Free Republic

None of this is a shock in the world of Israeli politics - the current coalition government is the 33rd to be created in the 66 years since the foundation of the state. You do not need the powerful graphics computer of an election night TV programme to tell you that two years is around the average life of a coalition arrangement. At least one poll has suggested that most Israelis are not convinced that it was really necessary to dissolve Parliament and the influential newspaper Haaretz has described the coming elections as superfluous. (snip) One unpredictable factor is the...

After three years of eating steaks the size of elephants' ears, Kevin bids farewell The BBC's America correspondent Kevin Connolly is packing his bags for a new post in the Middle East. During his three years in the US he has visited 46 out of 50 states and covered the country's election of its first black president.Sometime around the spring of 1835, a young Frenchman called Alexis de Tocqueville travelled to the United States on a mission guaranteed to make Americans bristle with irritation. He was going to understand them, and explain them. De Tocqueville was smart, Gallic and aristocratic...