Harry's Place

And simultaneously more and more Pakistanis seem to be realising that the only good Taliban is a…..

Mmm…

The Lebanese are too divided and too unwilling to make peace with Israel.

These election results means that in the next war, the Lebanese will again claim that they are innocent of everything, and that the International Community has again to rebuild Beyrut, while Israel will again not see a single dollar from the International community for her ravaged North.

If Hezbollah had won, well, at least we wouldn’t have to watch the hypocresy of the Lebanese from this side of the border.

Sorry, it feels lousy to ruin your smiling mood — but you do know that Hezbollah still has the guns and all the other stuff? However, as a first commentary in Haaretz noted, it seems that Hezbollah’s “Divine victory” of 2006 didn’t quite translate into votes…

Apart from the fact that Hezb still retain their paramilitary status and weapons, doesn’t the vote in fact mean there will once again be a ‘national unity’ government?

yes, it will be another coalition. The key issue now will be Hizb’s demand for the renewal of their ‘blocking third’ in the coalition, which March 14 dont want to grant. Expect further violence if Hizb dont get what they want.

And yes, the Hizballah shadow-state, which makes its own foreign and ‘defence’ policy subject to no elections or discussion, still exists and still has its guns pointed both at Israel and at all Lebanese outside of its own narrow cult.

Fabian

It is in Israel’s interest to have a stable democratic Lebanon.

Sure that does not mean being naive and papering over the cracks.

But thee are some interesting aspects to this election.

Hiz’Bullah a minority sectarian prty yes with a violent military wing) vote stayed more or less stable, they have a deliverable vote but unsurprisingly are not attracting much of a swing vote.

The biggest part of the pro Syrian coalition that lost votes was the Christian Maronite party.

Now as the Maronites were Israel’s proxy for so long maybe they weren’t a very good choice turning out to be pro Syria is ultimately worse for Israel than them having been anti- Palestinian.

The Party of the one God seems to have suffered a defeat by the pro Western secular democratic party.

Now if we can get a deal on the territories with support of the Arab countries (who are terrified of iran) and encourage iran to overplay their hand with Hezbollah so that lebanon no longer gives a shit if Israel smashes Hezbollah (and they do it in a way not guaranteed to create patriotic Lebanese ressistance, noone likes being invaded and bombed).

Of course this is a tall order but my view is that Saudi Arabia is only pretending to recognise Israel (I cannot believe they ever intend to do so , something Obama needs to learn about their history).

proxies after all just that at a certain point )like the Maronites as a bloc) their own agenda and changing events removes their usefulness to their controller.

I believe that Israel and the Palesttinians are now and for the forseeable future irreconcilable, that does not mean that Israel cannot trade political advantage with Arab nations.

The dual Syrian Iranian support of Hizb’ullah is unstable and doomed.

If Syria loses influence over hizb’ullah , and the maronite party realisesto maintain support it must distance itself from Syria, and if Iran or an entirely Iranian backed Hiz’bullah then threaten Syrias interests (as they will).

Then Syria will have to face the horribly unpleasant fact that it needs to compromise with Israel and a pro western lebanon to maintain its security.

So to see Lebanon as hopelessley useless to Israel is to risk the greater evil a theocratic Lebanese province of Syria.

The least anti-semitic Arabs I have met are nearly allways Lebanese.

This is a fantastic day for Lebanon and this is a brilliant report DaveM. However, you forgot to mention that the victorious bloc also includs the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi-Wahhabis Islamist extremists:

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/06/pro-westernsalafite-jihadi.html

Nevertheless, this is a fantastic result.

Dave M,

I thought it was pretty obvious that the Hezbollah-led coalition wouldn’t do as well as everyone thought. Once Hezbollah had stood many of their candidates down in favour of their Christian allies, it was clear that they would not make the gains many predicted.

In any case, none of the major parties in Lebanon is seriously considering disarming Hezbollah, whose militia is considered necessary (even among those who detest Hezbollah) while the Lebanese military is in no condition to protect southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a major power in Lebanon and should be recognised as such. Any attempt to dismantle its political or military wing is tantamount to declaring a civil war in Lebanon that would make its previous civil wars look like a picnic. Even Hariri himself has said this time and time again. A political solution is the only solution.

