Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (9001)	5/19/1999 1:53:00 AM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 17770

Yaacov, an interesting turn of events: Featured Story The Battle Begins for Barak By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, May 19, 1999; Page A24 JERUSALEM, May 18 – For Ehud Barak, the honeymoon was over by morning. After trouncing Binyamin Netanyahu in Monday's election for Israeli prime minister, the Labor Party leader came under intense pressure today from the country's two main warring factions – ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews. Each wants to be included in his government, to the exclusion of the other. Barak has promised to assemble a broad government that would heal the secular-religious rift, which had grown more bitter under Netanyahu, and more venomous yet during the election campaign... ...In Israel, it's a complex job to put together a workable governing coalition that can gain the support of a majority of the parliament, or Knesset. The issue for Barak is how to fulfill his promises to soothe the seething antagonism between religious and secular Jews; each group has declared that it will not sit in a government with the other. Barak, who won a large percentage of the secular vote, could form a relatively narrow center-left government excluding the large ultra-Orthodox bloc. But Israeli governments that have gotten by with such slender majorities, including Netanyahu's, proved unstable and susceptible to blackmail by smaller parties with narrow interests. Otherwise, he could ask Netanyahu's hawkish Likud party to join a coalition, but that could invite trouble if Barak seeks further territorial compromises with the Palestinians... ...Said Tom Segev, a historian and journalist for Haaretz: "The struggle over the basic values of society doesn't change with Barak. It may even get worse." Secular Israelis voted heavily for parties that have vowed to fight the growing influence of the ultra-Orthodox. The most assertively secular parties won 15 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, up from 10. At the same time, the ultra-Orthodox parties were the other big winners, increasing their seats in the Knesset to 22 from 14. Today, secular Israelis who voted in droves for Barak bombarded his offices with faxes and phone calls pleading with him to exclude the ultra-Orthodox religious parties from the new government he must form before July. Meanwhile, the ultra-Orthodox parties made it clear they expect to be included. The biggest one, Shas, is the third-largest party in Israel and by far the fastest growing. It gained seven seats in the Knesset, largely at the expense of Netanyahu's crumbling Likud, and will have a total of 17. Much of its increased support came from the poor towns of Israel's southern Negev desert, where unemployment is sharply higher than the national figure of about 8 percent...... washingtonpost.com