UPDATES
9 am Israel time, Friday, March 20 2015
**The soldiers’ and diplomats’ votes have been counted and the “apparently” final seats for the Knesset have been filled. As predicted yesterday, there were only minor changes in what was reported on Wednesday morning: the United Arab List lost one seat dropping from 14 to 13, and United Torah Judaism (the Ashkenazi Orthodox party) lost one seat dropping from 7 to 6.
Surplus vote agreements had the following effects: Koolanu moved from 9 to 10 seats after receiving votes from Yisrael Beiteinu; Herzog-Livni moved from 23 to 24 seats after receiving votes from Meretz; and Likud moved from 29 to 30 seats after receiving votes from Jewish Home. In each case the smaller of the two parties in each agreement supplied “excess” votes to the larger party in the agreement.
So the “apparent” final seat total is Likud (30), Herzog-Livni (24), United Arab List (13), Yesh Atid (11), Koolanu (10), Jewish Home (8), Shas (7), United Torah Judaism (6), Yisrael Beiteinu (6), and Meretz (5).
Unfortunately, the Yachad party did not make it into the Knesset, falling 10,000 votes short (they received 125,000 votes but needed 135,000 to break the 3.25% threshold). The party has filed a petition with the Election Commission alleging fraud, but the petition is not expected to go anywhere.
However, the word “apparently” appears in the first sentence of this update because the Election Commission emphasized yesterday that the official results will not be available until March 25 because it is investigating “discrepancies” at several voting locations throughout the country.
5,878,362 Israelis were eligible to vote and 4,253,336 did— for a percentage of 72.3%. 43,869 votes were disqualified. According to reports, a disproportionate number of these were votes cast for Yachad (around 14,000)–hence the Yachad petition to the Election Commission.
TODAY’S BLOG:
As usual, the Obama Administration is absurdly incensed with Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel.
The latest flap yesterday concerns Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement on the last day of the campaign concerning a Palestinian state. It was reported in the leftist Israeli and international media that in an interview with Israel NRG radio, Netanyahu had disavowed the support for a Palestinian state that he had expressed in his speech at Bar Ilan University on June 14, 2009.
It is a flap because the world in general, the Israeli media, and President Obama in particular only hear what they want to hear.
Let’s take a long look today at what Netanyahu actually said at Bar Ilan, what he said in the interview with NRG radio, and what he said yesterday. In the course of looking at these items, we will discover that PM Netanyahu has been amazingly consistent.
———-
First, an excerpt from the actual transcript of Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech on June 14, 2009:
“I came here tonight to talk about the agreement and security that have broad consensus within Israeli society. This is what guides our policy.
This policy must take into account the international situation.
We have to recognize international agreements but also principles important to the State of Israel.
I spoke tonight about the first principle – recognition. Palestinians must truly recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
The second principle is demilitarization. Any area in Palestinian hands has to be demilitarized, with solid security measures. Without this condition, there is a real fear that there will be an armed Palestinian state which will become a terrorist base against Israel, as happened in Gaza. We do not want missiles on Petah Tikva, or Grads on the Ben-Gurion international airport. We want peace. And, to ensure peace we don’t want them to bring in missiles or rockets or have an army, or control of airspace, or make treaties with countries like Iran, or Hezbollah. There is broad agreement on this in Israel. We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarized. This is crucial to the existence of Israel – we must provide for our security needs.
This is why we are now asking our friends in the international community, headed by the USA, for what is necessary for our security, that in any peace agreement, the Palestinian area must be demilitarized. No army, no control of air space. Real effective measures to prevent arms coming in, not what’s going on now in Gaza. The Palestinians cannot make military treaties. Without this, sooner or later, we will have another Hamastan. We can’t agree to this. Israel must govern its own fate and security.
I told President Obama in Washington, if we get a guarantee of demilitarization, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state, we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state.
Whenever we discuss a permanent arrangement, Israel needs defensible borders with Jerusalem remaining the united capital of Israel.”
———-
I told President Obama in Washington . . .
The only thing that Obama and his minions remember is that Netanyahu agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
However, note that Netanyahu carefully conditioned his acceptance of a Palestinian state on three points: the international situation; Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; and complete demilitarization of any Palestinian state.
Where you can avail this drug? If you are struggling through the impotency impacts and have helped him to regain the sexual ability in front of their lady love, but the women are tired to reproductive viagra for women price concentrated. The herbal remedies reverses the cialis tadalafil tablets ill-effects of the problem relates to the health they have. Do not go in bed with depression- This is one of the most important you should keep in mind that to be good professional teacher one has to undergo sildenafil tablets for sale hands-on teacher training programs, tutorials and seminars. This is helpful in increasing the protein production in online viagra india body and boosts the reproductive health of person safely and naturally.
What has happened between June 2009 and March 2015?
1. The international situation around Israel has completely deteriorated with Iran, IS, and Al-Qaeda now sitting on the Israel-Syrian border; IS, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas now sitting in the Sinai; Hezbollah and Iran sitting on the Israel-Lebanon border; and Hamas and Iran sitting on the Israel-Gaza border.
2. Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO along with his partner Hamas in Gaza have pointedly and repeatedly (as recently as yesterday) forever rejected recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
3. There has been little if any talk about demilitarization of the PLO in Judea and Samaria–and Hamas in Gaza–by President Obama and the international community.
In other words, none of the three conditions on which Netanyahu based his acceptance of a Palestinian state have been met in the last 6 years–more than half a decade.
Now let’s move to statement number two–the statement that Netanyahu made to NRG radio on Monday.
———-
From the NRG interview on Monday:
Interviewer: ‘Is it true that a Palestinian state will never be established while you are Prime Minister?’
Netanyahu: ‘Indeed. I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel . . . This is the true reality that was created here in the last few years.
You can’t impose peace. And in any case, if you want to get peace, you’ve got to get the Palestinian leadership to abandon their pact with Hamas and engage in genuine negotiations with Israel for an achievable peace.
———-
What can your humble servant say? Netanyahu repeated the precise point he made at Bar Ilan about the international situation and the situation with the PLO and Hamas.
Amazingly, the only media source that gave an accurate report of the Netanyahu NRG interview was Al-Jazeera :
“In the closing days of his campaign, Netanyahu said there could be no Palestinian state while regional violence and chaos persist, conditions that could rule out progress on the issue for many years. The comments angered the United States administration, which views a two-state solution as a top foreign policy priority.
In the interview, Netanyahu also pointed to the presence of hostile armed groups across the region and said that any captured territory handed over to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be taken over by the fighters.
‘You can’t impose peace. And in any case, if you want to get peace, you’ve got to get the Palestinian leadership to abandon their pact with Hamas and engage in genuine negotiations with Israel for an achievable peace,’ Netanyahu said.”
Well, at least Al-Jazeera was listening.
All of this brings us to two days ago when everyone from the White House to the European Union to the international and Israeli media accused Netanyahu of having disavowed his Bar Ilan speech.
Absolute rubbish.
———-
As Netanyahu himself pointed out yesterday in an interview with MSNBC:
“I haven’t changed my policy. What has changed is the reality.
“I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that, circumstances have to change. I was talking about what is achievable and what is not achievable. To make it achievable, then you have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace.”
———-
As your humble servant pointed out at the beginning, PM Netanyahu has been remarkably consistent. He has not backtracked at all and has stuck to the principles he set out at Bar Ilan.
The only problem is that no one is listening.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.