It’s an amazing result given the intimidation and bribes from Hizbullah, Syria and Iran.

But America stood buy while Hizbullah tried to conquer Lebanon by force last year.

Ah, so Saudi money can still outbid Iranian money.

Yes, Jonathan, the Saudis still have a bigger pot of money than anyone else in the Middle East including the Iranians.

BTW: Believe some writers on this thread are overestimating both Hezbollah’s strength and their willingness to have another round of fighting with Israel anytime soon. After all Hezbollah did not go to the aid of their Hamas comrades during Cast Lead last winter unlike in 2006. Nasrallah, the Groundhog of Lebanon has stated numerous times that they would not have kidnapped the two Israeli soldiers that started the 2006 War if they had thought that Israel would respond as violently as Israel did. Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy, but Hezbollah does not follow Iran’s orders blindly, Nasrallah & co. have their own agenda, which is separate from Iran’s and even Syria’s.

Tawfiq has hit the nail on the head -the pro-Western coalition cannot disarm Hizbollah. Despite a UN resolution, even UNIFIL hasn’t managed to prevent them rearming with bigger and better weapons in the last 3 years and the official Lebanese army has little control over the area south of the Litani or the Beka.
David All -Hizbollah doesn’t need an all-out war with Israel. They just need incidents which will allow them to present themselves as the ‘true’ defenders of Lebanese sovereignty. A border incident here, a kidnapping there…
The Syrians won’t relinquish their hold on Lebanon so easily. If the UN, Obama and the West really care about the ME, helping the Lebanese people rid themselves of such pernicious influences inside their own country would be a good place to commence. It should be totally unacceptable to any representative of a democracy that the proxies of two foreign powers have established a metastatic power base inside another country. I honestly don’t know how Jenny Tonge & co. can look the Lebanese people in the face.

It’s great to see Hezbollah’s collective beard getting a trim; and hopefully the Holocaust-denying garden gnome Ahmadinejad will also be getting a shave in Iran’s forthcoming elections.

“while the Lebanese military is in no condition to protect southern Lebanon.”

Of course it is. Israel gave all the land back to the last dunam to Lebanon in the year 2000. It asked for confirmation from the UN. Why should Lebanon fear being attacked by Israel?

Now Hezbollah staged a crossborder attack and Lebanon ate the retaliation.

No Arab attacks –> no need even of one tank to defend against Israel.

David All

I have also considered that Nasrallah not only made the miscalculation concerning the proportion of the response (i.e. significant infrastructure damage, economic and social impact across the country) but also did not consider that the int’l community would sit back and watch this occur without getting too involved and/or expressing too much disapproval.

I also find it strange that people in Lebanon consider that the south needs Hizbollah to guard it due to the inability of the Lebanese army? After the Israeli withdrawal there was no interest for the Israeli’s to proceed across the border and they certainly couldn’t reinvisage another occupation with a now Shi’ite majority south and with no Lebanese assistance.

hezbollah is more comfortable losing elections than winning them.

Had they won the whole country would be held to account the next time they fire rockets at Israel.

SOOOO… they (at least) are NOT “all Hezbollah!”! (whatever “we” may be).

Kol -that is precisely the situation they engineered in 2006 and precisely what they will try to engineer in the future. They will create a situation in which Israel has to respond, and then say to the citizens of Lebanon and to the world ‘look -Israel is attacking Lebanon’.
They weren’t held to account for it last time -neither by the Lebanese or international opinion. I do think that this election result is the Lebanese people’s way of saying (amongst other things) that they do not want their country trashed again because a load of thugs happen to be looking for a fight, but if you noticed, in 2006 the Lebanese government was very quick to close ranks and take up the Hizbollah line.
What does the world remember about summer 2006 today? -Israel attacked Lebanon. Not Israel attacked Hizbollah, who happen to be situated in Lebanon, because of unignorable provocation.
Israel has no fight with the Lebanese people whatsoever. Before the withdrawal Lebanese workers used to come into Israel daily to do agricultural work because the wages were higher than at home.
It is a shocking indictment of UN impotence and indeed I may say severe negligence that Hizbollah has been allowed to rearm, although of course the UN will never take responsibility for the part it has played over the years in destabalising Lebanon and for the fact that with its own incompetance it has already sown the seeds of the next war.
Sadly, it seems to me that the next war is almost inevitable and that yet again the names of Lebanese towns and villages will haunt us as a nightmare we can’t shake off. In operation Litani I had a boyfriend in Lebanon, in Shlom HaGalil a husband, from 1998-2000 a son and in 2006 two sons. If it’s left to the UN, I’ll be sending my as yet unborn grandchildren there as well.

