Posted on 03/17/2015 5:21:59 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot for the parliamentary election as his son Yair stands behind him at a polling station in Jerusalem March 17, 2015. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a fight for his political survival on Tuesday as Israelis voted in an election that opinion polls predict the centre-left opposition could win.
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed victory in Israel's election on Tuesday after exit polls showed he had erased his centre-left rivals' lead with a hard rightward shift that saw him disavow a commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state.
Difficult coalition talks still lie ahead. Isaac Herzog, Netanyahu's chief opponent and head of the centre-left Zionist Union, said "everything is still open" and that he had already spoken to party leaders about forming a government.
But after days in which Zionist Union appeared poised to defeat Netanyahu's Likud, the exit polls put the two parties in a dead heat. Netanyahu could have the easier path to forming a cabinet, which would put him on course to become Israel's longest serving leader.
He pulled off the feat with a pitch for ultranationalist votes in the final days of the hard-fought campaign, using tactics that could deepen a feud with the White House, at least as long as President Barack Obama remains in office.
Netanyahu has focused on the threat from Iran's nuclear programme and militant Islam. But many Israelis had said they were tiring of the message, and the centre-left had campaigned on social and economic issues, surging in polls as election day neared.
Two television exit polls, for Channel 10 and Channel 1, said Likud and Zionist Union had each secured 27 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Channel 2 gave Netanyahu a narrow edge, with 28 to 27 for his challenger after polling stations closed.
"Against all odds: a great victory for Likud, a great victory for the national camp led by Likud, a great victory for the people of Israel," Netanyahu wrote on his official Twitter account.
Opinion polls in the run-up to the ballot had shown Zionist Union with a three to four-seat advantage over Likud, suggesting the public had warmed to Herzog, who won over voters with flashes of wit after enduring being lampooned for his short stature and reedy voice.
Final results are not expected until early on Wednesday morning.
COALITION BLOCS
A new centrist party led by former communications minister Moshe Kahlon could be the kingmaker in coalition talks. After the balloting ended, he said did not rule out a partnership with either Likud or Zionist Union.
The exit polls gave right-wing and religious parties - Netanyahu's traditional partners - about 54 seats, and left-leaning factions, 43 - both figures still short of a governing majority in the 120 seat parliament.
Turnout was around 72 percent, higher than the last election in 2013.
No party has ever won an outright majority in Israel's 67-year history, and it may be weeks before the country has a new government. Netanyahu will remain prime minister until a new administration is sworn in.
Naftali Bennett, leader of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party, said he had spoken with Netanyahu within minutes of the exit polls and agreed to open "accelerated" coalition talks with him.
"The nationalist camp won," Bennett, who advocates annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, told supporters.
But Zionist Union could find a lifeline from Kulanu and from Arab parties that united for the first time in a joint list of parliamentary candidates and came in third in the exit polls.
While they are unlikely to join a government, the Arab parties could give a centre-left coalition tacit support and create a block against Netanyahu.
If the centre-left is to assemble a government, it will also need the support of ultra-Orthodox parties, which the polls said would win 13-14 seats.
After the final results are in, and following consultations with political parties, it will be up to President Reuven Rivlin to name the candidate he deems best placed to try to form a coalition. The nominee will have up to 42 days to do so.
Ramping up his bid for right-wing votes, Netanyahu on election day accused left-wing groups of trying to remove him from power by busing Arab Israeli voters to polling stations, a statement that drew a sharp rebuke from Washington.
"We're always concerned, broadly speaking, about any statements that may be aimed at marginalising certain communities," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Some political rivals even accused Netanyahu of racism over the remarks.
The Obama administration has been angry at Netanyahu since he addressed the U.S. Congress two weeks ago at the invitation of Republican lawmakers, to oppose ongoing U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran.
In the last days of campaigning as he sought to persuade supporters of smaller right-wing parties to "come home" to Likud, Netanyahu promised more building of Jewish settlements and said the Palestinians would not get their own state if he were re-elected.
Those sweeping promises, if carried out, would further isolate Israel from the United States and the European Union, which believe a peace deal must accommodate Palestinian demands for a state in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
When Netanyahu called the election in December, two years early, he looked set for an easy victory. But in the final weeks there has been a sense that change could be in the air. Some voters have talked of Netanyahu fatigue.
And no, Romney was not a conservative. Or McQueeg. Or Dull.
Its not a dead heat - it looks like a Likud romp!
Or Bibi romp! LOL
And the liberal looser won’t admit defeat...
Ya, and Obama didn’t fund them, or help them, or tell them how to play dirty tricks...
uhh huh.... sssssuuuuurrrrrrreeeeeeee.
Take THAT, Bammie & ValJar!!!
Can’t wait to see their angry glowering faces tomorrow!
;^)
On the way in to work though I heard a report that his opponent had a plank in his platform about “restoring relationships with the Palestinian authority.” How is it he was not laughed off the ballot? Why do so many Jews insist on living in a fantasy world where they can find common ground with a group of people who want to kill all of them?
The communists target the young and stupid.
Marxists out!
Communist bastards.
Netanyahu makes it clear that communists are conspiring internationally to remove him from office.
He also make it clear that this is this is a war for control of Israel and the lines are drawn between left and right, something that to this day has not happened in the USA, where communists like Sanders call themselves “Independents” and the rest of the communists just call themselves “Democrats”
-Haaretz
“In a series of interviews to TV and radio channels, newspapers and news websites this week, Netanyahu hammered home the message that voting for the Likud was the only way to avoid a left-wing government in Israel.
“The rule of the right is in danger,” Netanyahu wrote on Facebook earlier on Friday.
“Left-wing and media elements in Israel and abroad have conspired to bring [Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni] to power illegitimately, by means of slander at home and unprecedented money from abroad.”
The prime minister added that the only way to ensure that the left does not succeed is to “close the gap in the days that remain before the election.”
The Zionist Union, don’t sound a lot like Zionists to me.
Security is one of the primary needs. With their backs to the wall, Israel voted for security rather than economics.
rumor that AL gore is there by Herzog’s side coaching him on how to demand re re re count... if thats what it takes
tonight they will be having a dinner meeting to discuss hanging chads
Thank GOD he won! Hussein should hang his head in shame for trying to destroy this man.
And how many Americans voted for Obummer-—AGAIN?
Looks like Israel was happy with their Bibisitter!
The house should invite him back for another speech tomorrow :)
You want to know how bad Herzog is..even Rosanne Barr..Yep Rosanne Barr yesterday tweeted that she wanted BiBi to win and make sure that “Obama’s puppet Herzog loses” even she got it
yesterday’s garbage smells the same worldwide..
Looks like Israel was happy with their Bibisitter!
Looks like.
That was a great campaign ad.
LOL ... it sounds funny, but they’re are no “chads” in this election. It’s super simple and literally impossible to miscount ... :-) ...
Thank you!
Every public, non-profit college in America should be raising the Israeli flag on campus in support of Bibi!
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