I'm back in the USSR

Well the results from the elections are in, and it's pretty clear that Israel has become Putinized. The right has won a minimum of 65 seats and a Moldovan former nightclub bouncer and mildy reconstructed Kahanist is Israel's new political kingmaker. The country is heading for a narrow right wing government with an agenda of "loyalty tests" and "economic peace" (for which read Transfer and Reservations)

The results are actually much worse than they at first appear. When you exclude the MKs representing non-zionist parties (Arab and Hadash) the Zionist Left drops to 44. And those numbers include such noted peaceniks as Shaul Mofaz. In reality a third of Kadima are rightists, and the Likud list forced on Netanyahu is the most extreme ever.

It's ironic that the Zionist left, or what little remains of it, believes that aggressive military action on the eve of a poll is the key to unlock electoral riches - Peres in '96, Barak in 2000, and again this year. It fails every time. The right will always outbid them on the Arab-killing front.

One wonders if they will ever attempt the radical alternative of actually campaigning on a peace agreement. The Israeli voters have never chosen peace - because they've never been given the opportunity.

So what does this mean for Palestine?

I would suggest that the cloud may have a silver lining - as long as Livni can resist the blandishments that are about to be lavished on her. Israel will soon have a government so extreme that not even AIPAC can paper over it. Lieberman's ship-em-out agenda is absolute anathema to the liberal Jewish America which just voted overwhelmingly for Obama. A Lieberman-Bibi government may crystalise the disenchantment that is just now breaking through to mainstream media :



As in the USSR extreme action creates a reaction. If Livni has the moral courage to go into opposition then Netanyahu will lose his fig leaf and two party democracy may be restored. From the American side there will be Mitchell, who knows both Congress and the settlements intimately. And Clinton, whose husband's antipathy to Bibi is well known.

The next two years will be ugly, but there is hope at the end of it.