WaPo: Israeli Voters Are Kind Of Undermining Obama’s Diplomacy, Aren’t They?

What the hell? Is there something in the water today?

President Obama’s ambition to move quickly on Israeli-Palestinian peace suffered a significant setback yesterday with the rightward shift apparent in nearly complete Israeli election results, analysts said. While the centrist Kadima party appeared to eke out a victory, the right-wing Likud party more than doubled its seats and an ultra-nationalist party made big gains, increasing the prospect that a government uninterested in peace talks will emerge from the post-election efforts to form a governing coalition. Even if Tzipi Livni, the head of Kadima who has vowed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, manages to cobble together a coalition after weeks of negotiations, many experts predict she will be hamstrung by her coalition partners. “You are going to have a very wobbly, dysfunctional, survival-minded coalition in Israel,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator.

Three quick things:

(1) I assume that the “survival-minded” approach he’s denigrating refers to the stability of the coalition and not to the “we would prefer not to get nuked” thing. Although at this point…

(2) Where are my “Palestinian attacks radicalized Israeli voters” headlines?

(3) Remember when Hamas won the 2006 elections and media outlets went to laughably absurd lengths to deny that it was a reflection of Palestinian intransigence? Because the best explanation for an election in which a radicalized public elected radicals had nothing to do with radicalism. Obviously. But for some reason I haven’t seen any long articles theorizing that Israeli voters shifted right because of the multiple Kadima and Labor scandals. Weird, that.

Oh – and the rest of the article had what Soccer Dad is describing as “the worst paragraph in post-Israeli election analysis.” Figures.

References:
* In Israeli Vote Results, A Setback for Obama [WaPo]
* NYT: Israel Is Kind Of Undermining Obama’s Diplomacy, Isn’t It? [MR]
* The Less Than Compelling “Hamas Wasn’t Elected Because of the Whole Palestinians Hate Jews Thing” Argument [MR]
* Mere Rhetoric Evaluates Palestinian Opinion Poll, Walks Away Unsurprised [MR]
* The worst paragraph in post-israeli election analysis [Soccer Dad]

Previously:
* UN Imposes Collective Punishment On Gaza Population In Response To Hamas Crimes, Suspends Humanitarian Shipments
* British Watchdog’s Report: BBC Coverage Less Than Impartial
* Now They’re Using Hospital Rooms As Torture Chambers