Israeli Professor Neve Gordon and Palestinian Lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti on the Israeli Elections
With 99 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning in the Israeli election, Tzipi Livnis centrist Kadima Party was in first place with twenty-eight seats, while Benjamin Netanyahus right-wing Likud Party was a close second with twenty-seven seats. They are both claiming victory but would need coalition partners to gather the sixty-one seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset. For analysis of the election results, we are joined by two guests. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is an independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist. He joins us from Washington, D.C. And on the line from Beersheba, Israel is Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University and the author of Israels Occupation.
With 99 percent of the votes counted Wednesday morning in the Israeli election, Tzipi Livnis centrist Kadima Party was in first place with twenty-eight seats, while Benjamin Netanyahus right-wing Likud Party was a close second with twenty-seven seats. They are both claiming victory but would need coalition partners to gather the sixty-one seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset. For analysis of the election results, we are joined by two guests. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti is an independent Palestinian lawmaker and democracy activist. He joins us from Washington, D.C. And on the line from Beersheba, Israel is Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University and the author of Israels Occupation.
From Ryantineocons
Fascism is promoted under the justifications of religion and dumbfounded religious zealots cannot figure out why everyone hates them. Israelis site terrorism as the reason for their occupation and religion as their reason for racial colonies and home demolitions.
They cannot connect the dots between their policy of ethnic cleansing, daily occupation, theft, and humiliation, and why there is violence directed towards them. Like a rapist, they blame the victim. As a rapist is raping a woman and she slaps at him he blames her for assault and continues to rape her as a means of "self defense". Israelis cannot understand why blockading food and water for months, routinely kidnapping and killing those it does not politically like, and turning off electricity, and forcing check points, would provoke rocket attacks.
It would be like Americans blaming IEDs for the war in Iraq and not the myth of WMDs.
They cannot connect the dots between their policy of ethnic cleansing, daily occupation, theft, and humiliation, and why there is violence directed towards them. Like a rapist, they blame the victim. As a rapist is raping a woman and she slaps at him he blames her for assault and continues to rape her as a means of "self defense". Israelis cannot understand why blockading food and water for months, routinely kidnapping and killing those it does not politically like, and turning off electricity, and forcing check points, would provoke rocket attacks.
It would be like Americans blaming IEDs for the war in Iraq and not the myth of WMDs.