The election results are more impressive whe you conside one of the Druze leaders, for practicality (The Christians are diminishing and the Sunnis may be worse in the long run), asked his chiefs to switch sides and support Hezbollah .

The Nationalist win may not make a great difference in Hezbollahs power over government policy. The peace agreement in 2008 gave Hezbolah a veto vote on the Lebanese government. Does an election change this?

zkharya;

But America stood buy while Hizbullah tried to conquer Lebanon by force last year.

It was America’s responsibility to save Lebanon from its own militants?

Ah, the land where one of the official languages is a European tongue and where elections are decided by the Christians (such as the President has to be), who have ensured the defeat of anti-Christian fanatics.

This beacon will hopefully be seen in the country with three reserved parliamentary seats for Christians (and one for a Jew), and then in the country with Christian-majority provinces and with Christian festivals as public holidays.

Would that all Middle Eastern countries were as Western as those three.

Ah, David Lindsay, go sit on it.

The President of the United States and I will be delighted to. Where does that leave you sitting?

Frankly, Toady, most nations did worse than stand by idly when Israel went after Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. They demanded that Israel retreat and have failed on the promise to ensure that Hez wouldn’t rearm, which they have, with impunity, courtesy of Syria and Iran.

David Lindsay — you can speak on behalf of the Pres of the US, can you?

Only in DaveM’s twisted world does winning 57 seats in a 128-seat parliamentary considered a massive electoral defeat.

Correction: Only in DaveM’s twisted world does winning 57 seats in a 128-seat parliament considered a massive electoral defeat.

Fabian, as you well know, Lebanon considers the Chebaa Farms as part of Lebanon – the last of occupied Lebanon. Israel’s refusal to relinquish this territory is eccentric, to say the least: its response is that it is Syrian territory, even though Syria says it is Lebanese! Nevertheless, I suspect this is just mere bluster from Hezbollah. In which case, their bluff should be called. Then all Lebanese and Israeli prisoners should be released. After this, a Lebanese-Israeli peace treaty can be signed.

Moving on, the Lebanese army is no match for Hezbollah. So the idea that the Lebanese army can protect southern Lebanon is a nonsense. As I said earlier, as things currently stand no serious person in Lebanon thinks that Hezbollah should be disarmed. Most of the Shia population does not. Many of the Christian groups do not. Even Hariri does not.

That’s a vast majority of the population and the political parties who, although they may or may not detest Hezbollah, see Hezbollah’s militia as an internal matter, not one for the “international community” and moreover one that is necessary, as things currently stand, for the protection of Lebanon and its Shia population. Not only are they right, it is pragmatic and more likely to ensure a genuine, long-lasting peace. Hariri himself has said it, and I think he’s right, too. Whether he means what he says in public is another matter entirely.

The only people who want to see Hezbollah disarmed as things currently stand are those who know what this will precipitate. Hezbollah will not disarm willingly. That is, it will have to be done by force. I suspect that even if Nasrallah and the whole Hezbollah high command ordered the disarming of the militia, I very much doubt if Hezbollah and the Shia population would take any notice. Not given the current climate. The Lebanese army cannot and will not do it. So who will, and as a result trigger a civil war? In any case, Hezbollah would probably come out of it even stronger than before.

Tawfiq -as far as I remember it was the UN who ruled that Shabba Farms is Syrian territory. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 we had UN inspectors come and physically check that we had evacuated every last centimetre of Lebanese territory and according to them, we did.
Also, as far as I know there are no more Lebanese prisoners in Israel. I recall that we released them all -even Samir Kuntar -in exchange for the bodies of our kidnapped soldiers Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser.
If mainstream Lebanese thought is as you say that Hizbollah should not be disarmed, then surely Lebanon can hardly complain when Hizbollah drags it into wars. Indeed if what you say is correct, one could even say that Hizbollah declaring war on Israel is in fact the equivalent of Lebanon declaring war on Israel.
And seeing as Hizbollah’s publicly declared objective is to destroy Israel, that can hardly be said to be a recipe for ‘a genuine, long lasting peace’, can it?

