-Caveat Lector-
Sharon wins landslide victory in Israeli
election
Barak to leave politics
February 6, 2001
Web posted at: 10:14 p.m. EST
(0314 GMT)
In this story:
Barak resigns as Labor leader
'God help the Palestinians and
Israelis'
Winner must balance Knesset factions
Bush calls Sharon with congratulations
From staff and wire reports
TEL AVIV, Israel -- Ariel Sharon now must assemble a new
government after his overwhelming victory over incumbent Ehud
Barak in Tuesday's special election for prime minister.
In his victory speech, Sharon said Israel
was embarking on a new path of
"security and true peace," reinforcing
his campaign message that he will
provide security for Israel while
continuing to negotiate peace with the
Palestinians.
The ex-general, nicknamed "The
Bulldozer," gave his victory speech
three hours after Israeli TV exit polls
projected his landslide victory. It was a
stunning comeback for the 72-year-old
Likud party leader, whose election was
once thought nearly impossible. His
supporters danced with joy while
shouts of "The end of Oslo!" were
heard, referring to the interim peace
accord that Sharon opposed. (More on
Sharon's victory speech)
Barak resigns as Labor leader
With 90.6 percent of the vote counted,
Sharon led Barak, 62.1 percent to 37.8
percent, which outstripped even the
initial exit poll projections by Israeli
television.
The vote was a stinging rebuke of
Barak, who conceded defeat an hour
after the exit polls were released. He
also surprised his supporters by saying
he would resign his seat in the Knesset,
Israel's parliament, step down as head
of the Labor Party as soon as a new
government was formed and retire from
politics for now.
But Barak said his pursuit of peace with
the Palestinians was the "one and only
true path" and that his government was
ahead of its time.
"Friends, we have lost a battle but we
will win the war," the 58-year-old Barak
said. (More on Barak's concession
speech)
Many Israelis were turned off by both
candidates and their disgust was
reflected in the turnout, estimated by
Israeli election officials to be around 62
percent of the 4.5 million eligible voters.
That is a sharp drop from the 1999
election turnout of 78.7 percent.
Israel's voting average of close to 80
percent is among the democratic
world's highest.
Arab Israelis, traditionally supporters of
Barak's Labor Party, apparently
boycotted the election as voter turnout
was low throughout all Israeli Arab
villages, according to the Israeli-Arab
Center for Equality. Arab Israelis were
angered by the fatal shooting of 13
Israeli Arabs by police during riots in
October.
Winner must balance Knesset
factions
Once official results are announced on
February 13, Sharon will have 45 days
to form a new government. Barak
remains prime minister in a caretaker
role until Sharon assumes office.
Sharon also must work with a deeply
divided Knesset whose members did
not face Tuesday's election, which was
the first in which Israeli voters elected
only the prime minister.
His first big hurdle will be passing the
2001 budget, which must be approved
by the Knesset by March 31. If that
deadline passes without a budget, new
elections would be called for both the
parliament and the prime minister.
After he won, Sharon telephoned Barak
on Tuesday and urged him to join a
government of national unity. Barak did
not rule the option out but said a unity
government could only be formed if
Labor and Likud worked out their
differences on how to proceed in the
peace talks with the Palestinians.
Sharon's natural allies in the Knesset,
the right-wing and religious parties, do
not command a majority, so Sharon will
need the help of members of Barak's
coalition to govern.
'God help the Palestinians
and Israelis'
Palestinians declared a "day of rage" on
Tuesday, and dozens of Palestinians
were hurt in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
Sharon has taken a hard-line approach to peace talks with the
Palestinians. He has said that concessions made by Barak will be
off the table and pledged in his victory speech to "strengthen
and build the united Jerusalem, Israel's capital and the capital of
the Jewish people for all eternity." The status of Jerusalem has
been one of the main sticking points in the peace talks, as
Palestinians consider the city to be their capital, as well.
Palestinians pledged to work with Sharon but their promise was
tinged with a warning that Palestinians will not move backward in
the peace talks.
"If he comes to us and he wants to take us to eat the apple
from the beginning, to go back to the zero point, I'm afraid that
we will not have a peace process anymore," chief Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erakat told CNN. "I'm afraid that I would say
'God help the Palestinians and Israelis,' because to have a
meaningful peace process means that we will continue where we
left off."
