Ripples from the election

 

David Weinberg at Israel HaYom:

.... Obama’s re-election means that Ehud Olmert is going to run against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming Jan. 2013 Israeli election. It means that Obama is going to intervene aggressively in our election to boost Olmert. It means that a push for immediate Palestinian statehood is back on the international agenda. Most worrisome of all, it means that an American “grand bargain” with the Iranians, possibly at our expense, is on the table.

With good reason, Olmert and Tzipi Livni seem to think they can count on Obama’s strong support in the race against Netanyahu. There are a myriad of ways in which Obama and his emissaries can make it clear to the Israeli voter that U.S.-Israel relations will suffer if Netanyahu is re-elected. They know that Israeli voters fear U.S.-Israel conflict.

Obama’s anti-Netanyahu campaign will be the flip side to the campaign we’ve seen in recent weeks seeking to convince American Jews and Israeli Americans that Obama “has Israel’s back.” Just as the Jewish and Israeli press was swamped with pro-Obama testimonials from Dennis Ross, Alan Dershowitz, Jack Lew, General Dempsey and others, now we’ll get hints and warnings that the “unprecedented” gains in U.S.-Israel intelligence sharing and weapons development approved by Obama will wither if Netanyahu is re-elected....

 

I can't take this for another week - much less, four years.

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

On Tuesday, the American people were tested -- and found wanting. A clear majority said, in effect, that they care little or nothing about constitutional liberty, individual freedom, small and non-intrusive government, or the free enterprise system. If Olmert or Livni runs against Netanyahu, the Israeli people will be similarly tested. Whether or not they will be found wanting is yet to be seen. But the decision is theirs. Nothing is fated; nothing is destined. We live in a world that -- apart from natural disasters -- is a world of our own making. There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- written in the stars that says Israel as we know it must disappear. The Israelis may very well have the courage and good sense to do what we Americans failed to do on Tuesday: make a decision that saves their country.