A legitimate election, and how

A legitimate election, and how

By Yehuda Ben-Meir

A proper culture of governance is a hallmark of a healthy democracy and well-run country. The obligation to respect democratic decisions made in accordance with accepted constitutional rules in that country, internalize them and accept them is one of the most basic foundations of a proper culture of governance. But in the last few years, this quality has seriously eroded here - an erosion that causes deep concern among everyone interested in the welfare of the State of Israel. A striking example of this dangerous erosion can be seen in the current flood of discussion, reports and chatter about Tzipi Livni's lack of legitimacy - "moral legitimacy" or "public legitimacy" - as prime minister. The arguments attempting to undermine the legitimacy of Livni's election and her moral authority to head a government that will receive the Knesset's vote of confidence are unfounded, and the reasons backing the arguments are vacuous. The inability to respect a decision made at the polls - even by a single vote, not to mention 431 votes - as well as the pointless arguments, bordering on absurdity, that the prime minister was chosen by "0.54 percent of the country" or that this is a "substitute for a substitute" indicate either a basic lack of understanding of our government's foundations or a deep moral flaw. These arguments don't have an ounce of truth and have no factual or ethical basis.

No one questioned the legitimacy of Moshe Sharett or Levi Eshkol when they were elected to replace David Ben-Gurion, after his resignation, by a few hundred Mapai Central Committee votes, and no one questioned Golda Meir's legitimacy after the central committee chose her to replace Eshkol when he died. We heard no demands for new elections, and rightly so, when Yitzhak Rabin was chosen by the Labor Party's central committee to replace Meir as prime minister by a few dozen votes in his race against Shimon Peres. Kadima, led by Ehud Olmert, won the Knesset election, and Olmert formed a government that still has the Knesset's vote of confidence. Olmert, who is not anybody's substitute, announced his intention to resign, and Tzipi Livni was chosen to replace him in elections in which all Kadima members were eligible to vote. There can be no process more democratic, and more legitimate, than that.

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Olmert's term

Olmert's term

By Haaretz Editorial

The State of Israel has known many governments in its 60 years of existence, yet it is doubtful whether it has ever known a worse one than that of Ehud Olmert, which came to its end yesterday. Its balance sheet, after two years and nine months, comes very close to zero. Olmert was not elected to his post; he inherited the job from Ariel Sharon when Sharon fell ill. As Sharon's successor at the head of Kadima, a party that was concocted from members of Likud and Labor, Olmert led the faction to a humble achievement, winning less than one-fourth of all Knesset seats, though that sufficed to form a government. In filling the most senior posts, Olmert acted bizarrely: He named Abraham Hirchson to the Finance Ministry, Amir Peretz as defense minister and Haim Ramon as justice minister. The results were not long in coming. Hirchson resigned after being suspected of corruption, while Peretz failed in his job as defense minister, particularly in his handling of the war in Lebanon. He also lost the leadership of the Labor Party. Ramon chose to duel with the Supreme Court and, after being convicted of an indecent sexual act against a female soldier, was removed from his post, only to be promoted to the job of vice premier.

In Ramon's stead, Olmert named Prof. Daniel Friedmann, who served as a battering ram against the judicial system which he was supposed to defend. It is difficult to determine the extent of the damage Friedmann will leave behind, but his contribution to the public's loss of faith in the justice system and the rule of law is clear even now.

