Saudi Arabia’s dictator is endorsing the Labor candidate, Amir Peretz, in the upcoming elections. That sound you hear? It’s the death knell of the left and the right in Israel, as Labor and Likud are showing themselves to be out of touch with the mainstream.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah said new Labor Party leader Amir Peretz may help unite Israel’s peace camp and lead to progress in talks with the Palestinians, the official Saudi Press Agency said on Monday.
“I want to give more chance to the peace process, and the emergence of Amir Peretz as the leader of the Israeli Labor Party may pave the way for a breakthrough and lead to unification of the dispersed peace camp in Israel,” SPA quoted Abdullah as telling journalists on Saturday.
Peretz has pledged to restart talks with Palestinians if Labor wins, and has hinted at sweeping Israeli withdrawals from settlements in the West Bank, mirroring Israel’s recent pullback from Gaza.
A 2002 Arab peace offer, proposed by Abdullah and rejected by Israel, offered Israel peace and normal relations with Arab countries in return for withdrawal to the borders as they stood on the eve of the Middle East War of 1967.
Luckily for Israel, I’m thinking they’re going to go with someone that Abdullah doesn’t like.
However, I doubt that the Israeli press will give much publicity to this endorsemewnt. The Israeli media are worse than the US media in pushing their agenda.
Actually this may be a move designed to shore up Labor. Shimon Peres has proven to be a jinx whenever he has run. He inherited the position of Prime Minister twice and lost both times he tried to run as an “incumbant”.
Note that in the Haaretz piece that you link to, they tried to bury the endorsement at the bottom.
Since it followed the long set of writing about Shimon Peres, they probably figured that everyone would be too bored to reach it.
[insert sound of blogger frantically calling all her Israeli friends at 3 a.m. their time to see who the hell they’re voting for]
Was that 2002 “peace offer” from Saudi Arabia the one they made the same week they said Jews use the blood of children in religious rituals?
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