So, Tawfiq, would it even be possible for Israel and Lebanon to sign a peace treaty as long as Hezbollah objects? And is possession of Chebaa Farms really all that Hezbollah objects to about Israel? What, in other words, would have to happen for Hezbollah to agree to disarm?

Is Lebanon stuck with an armed Hezbollah militia no matter what Israel does (short of dissolving itself)?

Gene,

Good questions. Hezbollah’s bluff should be called: relinquish the Chebaa farms and ensure a release of all Lebanese and Israeli prisoners. Even Hezbollah’s most extreme Lebanese enemies agree with them on this – not only because it’s the right thing to do but it also might pull the rug under some of Hezbollah’s most persuasive arguments!

The question of a peace agreement once these two questions are resolved would be how to guarantee the security of southern Lebanon. There is always justified concern about the security of northern Israel, but never any corresponding concern about the far more immediate and important issue of guaranteeing the security of southern Lebanon. Possibly a demilitarised zone on both sides of the border might help. Tens of thousands of Lebanese, predomiantly Shia, have died in the last few decades. They and Hezbollah are not going to just disarm without any guarantees to the safety of southern Lebanon because of a few warming words to the effect that Israel will behave itself in future.

Hezbollah’s militia is a very hard problem to resolve, and it’s not going to be resolved by saying it should disarm – it won’t! This is a longterm issue, and we’ll just have to accept that it will exist until the Lebanese Shia feel safe enough for it to voluntarily disband. This will ultimately mean the Lebanese army either becoming powerful enough to repel any invasion – something that won’t happen for a decade or more. A very unpleasant but perhaps practical and possible stop-gap would be the incorporation of Hezbollah into the Lebanese army until Lebanon can protect itself.

Look, there is no easy solution. An involuntary disarming of Hezbollah – that is, by force – would spell the end of Lebanon. The Shia make up 40% of the population (they are the biggest “minority” group in a Lebanon made up of “minorities”) and much of this population supports Hezbollah and Amal. It would be a civil war on a nightmarish scale. Before we even get to the issue, the first thing we must accept is that Hezbollah should *not* be involuntarily disarmed.

After all, as I said, who’s going to do it? Let’s enter the realms of fantasy and assume a US and Israeli invasion (only because no one else can do it). You think they’d be able to disarm Hezbollah? The US can’t even handle the Taliban, for pity’s sake, let alone the most effective guerrilas in the world. And then you’d have to be talking the Sri Lankan campaign against the Tamil Tigers. Is that what we want, when things are pretty peaceful? You have to ask yourselves who is pushing this ultimately counterproductive lunacy of forcibly dismantling Hezbollah?

Coming with a policy of “all options are on the table” or “disarmament” means civil war on an almost unimaginable scale. Tens of thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) dead on an issue that the Lebanese say is not the international community’s business because it is an internal matter to be resolved by the Lebanese communities. And they’re right.

I know this is a pro-Israel blog, but if Israel’s “supporters” refuse to see the other side’s position, ultimately it will be Israel that suffers, not just its enemies. Hezbollah’s militia will evntually disband. It just needs the right atmosphere to prevail. As hard as it is for many to believe, Hezbollalh is a nationalist – albeit theocratic – movement. As long as Lebanon’s security is guaranteed, Israel has nothing to fear. Hezbollah is not Al Qaeda. Forcibly disarm Hezbollah and the result will be much worse than a Shia version of Al Qaeda. (By the way, according to the leading terror experts, Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda-style terrorism is no longer the big problem. Bin Laden-style terror is considered the past. Zarqawi-style terror is the future. And that, the experts say, is what is coming our way because of the petri dish that was Iraq. It has spawned a jihadi ideology, with the murderous skills gained in Iraq, that will dwarf anything seen to date.)

