The leader of Kadima has recently halted efforts to form a coalition government and it appears Israel is again headed to early elections. The most recent conventional wisdom was that if such an election were to take place in the near term the Likud under Netanyahu would easily win power.
However, a recent poll has now shown new strength for Kadima and Livni. While my personal preference would be for an outright Labor election that does not appear to be in the cards. However, it does now seem more hopeful that perhaps at least a Labor/Kadima coalition may have enough new political capital to form a coalition:
A poll by the Dahaf Research Institute showed Livni's Kadima Party winning 29, the same number it has now, and Netanyahu's Likud taking 26 if elections were held today. A TNS Teleseker survey gave Kadima 31 seats to Likud's 29.
The Dahaf poll of 500 people had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. The TNS survey of more than 900 people put the maximum margin of error at two parliamentary seats.
And given Netanyahu's stated positions regarding peace:
He said that if elected, Israel would keep "defensible borders," and he pledged to retain the Golan Heights. That refusal would make an Israel-Syria agreement impossible. Israel captured the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, in the 1967 Mideast war.
Netanyahu also said Israel would have to keep large swaths of the West Bank as part of any agreement with the Palestinians, and that all of Jerusalem will remain in Israel's hands.
"We will not negotiate over Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people for the past 3,000 years. I didn't do it in the past and I won't do it in the future," said Netanyahu, who was prime minister in the late 1990s.
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Netanyahu also said no Palestinian refugees would be allowed into Israel under any deal.
We can only hope and pray the progressives in Israel can elect leaders that seek peace rather than war.