Word: netanyahu
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Without enough votes to form a government of his own, Netanyahu will have to build a ruling coalition that will inevitably be fragile. And because Kadima leader Tzipi Livni has ruled out a national-unity government with Likud, Netanyahu will probably look to parties even farther to the right than his own, such as the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party and the extreme Yisrael Beitenu Party of Avigdor Lieberman, who supports making Israel's Arab citizens take a loyalty oath or face losing their voting rights. (See a video about Avigdor Lieberman and his political power base in Israel...
...even on his own, Bibi would be a bitter pill for the rest of the region to swallow. Netanyahu ran on a platform that would bring the peace process to a halt. His stated policies would continue the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, would brook no discussion of sharing Jerusalem as a joint capital between Israel and a future Palestinian state and, instead of negotiating for a two-state solution, would focus on "economic peace," in effect giving Palestinians jobs but not their land...
...Netanyahu's stated agenda would put him at odds with the new Obama Administration in Washington. While Barack Obama has called for negotiations with Iran and Syria, Netanyahu would choose confrontation with both. Netanyahu is against trading the Golan Heights - which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 - in return for a peace treaty with Syria. And instead of talking to Iran about its nuclear program (which Iran insists is for civilian purposes), Netanyahu has said he will prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons by any means necessary, including military strikes...
...Israelis see trading land for peace as a sustainable option. Nevertheless, during the Israeli military incursion into Gaza earlier this year, most Israelis were shocked to find that public opinion in Europe and the U.S. did not automatically support what they considered an appropriate act of self-defense. A Netanyahu government may end up merely giving last rites to a peace process that is already almost dead...
Barack Obama's economic team likes to say that crisis breeds opportunity. His foreign policy team is unlikely to feel that way about the political turmoil in Israel and the Palestinian territories right now. The ascension of Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the fragmented Israeli parliamentary elections puts a hawk in control in Jerusalem and sets up a period of political uncertainty that blunts any early moves the U.S. had planned to make in pursuit of peace. But the Obama administration has pledged an early diplomatic push and seems intent on sticking to it, which leaves Hillary Clinton...