I might not have been able to persevere, had it not been for the encouraging, nudging and gently chastising words of my tiny readership. They do not like to leave comments here but they do contact me to tell me what they think. And I am grateful.
For this solemn occasion, which I turned into an award ceremony speech, I wanted to mention briefly the news from Israel. Bibi Netanyahu just announced that he is forming a new coalition government with Kadima, the official opposition and currently the biggest party in the Knesset.
Mr Netanyahu said their new coalition wanted a "responsible" peace process with the Palestinians and "serious" talks about Iran's nuclear programme.Recently I suggested that Netanyahu was going to call snap elections this summer it order to get himself a sizable majority and to get rid of his difficult appendages like Avigdor Lieberman of Ysrael Beiteinu and Eli Yishai of Shas. And he was going to announce historic peace negotiations with Palestinians.
What he did was better and less risky. He convinced Kadima to join him now. Kadima had their reasons to do so (everyone expected Kadima to lose a lot of seats) but this is faster and involves no acrimonious electoral process.
My prediction was based on my running hypothesis that the current situation in the Middle East is a play put in motion to achieve some sort of peace and stability for a decade or so and the first leg it it would be the Palestinian statehood. This presumed coalition (albeit post elections) was one of the markers for my hypothesis and I am delighted that it came to pass on the first anniversary of this blog.
One more thing: Shaul Mofaz, the leader of Kadima is a former IDF Chief of Staff with solid national security credentials. He is no fool. He was also born in Teheran (though his parents are Isfahan Jews) and he opposes unilateral attacks on Iran.
Do you think he would have joined this coalition if Netanyahu was serious about striking Iran?
I took the news as a contrarian affirmation.
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