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Olmert formally submits his resignation to Peres

Olmert formally submits his resignation to Peres

By Mazal Mualem, Shahar Ilan and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents, and The Associated Press

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived at the President's residence in Jerusalem Sunday evening to formally submit his resignation to President Shimon Peres after almost 33 months in office. Olmert earlier announced his decision to step down at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, held in Jerusalem. Following the formal resignation, Olmert's cabinet becomes an interim government, and Peres was to begin a round of consultations with all the Knesset factions later Sunday in efforts to establish a new coalition.
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Peres was scheduled to meet with Kadima faction chair Yoel Hasson, Labor's Eitan Cabel, Likud's Gideon Sa'ar and Shas' Yakov Margi. Each MK will be given 45 minutes to recommend to the president a candidate who would be best suited to establish a coalition. Though it is not certain, Peres is expected to task Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who succeeded Olmert in his post as Kadima Party chair in a primary held last week, with establishing the coalition. Peres convened a press conference at his residence following Olmert's visit, and thanked the outgoing premier for his "contribution to the people and the sate during so many years of public service ? as mayor of Jerusalem, a minister in Israel's government and as prime minister."

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Don't envy the winner

Don't envy the winner

By Aluf Benn

The immediate political goal of the winner of the Kadima primary must be to form a coalition and rapidly take charge of the new government, in an effort to get the party and its leader firmly in place ahead of the race between Kadima (and ideally Labor, in a unified bloc) and Likud in the next general election. This cannot be done just by putting out fires, managing crises and searching for opportunities. For this, you need a strategy. The basis of every successful strategy - whether in the military, politics or the business world - is focusing on the essential and concentrating one's efforts. All leaders need a central task with which they are identified, according to which they prioritize their timetable and for which they win public and international support. The message must be simple, understandable and consistent, and it must present a solution to an important national problem. New prime ministers are at risk of two immediate dangers. One is their tendency to get involved in the nonsense that steals the energy they need as well as political power. That's what happened to Ehud Barak with the transportation of a turbine superheater on Shabbat, which destabilized his coalition, and to Benjamin Netanyahu in his struggle against the "old elites," which set strong forces against him.

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The court Arabs

The court Arabs

By Gideon Levy

When a distinguished foreign delegation would come to Israel, Shimon Peres would ask us, his aides, to make sure also to invite sheikhs Jabr Moade and Hamad Abu-Rabiah. Peres wanted his guests "to see some kaffiyehs in the audience." That was a long time ago. Many words and much blood, too, has flowed since them. Abu-Rabiah was murdered by Moade's sons over a Knesset seat and Israel's Arabs established their own nationalist parties. Nevertheless, 13,000 Israeli Arabs joined Kadima - entire clans - who yesterday chose the country's next prime minister. Like the court Jews of the Diaspora, they are our court Arabs. They give a bad name to opportunism and a worse name to their own people. A good Arab is not an Arab who joins Kadima, Likud or even Labor. Most of Kadima's Arab voters have already been in all of them; such is the relationship between national minorities and the government. A good Arab cannot support those parties that are directly responsible for discrimination, occupation and the killing of their people. However, it turns out that distress leads to disgrace: election corruption instead of struggle, collaboration instead of national pride. One can believe in coexistence without being ingratiating; one can promote the issues of the community without acting in a corrupt manner, and one can even work toward equal rights without ridiculous photo ops with Shaul Mofaz and Avi Dichter.

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How Israel caused the Oslo Accords to fail

How Israel caused the Oslo Accords to fail

By Israel Harel

Politicians like to glorify events in which they starred. And even more so the extroverted people who cooked up the Oslo Accords exactly 15 years ago. But Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin and their partners from the academic world and media have chosen to remain silent in recent days, or to make vague statements that even they themselves don't seem to believe about the Oslo Accords remaining the only outline for peace. Even they, the wizards of propaganda, cannot explain, beyond the spin of the "only outline," how an initiative that ignited a war of terror that killed thousands of Jews and Arabs, turned Hamas into the main force in the Palestinian community and brought nationalistic fervor in the Israeli Palestinian community to new heights, is the "only outline for peace." After all, the truth is just the opposite: The "outline" gave rise to despair among both Jews and Arabs of the possibility of ever living in peace in this country, even within the Green Line. The Oslo Accords were doomed from the start, for one because the enthusiastic Israeli negotiators accepted the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize - and today, as it says in their "vision papers," even Israeli Arabs refuse to recognize - the State of Israel as a Jewish state and the national homeland of the Jewish people. But the impatient improvisers, who made light of the national ambitions of the Arabs and deluded themselves and us that this recognition, as Peres said, is not important, ignored the depth of the Arabs' nationalistic feelings while allowing them to waive their commitment to end the violence.

