bet he won’t.

    • Steve Dodson March 18th, 2015 at 01:34

      Don’t worry. Obama is gonna let Iran nuke Is real. The he’ll call the incident “workplace violence” and forget it ever happened.

      • William March 18th, 2015 at 01:51

        ” Obama is gonna let Iran nuke Is real.”
        and after that maybe Sear-e-uh?

      • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 19:16

        Congratulations for winning the most ignorant comment in the last 24 hours…
        Care to up it with something newer?
        I sure you have something equally or more ignorant to say..

    • Who Fatwahed? March 18th, 2015 at 03:04

      Oh no. Is the world ending again? But I’ve got a tee-time for tomorrow.

  3. oldfart March 18th, 2015 at 01:18

    John Kerry was right all along, slipping into apartheid…
    can one hope that perhaps the united nations could grow a pair
    and call out the land seizures for what they are, illegal ?
    (they haven’t been bought out yet have they ?…)

    • Steve Dodson March 18th, 2015 at 02:27

      John Kerry has never been right in his life…

  4. jybarz March 18th, 2015 at 01:29

    Bibi might have won, but might have lost very good friends from within and without. His GOP warmongering friends like him, however, will always be there raring to go to war with Iran mainly to support the GOP’s military industry bosses. Hopefully, he’ll continue to be the ‘chickenshit’ that he is that he won’t go alone for many, many years with Dem POTUS. So really the best Israel/Iran war deterrent now and the future is having Dem administrations that will continue not to get sucked in to Cry-Bibi’s incessant wolf crying.

  5. Who Fatwahed? March 18th, 2015 at 02:34

    Must be rough.

    • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 19:12

      It’s like an election between Mussolini and Hitler…
      And you are glad that Hitler one..
      You must be proud.

  6. mea_mark March 18th, 2015 at 09:22

    It looks like the people of Israel are giving up on their God’s wishes for peace and are choosing war and oppression. I get the feeling this is going to come back to bite Israel in the butt, big time. The people of Israel are demonizing themselves to the rest of the world, this can’t be good.

  7. John Tarter March 18th, 2015 at 09:37

    Looks like Obama’s meddling didn’t work this time. It is a fact that his closest political operatives were there working with a group called “V 15”, which in turn received funding from “One Voice”, which in turn received funding from our own State Department. This is a sad state of affairs where the POTUS actively tried to turn a foreign election to the candidate he supported and used our tax dollars to do it.

    • whatthe46 March 18th, 2015 at 09:38

      you stupid little sheep.

    • William March 18th, 2015 at 11:40

      It’s even a sadder state of affairs when the GOP invites a foreign leader to undermine our foreign policy. But at least this time we don’t have an idiot in the White House who will fall for it.

      • John Tarter March 18th, 2015 at 13:34

        After receiving the OK from numerous Democrats.

        • OldLefty March 18th, 2015 at 13:59

          Who were, as many Republicans were, suckered or scared that their constituents were suckered.

          As Bob Graham said,

          “What I Knew Before the Invasion

          By Bob Graham
          Sunday, November 20, 2005

          “In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. “[M]ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power,” he said.

          The president’s attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war.
          Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace — that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.

          The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth.

          As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress……….

          On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

          http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html

          ”

          I, too, presumed the president was
          being truthful — until a series of events undercut that confidence.

        • William March 18th, 2015 at 14:03

          Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power…. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

          But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

          I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

          I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

          Senator Barack Obama (D-Il), then an Illinois state senator, October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.

          Stay Stupid, uninformed and ignorant Skippy. You’re really good at it.

        • William March 18th, 2015 at 14:20

          And….

          There were other famous speeches going on during that era.

          “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region”

          Benjamin Netanyahu

          So which speech actually predicted the outcome of going to war with Iraq?
          Take your time Skippy. (cue the Jeopardy music)

          https://youtu.be/fpQdg4D78Jc

        • tracey marie March 18th, 2015 at 14:21

          lies and millions died, thanks bush for being a killer puss

    • Foundryman March 18th, 2015 at 11:55

      Hey…State Departments are people too!!! my friend

    • craig7120 March 18th, 2015 at 12:27

      Congrats on winning an election, in another country.

