It seems the last-minute demagoguery saved Israeli Prime Minister and Republican Senator from West Jerusalem, the odious Bibi "Bomb Bomb" Netanyahu's tuchas:
Benjamin Netanyahu was poised to return to power. But there was a cloud over his apparent turnaround, the result of an increasingly shrill campaign that raised questions about his ability to heal Israel’s internal wounds or better its standing in the world.
He said there would be no Palestinian state under his watch.
He railed against Israeli Arabs — because they had gone out to vote.
From the capitals of Europe, to Washington, to the West Bank, to the streets of Israel, even while his critics said Mr. Netanyahu had reaffirmed his reputation as a cynical, calculating politician, it appeared that his approach succeeded in drawing votes from other right-leaning parties.
But along the way he angered the president of the United States with a speech to Congress and infuriated European leaders eager to see the peace process move ahead to create a Palestinian state.Proving the United States doesn't have a monopoly on Nixonian politicians or on intemperate, foolish voters. Please refer to Galatians 6: 7-9.
BONUS: Jonathan Alter says it all: "Netanyahu wins, Israel loses":
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu won a big election Tuesday, but he won ugly by staking out a new position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is likely to harm his nation in the months ahead.
A reckoning is coming—faster than expected—for Netanyahu, his Likud Party and maybe even for the State of Israel itself.BONUS II: Bibi Bomb Bomb sent this message out on election day: "Right-wing rule is in danger. Arab voters are streaming in huge quantities to the polling stations." Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic has this to say about Bibi Bomb Bomb's demagoguery (emphasis added):
"In the past, I imagined him fitting in with the fiscally conservative, rhetorically responsible, socially tolerant, foreign-policy hawkish wing of the [Republican] party. What I didn't fully understand was just how much of Lee Atwater he had in him. Atwater, you'll remember, was the South Carolina Republican operative who was one of the prime innovators of racial dog-whistling, an approach used by a good number of Republicans to instill fear in white voters."
