Israeli Elections

Tzipi Livni, head of the Kadima party, has been unable to form a coalition government. As such, she has declared the Israeli government insolvent and President Shimon Perez has called for early elections, which will likely be held in late January or early February. Essentially this means that Ehud Olmert will remain PM throughout the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency. Whether this means he will seize the initiative and go ahead with an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is unclear at this time. However, it removes some level of uncertainty and replaces it with a new type.

In all likelihood, Likud (right-wing party) will pick up seats at the expense of Kadima and possibly Labor as well. I’d look for the ultra-orthodox party of Shas to also pick up a reasonable number of seats and these two will likely form the main body of the next coalition government. This would return Benjamin Netanyahu to the PM slot that he held in the mid-90’s. Mr. Netanyahu is much more aggressive regarding Israeli security and if it looks like Likud and Shas will gain a large number of seats, we might expect the Arabs surrounding Israel to strike before being put on the defensive, no matter what Mr. Olmert does or does not do with regard to Iran.

Also note that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fallen ill and that Iran is strangely quiet at the moment. I think something is up and the smell of blood is in the air.