      Well done war hawk

    • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 19:08

      Hey John..
      Put the crack pipe down..

  8. Red Eye Robot March 18th, 2015 at 10:22

    Obama is going to be steamed when he finds out about this on TV in a few weeks

    • tracey marie March 18th, 2015 at 14:21

      poor inbred teabagger

    • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 19:06

      Not as “steamed” you were when Obama was elected to a second term as President of the United States of America…
      Leader of the Free World.. and Commander in Chief of the armed Forces of the United States of America..
      Netanyahu could only dream of being president Obama..

      Netanyahu is a small angry violent minded man in charge of on of the tiniest countries on the planet…

    • jasperjava March 18th, 2015 at 19:21

      Those who are happiest about Netanyahu’s victory are Hamas and the other enemies of Israel. Extremists always thrive when the hardliners win. They don’t want peace, and neither does Netanyahu. They are made for each other.

  9. OldLefty March 18th, 2015 at 11:08

    To Netanyahu’s many American friends: what if a US President had said “too many Jews are voting?”

    — @ChemiShalev US Editor, Haaretz.

    “Big victory for right wing in Israel and for radical leftists who said all along that right
    wing would triumph”-Chemi Shalev US Editor, Haaretz.

    Sadly, a lot of Israelis are predicting this to be the beginning of the end for Israel;

    – Most allies have lost patience and are withdrawing support.

    – Likud has ALWAYS made Israel less secure.

    – The housing crisis only getting worse as more money goes into subsidizing the settlements.

    – They can’t afford the subsidies for the Ḥaredi to do nothing but study religion.

    – The Ḥaredi are STILL refusing to serve.

    – The young are leaving.

    – The only way they can avoid both a one state and a two state solution, and expect some modicum of peace and security is to kill everybody, Christians and Muslims included in the entire region.

  10. Foundryman March 18th, 2015 at 11:14

    Now all the American parents of 14-15 year olds have to do is finish brainwashing their kids so they’ll sign up to be burned alive and blown to bits in Iran for “our” freedom in three or four years. Crank up that fear mongering war machine, get those flags waving people!!
    We gonna drop us some mo bombs fo jesus,,yeeha!!

    • William March 18th, 2015 at 11:47

      The situation in the middle east is pretty confusing. An aggressive and nuclear capable Israel wants the USA to start dumping on Iran, even though Israel has a perfectly capable military, courtesy of the USA .
      Meanwhile Iran is fighting ISIS….BUT Israel is NOT a member of the US led coalition…….. fighting ISIS

  11. eyelashviper March 18th, 2015 at 13:13

    Selling fear and hysteria always works among the rabble….Bibi pulled out all the stops over the weekend, raving about Arabs taking over, etc….

  12. Suzanne McFly March 18th, 2015 at 13:42

    Well that’s proof all the idiots don’t reside here in America

    • Robert M. Snyder March 19th, 2015 at 02:38

      Yeah, they have liberals in Israel too.

  13. StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 18:57

    All I can say is I’m disappointed to see that Israel wants to elect a Ultra-Nationalist Far Right and Fundamentalist religious theocracy as their leadership..(most of them anyway)..

    This is no way going to move along the “peace process” and if anything inflame the hostility between Iran, the Palestinians and their neighboring Arab states..

    • Foundryman March 18th, 2015 at 20:29

      Which is exactly what Netanyahu wants.

      • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 20:52

        Bingo~!
        And exactly what the crazies on the other side want.
        More violence, more war, more suffering…
        And profits for those that are in the business of making war.

        • StoneyCurtisll March 18th, 2015 at 21:21

          When Netanyahu came out the day before the election and said “No Palestinian state as long as I’m Around”..
          He openly stated he was going to subjugate the Palestinians form now until eternity…(what an asshole)

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