Tawfiq -Israel holds no Lebanese prisoners as far as I know -they were all returned, even Samir Kuntar, in exchange for the bodies of our two soldiers kidnapped by Hizbollah on 12/7/2006.
Shabba Farms -according to the UN -is Syrian. As far as the UN are concerned Israel withdrew from every last millimetre of Lebanon in 2000. They even sent inspectors to prove it.
Lebanon has nothing to fear from Israel as long as there are no attacks from its territory upon Israel. Anyone trying to persuade you that Hizbollah is protecting Lebanon from Israel is lying. Hizbollah is the main and indeed only cause of instability between Israel and Lebanon. If you think otherwise, it just goes to show how good their propoganda is.

Excellent, a pro-Hizballah flack has begun spewing verbiage here.

No need to relate to all the flagrant nonsense. Dear Tawfiq, you and your friends should remember that the next time you come and try and kidnap our soldiers and shell our towns, south Lebanon will cease to exist. That’s all.

Some replies:

1. Syria does not dispute that the Chebaa farms is Lebanese territory. So the UN’s decision is irrelevant.

2. There are still some Lebanese prisoners and Israeli prisoners.

3. Paul Frenkel is under the bizarre impression that I’ve tried to “kidnap Israeli soldiers”. I’ve never done any such thing and have no idea where he would get such a wild notion. I’m for non-violent resistance, as far as is humanly possible. But presumably Mr Frenkel is referring to Hezbollah’s retaliatory capture of Israeli soldiers *after* Israel kidnapped Lebanese civilians, thus giving a pretext for the last Israeli assult on southern Lebanon, which then, and only then, elicited Hezbollah rocket fire. The story ends with Hezbollah victorious and stronger than ever. Relating the facts is not being pro-Hezbollah. Presumably Mr Frenkel believes that Israel’s top brass and leading military analysts are also pro-Hezbollah. I’m saying nothing very different from them.

Mr Frenkel is living in a fantasy world. Israel has repeatedly tried to either conquer south Lebanon (the most conspicuous being Sharon’s 1982 invasion and subsequent twenty mile “buffer”) or crush Lebanese resistance. Hezbollah has come out far stronger on each occasion. The unfortunate lesson learned is that Israel will only relinquish occupied territory by force, although I think direct engagement with Israel’s Jewish community would be a far more efficacious strategy in dampening suspicion and hostility.

Mr Frenkel gets very excited at the thought that south Lebanon will “cease to exist”. It will be there whatever Israel does, as will the Shia population, which grows in size and influence each year. The question is whether Hezbollah’s influence and strength will decrease or increase among the Shia population. That’s a decision for Israel, and it has consistently, but inadvertently, insured that Hezbollah comes out far stronger after each engagement. Any engagement, by definition, strengthens Hezbollah.

Oh dear Tawfiq -I’m afraid we’re in the realms of fantasy now. Israel did not capture any Lebanese citizens prior to the kidnappings of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Those kidnappings were entirely unprovoked -just like the kidnappings several years previously of Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omer Suaed -and took place on Israeli territory. Tragically, all those boys were murdered by Hizbollah.
Also, the Hizbollah rocket attacks on the Israeli civilian population began before Israel launched its ‘assault’ on southern Lebanon. A tank had gone in to try to rescue the kidnapped soldiers, but that’s hardly a justification for firing missiles at women and children, is it?
I don’t know where you are located exactly, Tawfiq, but I was there on 12/7/06 when everything started -hanging out my laundry, to be precise.
You know, I’d never really thought about it very much before until I read your posts, but now I see that it really is quite logical that the Lebanese people should be encouraged to believe such fantastic distortions of the truth in order to further the Hizbollah agenda.
Israel has never had territorial designs on southern Lebanon. Each time we have been forced to go into Lebanon it was because of terrorist groups operating from Lebanese territory.
Operation Litani was a direct result of the Coastal Road massacre.
1982 was a result of the fact that for months beforehand life in the towns and villages of northern Israel was completely unbearable due to constant shelling by the PLO -shelling which Lebanon did not try to stop. If you remember correctly, our soldiers were greeted with flowers and rice by the residents of southern Lebanon in 1982 who were thrilled that someone had come to release them from the clutches of foreign terrorists.
2006 was the result of the shelling of Israeli civilians by Hizbollah after the above kidnappings.
Israel does not want 1cm of Lebanese land. All we want is for Lebanon to stop allowing terrorist groups whose ultimate aim is the destruction of our country to attack us from Lebanese territory.
Tawfiq -if you want peace for Lebanon, you need to prevent Hizbollah from attacking Israel. There’s no reason whatsoever why Lebanon and Israel cannot have good neighbourly relations once Hizbollah is out of the picture.

