Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Wondering What Yesterday's Elections in Israel Mean for Peace?

Today from Isaac Luria of JStreet ---

("an organization founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region." Read more: http://www.jstreet.org/about/about-us)

Israelis went to the polls yesterday, and - if you're like me - you've got more questions than answers after reading coverage of the results.

Preliminary returns give Kadima and its leader Tzipi Livni more seats in Parliament than any other party, yet the right, led by Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud Party, has a larger bloc of seats.
But major questions remain.

Who will Israeli President Shimon Peres ask to form a government and what sort of a government will it be? What are the implications of the election for the peace process and for the U.S.-Israel relationship? What does the strong showing of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party mean for Israel and the region?

I posed these and other questions to renowned Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar this morning - and recorded our conversation for you to listen to.
Click here to listen to the interview.

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