Bob McCarty Writes

Benjamin Netanyahu

Few statements are more true than the one made in the headline which appeared above Con Coughlin’s blog post published today:  Israeli elections hang in the balance.  It’s the details, however, that paint a vivid picture of what’s at stake.

According to the Foreign Policy section of the White House web site, President Barack Obama wants to divide Israel into two states:

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Obama and Biden will make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key diplomatic priority from day one. They will make a sustained push — working with Israelis and Palestinians — to achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security.

If, however, Likud Party Chairman Benjamin Netanyanu wins the election and becomes Israel’s next prime minister, according to Coughlin, there is little doubt that he will form a government that leans heavily to the right, and would bitterly resist any attempts by the Obama Administration to pressure Israel into trading land for peace with the Palestinians.

Now, the good news: According to several news reports, including this one from Reuters and this one from the Los Angeles Times, Netanyahu leads in the polls over Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the Kadima Party candidate who Netanyahu says will cede territory in the Golan Heights and elsewhere.

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UPDATE 2/10/09 at 5:55 p.m. Central: The Jerusalem Post reports that both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s Kadima party and Binyamin Netanyahu’s opposition Likud styled themselves the winners of Tuesday’s elections, after exit polls broadcast on the three teleivsion networks showed Kadima would be the largest party in the new Knesset, but the Likud-led right-wing would constitute the larger bloc. More here…