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Crece discriminación religiosa en Europa

Crece discriminación religiosa en Europa

Reforma
En muchos países predominantemente musulmanes ha disminuido el apoyo desde 2002 Reuters
Chicago, Estados Unidos (17 de septiembre de 2008).-

Los sentimientos antimusulmanes y antijudíos están aumentando en varios países europeos, de acuerdo a un sondeo mundial dado a conocer el miércoles.El sondeo mundial, del Pew Research Center con base en Washington, descubrió que 46 por ciento de españoles, 36 por ciento de polacos y 34 por ciento de rusos ven a los judíos de manera desfavorable, al igual que 25 por ciento de alemanes, y 20 por ciento de franceses.España no ha tenido una gran población de judíos desde que expulsó a sus residentes judíos en 1492. Los otros cuatro países tienen una larga historia de antisemitismo que culminó en el Holocausto.Las cifras son más altas que en otros sondeos comparables de Pew realizados durante los últimos años, dijo el reporte. "En varios países el aumento ha sido especialmente notorio entre 2006 y 2008".Las opiniones sobre musulmanes también han empeorado en comparación a años anteriores. El sentimiento negativo hacia ellos alcanzó 52 por ciento en España, 50 por ciento en Alemania, 46 por ciento en Polonia y 38 por ciento en Francia.Richard Wike, director asociado del proyecto de actitudes, dijo en una entrevista que el sondeo no intentaba descubrir por qué el comportamiento había cambiado pero otros datos indican que actitudes negativas hacia Israel podrían estar generando sentimientos antisemitas.También señaló que las preocupaciones por el extremismo y la inmigración podían ser un factor en percepciones negativas hacia los musulmanes.Gran Bretaña fue el único país europeo sin un aumento sustancial en actitudes antisemitas, dijo el reporte, con sólo un 9 por ciento evaluando desfavorablemente a los judíos.Diferentes tendenciasEn Estados Unidos, 7 por ciento tenía percepciones negativas sobre los judíos al igual que un 11 por ciento en Australia.Sin embargo, cerca de una de cada cuatro personas en Estados Unidos y Gran Bretaña tenía una mala opinión de los musulmanes."Hay una clara relación entre las actitudes antijudías y antimusulmanas", dijo el reporte. "(Aquellos) que ven a los judíos desfavorablemente también tienden a ver a los musulmanes bajo un prisma negativo".Los resultados se basaron en entrevistas con 24 mil 717 personas en 24 países a comienzos de este año. El sondeo tenía márgenes de error de más/menos 2 a 4 puntos porcentuales, variando según el país.Los sentimientos antijudíos más extremistas, según la encuesta, fueron encontrados predominantemente en naciones musulmanas, donde las actitudes favorables sólo llegaban a números de un sólo dígito entre turcos, egipcios, jordanos, libaneses, y paquistaníes.Menos apoyo a ataques suicidas Pero en muchos países predominantemente musulmanes ha disminuido el apoyo desde los ataques suicidas de 2002 y otras formas de violencia contra civiles en el nombre del Islam.En 2002 cerca de tres de cada cuatro libaneses musulmanes dijeron que esos ataques a menudo o a veces podían estar justificados, pero la cifra cayó a cerca de uno de cada tres en el más reciente sondeo. El entonces Primer Ministro libanés, Rafiq Hariri, fue asesinado en una gran explosión en febrero del 2004, desencadenando una ola de asesinatos políticos.El sondeo también reveló que las actitudes positivas hacia Osama Bin Laden han disminuido en varios países pero que el líder de Al-Qaeda todavía goza de alto apoyo en Nigeria, Indonesia y Paquistán.