[Debate] Hadash Protests Against Netanyahu's Deal with Mofaz for "War Government"

[Ran Greenstein]

Unfortunately, most people in Israel (and probably elsewhere) vote
tribally, and Hadash has been finding it very difficult to get Jews to
vote for it, no matter how many good and popular positions it takes.
It originated in an alliance between heads of Arab local councils and
the Communist Party (itself led by Arabs), and is forever marked by
that affiliation.

It's funny to read analyses of the extension of the Israeli coalition
government as an indication of imminent war: the same commentators
also saw the Netanyahu-Barak smaller coalition (without Kadima) as an
indication of imminent war because of the determination of its
leaders, and the call for new elections (since scrapped) as another
indication of Netahyahu's wish for a mandate for war before the US
elections. But there will be no attack on Iran this year, or next year
for that matter (unless the US decides to go for it in 2013, though it
has nothing to gain from that).


On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 12:45 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi
<critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
> Israel can't militarily destroy Iran's nuclear program -- I've said so
> myself here time and again.  But by now it's clear that Netanyahu's
> war propaganda serves purpose as a pretext for the USG to present its
> ever harsher economic sanctions on Iran as a gentler, kinder
> alternative to war, which makes the Gulf Arab rulers as well as most
> Israel power elite happy.  Hadash unfortunately doesn't make this
> point clear, but there are a fair number of Israelis who are tired of
> all that war talk (as evidenced by a popular Facebook campaign against
> it), so making a forceful point against it can win it some new
> adherents, so I think Hadash thinks.
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Ran Greenstein <rangreen at sn.apc.org> wrote:
>> The most crucial factor about the war front is that Israel has no
>> capacity to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme on its own.
>> Technically it cannot do that without US active involvement, and
>> politically it'd be suicidal for it to attempt such an attack. None of
>> this changes in the slightest now: if Netanyahu had retained his
>> coalition as before, or had gone for new elections as planned, he
>> would have been in the same position. In terms of Israeli internal
>> party politics it's a big change, but as far as Iran and the
>> Palestinians are concerned everything stays the same.
>>


-- 
Ran Greenstein
Johannesburg, South Africa