Unofficial results in Israel: Sharon still wins!

AZZenny · March 28th, 2006, 01:59 PM

Despite dropping daily in the polls, Ariel Sharon's new Kadima party appears from exit polls to have won a solid, but not impressive majority of seats; the 'liberal' coalition is expected to have roughly 2/3rds of the seats when its all put together; the 'hard-line' right the rest.

A couple interesting things -- Likud, the usual 'hard-line party' (neo-connish) crashed and burned as voters fled both directions -- many to even more right-wing options, some rather racist in tone (i.e., trade Arab -populated Israeli towns for Jewish populated Gaza towns, and get the Arabs out of Israel, even if they are citizens.) The really extreme right-wing parties fared poorly, however.

Kadima, the winner, and some parties in its probable coalition, are committed to a unilateral withdrawal from the territories and Israeli-determined borders over the next 1-3 years, possibly even giving 1/2 Jerusalem to Palestine. They refuse to engage in further 'negotiations' with a Hamas gov't that is openly supporting anti-Israel terrorism as official policy. Hamas has said that unilateral boundaries will be a declaration of war. The US is very displeased with the insistence on unilateral decisions, but here's Olmert, the new PM's comments:
"We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want to be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies."

What is amusing, though, is that a brand new party, the Pensioner's party, has apparently won as many as 5- 6% of the seats. It was founded and run by the famous former Mossad officer Rafi Eitan, who kidnapped Eichmann and ran many successful covert ops, but who took responsibility for much of the Pollard spy scandal. If you have ever read even one spy novel about Israeli intel, (Little Drummer Girl, Daniel Silva's books, etc) the crusty, oppositional, insubordinate, ruthless older lead spy character is always based on Eitan. Two weeks ago the party was polled at less than 2% of the vote, when all of a sudden hundreds of pretty young girls and handsome, well-dressed young men showed up all over Tel Aviv campaigning 'for our grandfathers and grandmothers' and persuading people -- especially young people -- who were turned off by the campaign to use their vote to 'take care of the people who founded Israel and have been shoved aside.' Hmmm -- looks like once again, Mossad was behind it!

Oh yeah -- Sharon will be moved to a nursing home this week; expect him to die within a couple weeks if not days.

AZZenny · April 1st, 2006, 11:54 AM

The first day or two, media was condescendingly sniffing at the Pensioners' Party like it was a total joke, a waste of votes, etc. Then one major party said they had spoken to the Pensioners who agreed to join their coalition; Eitan came out and said affably, 'They're lying, as usual. You shouldn't LIE to old people and waste our precious time. No one spoke to us... and we're waiting to be wooed.'
Then very slickly, they nominated the proposed new PM, beating his own party to the punch, and suddenly politicians and media are falling all over themselves as they realize they somehow elected a very cunning geriatric James Bond -- and one of Ariel Sharon's lifelong, very close personal friends -- to a position of influence: his party's 7 reps will be vital swing votes in the new parliament.

This could be fun.

Quote:

Ex-spymaster with colorful past pulls off election sensation
By Associated Press March 30, 2006

A 79-year-old political novice who pulled off the biggest upset in Israel's election is a former espionage chief-turned businessman who handled former U.S. naval analyst Jonathan Pollard as an Israeli spy.

Rafi Eitan, a longtime friend of Ariel Sharon, will now fight for pensioners' rights in the new parliament, but despite comments during the campaign, is not expected to push hard for Pollard's release from a U.S. prison.

Eitan's Pensioners Party came out of nowhere to become the feel-good story of Tuesday's election, garnering seven seats in the 120-seat parliament, after public opinion polls barely had them sneaking past the two-seat threshold. The seniors are widely expected to be part of the next government.
The sudden political breakthrough puts the limelight on Eitan, whose friendly grandfatherly persona (boy, that's not how the histories of Israeli intelligence describe him! LOL. He was a brilliant, ruthless, insubordinate guy. Was hired-fired-rehired several times.) made him the chic protest vote of this election, particularly among trendy young adults in Tel Aviv.

But Eitan is also a veteran spook whose rich biography reveals a man of contradictions; a wealthy businessman who campaigned for poor retirees, a former secret agent who is considered a political pragmatist.

Eitan, a short man with thick, oversized eyeglasses, said Wednesday he would join any coalition that addresses his constituency's concerns, including the demands for a universal pension. The apparent prime minister-designate, Ehud Olmert, reportedly has already dispatched emissaries to Eitan to secure his cooperation in the future government.

Interviewed by Israel TV Wednesday, Eitan impishly declined to commit to Olmert, saying he was waiting for the incoming prime minister to reach out to him.

Yossi Melman, a security analyst who has covered Eitan's tumultuous career, said Eitan would likely go along with Olmert's ambitious plan to separate from Palestinians.

"He is very much like Sharon," he said of Eitan. "He is not a hardcore ideologue of believing in a 'Greater Israel.' He is not a right-wing ideologue."

Sharon was felled by a stroke on Jan. 4 after forming the centrist Kadima Party, reacting to opposition to his unilateral Gaza pullout from his Likud Party. Sharon remains in a coma.

Eitan began his career fighting in the Palmach pre-state guerrilla army, where he befriended Sharon. He was wounded in battle and became partially deaf. It was there he also earned his unlikely nickname, "Stinky Rafi," after hiding in a pit of sewage while on a mission. The moniker stuck, and Sharon continued to affectionately call him "the Stinker" for the next half century.

After the 1948 Mideast war over Israel's creation, Eitan joined the Shin Bet security service. He later joined the Mossad spy agency and was involved in many top secret operations, including the 1960 capture of Nazi Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. "I was the commander of the operation to capture Eichmann," Eitan told an Israeli TV talk show on Wednesday.

Eitan briefly went into business until Sharon persuaded then-prime minister Menachem Begin to appoint Eitan as an adviser on combating terror.
Eitan made headlines in the 1980s as the handler of Pollard in the espionage affair that embarrassed Israel and severely tarnished its relations with the United States.

In a recent interview, he defended the risky operation, saying Pollard's information was too good to resist and would have made a great difference in the event of war with Arab countries.
Eitan on Wednesday denied Israeli media reports that he was banned from the U.S. because of his role. "As far as I know, no one is looking for me anywhere," he said.

Eitan said his actions were sanctioned by his superiors, but eventually he was forced resign. Then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir praised Eitan as "one of the virtuosos of our intelligence."

Kolo · April 1st, 2006, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AZZenny

The first day or two, media was condescendingly sniffing at the Pensioners' Party like it was a total joke, a waste of votes, etc. Then one major party said they had spoken to the Pensioners who agreed to join their coalition; Eitan came out and said affably, 'They're lying, as usual. You shouldn't LIE to old people and waste our precious time. No one spoke to us... and we're waiting to be wooed.'
Then very slickly, they nominated the proposed new PM, beating his own party to the punch, and suddenly politicians and media are falling all over themselves as they realize they somehow elected a very cunning geriatric James Bond -- and one of Ariel Sharon's lifelong, very close personal friends -- to a position of influence: his party's 7 reps will be vital swing votes in the new parliament.

This could be fun.

Every Israeli election reminds me our two-party system sucks.