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat reacted to the news
with caution, urging the continuance of a peace partnership with
a Sharon government "not only on the Palestinian track (but)
the Lebanese track and the Syrian track so that we can have a
new Middle East."
Many Palestinians hate Sharon, dating back to his role in the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which took place when he was
defense minister. An Israeli judicial commission in 1983 found
Sharon to be indirectly responsible for the massacre of the
Palestinians in the camps by Christian militiamen allied with Israel.
Sharon was forced to resign. (More on the Palestinian reaction to
Sharon's victory)
Bush calls Sharon with
congratulations
Sharon said he had received a call
from U.S. President George W. Bush
congratulating him. The American
leader reportedly said how
remarkable it was that he had been
elected president and Sharon had
been elected prime minister.
Bush and U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell have been speaking with
U.S. allies in the Middle East, urging
restraint. But Powell acknowledged
the U.S. can do little else but simply
encourage the region to remain calm.
"As a practical matter that is pretty much all we can do right
now, and hope that the leaders in the region recognize the
absolute importance in controlling the passions and controlling
the emotions," he said. "If they do that and if they give the next
Israeli government time to establish its policies then good things
will flow from that besides just jawboning." (More on U.S.
reaction)
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
2/6/01
Question - How do you know when Christiane Amanpour of CNN is lying?
Answer - Her lips are moving.
I have been watching the " CFR News Hour " with Jim Lehrer, and Crossfire
on CNN as well as CNN's world news program with Wolf Blitzer.
It appears that the spin is on regarding the Israeli election of Sharon to
the position of Prime Minister. This by a landslide vote bolstered by
citizens who voted for Labor's Barak and the peace process.
The spin is as follows... Israelis didn't vote FOR Sharon, they voted AGAINST
Barak. They didn't vote AGAINST Oslo, they voted AGAINST Barak.
Why are they doing this? Because they will not admit that the policies of
the international elites who fashioned Oslo for the Middle East are not only
abject failures, they have resulted in producing a situation far more dangerous
and uncontrollable than the situation they attempted to " fix " ten years ago.
The region is about to explode because of their stupidity, and they are making
believe that the choice of the Israeli electorate is nothing more than politics
as consumerist choice, and that the election was NOT a referendum on peace with
the Palestinians.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Five. Count them Shamir, Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu, and Barak have been brought
down by this phony internationalist led peace process. They were aech seduced
and abandoned by the promises of joining the ' players ' in the New World Order.
They got screwed. They got what they deserved. Peace was not the goal. Just the
excuse for pacification of the Palestinians in order to establish a regional
economic zone. They were each political whores.
The stupidity and corruption of the Palestinian leadership has put Sharon into
power. The completely idiotic decision to pressure Israel by starting the
" Aqsa Intifada " to wrench concessions from a coerced Barak has shown the
Israelis that 1- The Palestinians can't be trusted to keep it together if things
don't go their way, and 2- That Israeli Arabs are not really citizens of the
same country as they, but a fifth column of Palestinians.
The pretenses on all sides are now over. Except in the media.
There will be no peace in the Middle East. The Palestinians behaved as if they
and the Israelis were equals. This was a huge mistake because it is simply not
true. Israel has the 5th or 6th most powerful military in the world, and
the Palestinians have smuggled in enough weapons to get themselves annihilated.
What hubris! What stupidity! You don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
The Oslo Elites picked Yassir Arafat to deal with as the leader for the
Palestinians. That should have been a warning from the beginning. A corrupt,
evil, murderous loser who never did ANYTHING which benefited his people.
Why the Palestinians accepted his leadership is beyond me. They could have
chosen others. But once again, they will pay for following the stupidity of
their leaders as they did in 1948 when they, at the urging of their elites
REJECTED the partition of Palestine and decided to drive the Jews into the
sea becuase they thought they could.
Now they BEG for those same resolutions. Well now they have blown it all.
The peace process is dead and good riddance to it. It was a fraud and a sham.
The Israeli population will now deal with Palestinian violence in the only
way that makes a lasting impression. Overwhelming force. And, they will not
pay much attention to world opinion. Ariel Sharon spoke for all of them when
he said " It doesn't matter what we do, the world is against us."
They have circled the wagons.
The world is now a much more dangerous place for all of us.
It didn't have to be this way.
Never, ever, trust your elites.
Joshua2
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