I wont waste a great deal of time on the above. I travelled through s. Lebanon a year or so after the 2006 war. The border has been quiet since 2006 because of the damage inflicted by Israel during that war, and the consequent deterrent effect. I can only reiterate, Tawfiq, at the risk of upsetting you further – the people you support would be well advised to manitain the current quiet.

Paul, I’m not upset! I’m just baffled that reiterating the view of, say, Mossad is controversial and therefore pro-Hezbollah. It’s quite obvious that I do not support Hezbollah.

Hezbollah would not even exist had it not been for Ariel Sharon’s crazed policies in 1982. Hezbollah would not be in its current position of strength had it not been for various counterproductive Israeli policies. That’s the view of many analysts within the IDF and intelligence services, not just my own. Again, hardly controversial.

Moving on to the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah. Leaving aside the many Lebanese civilians kidnapped by the IDF (a far worse crime than capturing military troops), do you really believe that the massive destruction of southern Lebanon was a result of the capture of two Israeli soldiers? The best informed analysts were of the opinion, as they were of the 1982 invasion (after Abu Nidal attempted to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to London), that this was simply a pretext for a long-planned invasion. I may well be wrong, but I’m in the company of Israel’s leading military and intelligence analysts.

Israelinurse, “Israel has never had territorial designs on southern Lebanon.” Now that is certainly not true, now, is it? That was not Ariel Sharon’s or Menachem Begin’s view, nor was it that of the “doves”. But there is a long history of having designs on southern Lebanon:

“The Achilles’ heel of the Arab coalition is Lebanon. Muslim supremacy in this country is artificial and can easily be overthrown. A Christian state ought to set up there, with its southern frontier on the river Litani. We should sign a treaty of alliance with this State. Then, when we have broken the strength of the Arab Legion and bombed Amman, we could wipe out Transjordan; after that Syria would fall. And if Egypt dared to make war on us, we would have settled the account with Egypt, Assyria and Chaldea on behalf of our ancestors.” Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, 1948.

Elsewhere, the designs go back to the very concept of the state:

“We do not suggest that we announce now our final aim, which is far reaching – even more so than the Revisionists who oppose partition.” David Ben-Gurion, 1936, having “accepted” the recommendations of the Peel Commission on the partitioning of Palestine.

Continuing with a Herut spokesman: “We have never said that we renounce our right to [Jordan], though in the context of negotiations with Jordan we might agree to certain concessions in Eastern Transjordan.” Deputy Prime Minister Roni Milo and Likud chairman at Herut meeting, 3 January 1984, Ma’ariv. (Herut’s slogan itself is that Jordan is part of Israel. Herut is a major group within Likud. It may or may not be still be the major grouping. You’re in a better position to say.)

Reiterated by the ever untactful but surprisingly honest Ariel Sharon: “It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonization, or Jewish state without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.” 15 November, 1998, Agence France Presse.

Scores of such damning evidence, from before the founding of Israel right through to the present, can be found in the “revisionist” histories of Simha Falapan, Benny Morris, Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, etc, as I pointed out in an earlier thread on this blog. The above are just the ones off the top of my head.

Every country’s history is unpleasant, with Israel coming out smelling of roses in comparison to, say, the UK. But comparisons are not the issue. Many of the politicians certainly know the truth – Ben Gurion, Dayan, Sharon, etc – but weave a web of distortion around their policies to fool the public. That’s universally true, and we should not be fooled.

Or as Ben Gurion put it: “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. Politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are still outside.”

We can’t do anything about the past, but the future is another matter. An Israel on the 1967 borders (with withdrawl, preferably full, from the settlements). To assuage Israeli fears – those of the citizens, that is, the politicians know better – there must be a fully demilitarised West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, etc. A return of Palestinian refugees is an impossibility, and must be accepted as such. Recognition by all Arab states of Israel, with full diplomatic, travel and trade relations, etc. This is the only way forward and the basis of a real peace. It will also have the great advantage of cutting the ground under all religious parties in the region. With the religious mania in the region getting more and more extreme, the sooner a full peace can be signed, the better.

This is a gain of how many seats over what they had a few years ago?