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RUSH: The Israeli election is today. They had kind of a shocking thing happen yesterday. Here’s what’s going on. Arabs are being bussed in to the polls to vote. Israel is surrounded by people that don’t want it to exist. Surrounded by people that would just as soon obliterate, not just the real estate, but the people who live there. And I would think everybody in Israeli knows it.

I don’t see, in a sane world, how Netanyahu’s opposition in any way even gets close to winning, but they might. It just goes to show — I don’t know whether you’re following the Israeli elections or not — the polls will close in Israel five o’clock our time. They’re open ’til ten o’clock in Israel — maybe it’s four o’clock Israel, five or six hours ahead. I’m not sure what they do on daylight time. But it’s either nine or ten o’clock tonight the polls close in Israel, and I don’t think there are any exit polls per se.


Did you know Obama has been helping Netanyahu’s opponent? Obama officials have been over in Israel helping to run and maybe even finance, to some extent, Netanyahu’s opposition. The opposition to Netanyahu are people who believe it’s okay that Iran gets the nuke and it’s okay that Obama negotiate the deal and we got nothing to fear if that happens. And, in fact, the Palestinians ought to have their state, and whatever anybody else wants us to do, we’re gonna do. And that side may actually win. It’s not just in this country where the world seems upside down.

It’s not just in the United States where things seem insane as you can readily tell what happened in Israel and what is happening. Netanyahu, absent ideology, Netanyahu ought to be a slam dunk, landslide winner, even without taking ideology into account. I mean, if you just vote on the security and future of Israel, there’s only one choice here — Netanyahu. The fact that this is even close boggles my mind. Actually it doesn’t because I’ve been around long enough to know the dangers of the left, and they’re everywhere. They’re not just here; they are everywhere. And they are as loony everywhere around the world as they are here.

Now, the opposition to Netanyahu, made up by Isaac Herzog — and he’d created a weird candidacy with another Israeli leftist by the name of Tzipi Livni. They formed an opposition party and they made a deal with each other that if they win, Herzog would serve two years and then quit and Tzipi would serve two years as prime minister. They would rotate it. Sort of a rotation type plan. The equivalent would be if Obama and Biden had promised that the first two years Obama will be president and the next two years Biden would do it.

The reason they did this was to try to coalesce opposition votes to Netanyahu. Rather than tear each other apart in a quasi-primary like, they joined forces for the express purpose of defeating Netanyahu. Well, something happened last night. Herzog dropped Tzipi Livni. She is gone. He dropped her from the ticket. They’d been running for the last number of months as a team in what’s called a rotation agreement. They actually have been running around calling it a buy one, get one free. If you ended up voting for the combined faction they make up two political parties, then they would win the most seats in the Knesset.

This is why they did it. They came together on a unity ticket just to beat Netanyahu. They couldn’t do it by themselves. They had to combine forces. They would have the most seats in the Knesset. And what happened was that Herzog had promised to serve as prime minister for two years, Tzipi Livni for the second two years, but Tzipi Livni is very unpopular. I’m not clearly up to speed as to the specifics of why Tzipi Livni is unpopular, but she is. And this whole rotation thing within the two parties was not something unanimously agreed upon and accepted.


It was with clenched teeth that the opposition parties went along with this thing. And as time has gone on and as the election remained in doubt, pressure was brought to bear to get rid of Tzipi Livni because she could end up being a drag on the ticket and a drag on turnout because of her unpopularity. But the problem is they’ve done this the day before election. There are allegations coming forth that this looks paranoid, that it looks like it lacks judgment, it looks like they’re not serious. Charges are going back and forth.

Netanyahu is accusing them of all those things that I have mentioned, and then they’re back and forth in accusing Netanyahu of the same. What’s at stake here is the United States’ deal with Iran, which would permit them to have a nuclear weapon. The Iranians have said that they hope, and someday want to, obliterate Israel and wipe it off the map. They’ve been very up front and honest about this. To me it is an indication of just how precariously civilization is balanced and is teetering here.

I realize it may be somewhat controversial to suggest that this election ought not even be close. To me, that’s common sense. I’m not even thinking of Netanyahu as conservative and these other people as leftist liberal socialists. I’m looking at this strictly from a security of Israel standpoint. I don’t know how anybody that lives over there could vote for anybody that might want to make a deal with Iran, that would permit them to have a nuclear weapon. But they exist, and there are lots of ’em, maybe. We’ll find out.

Also, a separate Palestinian state is part of this, and that’s something Netanyahu reaffirmed last night, that if he’s reelected, there will not be, on his watch, a separate entity Palestinian state.

Now, in the Israeli media this is being characterized as a last-minute Hail Mary to rally fringe right wingers in Israel. Obviously only fringe lunatics are opposed to a Palestinian state, you see. But this whole Middle East argument — I just watched a television series about this called The Honourable Woman. I don’t know how many of you have seen this. It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal. It’s a drama, and it’s a spy series, and it’s nothing more than entertainment. I’m not drawing any, “Hey, man, this happened in this movie and this is reminding me of what’s happening in the election.” None of that. I don’t do that.

Movies are total fiction to me, and TV shows are total fiction, and I try to avoid the trap of relating what I see on a TV show to real life, especially in terms of predicting what might happen in real life. But what this show ends up, the point that it ends up making is that no matter what anybody does, this mess never gets solved. No matter the best efforts that anybody has ever undertaken, the best plans anybody has ever come up with, the greatest negotiators, whatever, you make it the best talkers, the best negotiators, the best plan, it never, ever works, and it hasn’t worked in a thousand years.

This story is about an Israeli family that very industrially — cable, high fiber cable, try to link the West Bank for the Palestinian territories to show that they love the Palestinians and they want them to learn, they want them to be educated. And it doesn’t work. It all falls apart, everything gets undermined, as everything over there always does in the negotiated peace process. There never has been a negotiated peace over there, and there never will be. And this, to me, is common sense. It’s been thousands of years negotiated settlements have been attempted.


Clinton was desperate, you know, the Lewinsky thing had totally taken over and had become the central theme of the Clinton presidency. He was desperate for anything that would outshine that, make people forget that. He brought Yasser Arafat over to Camp David, White House, whatever, and ended up giving Yasser Arafat — I think with Ehud Barak was the Israeli prime minister at the time. It doesn’t matter who it was. Yasser Arafat was given everything the PLO demanded, everything that Fatah demanded, everything Arafat said he wanted, Clinton gave them.

And Arafat backed out, precisely because why? Arafat didn’t want a solution. What’s in it for anybody after there’s a solution here? The road to riches is paved with no solutions. The road to fame, riches, notoriety, all of that comes from the struggle. If there is no more struggle, if there’s no more disagreement, if there’s, quote, unquote, peace — that’s another elusive concept — then all these people fighting for it all of a sudden have nothing to do. It was very instructive. Clinton offered Arafat everything, and I think even threw in some goodies that Arafat hadn’t asked for. Arafat ran away, didn’t want any part of it.

So we’re left with what is the inescapable reality, and that is that Israel is surrounded by people who want it gone. Israel is surrounded by people who want the Jews marched into the Mediterranean or nuked or in some other fashion destroyed. That hasn’t changed. And how the people who live there, I don’t, I’ve only been there five days. I may be speaking out of school. But the idea the Israeli election is even close — I understand how elections go. I understand elections may not at all represent public opinion. I mean, they’re busing people to the polling places, the leftist candidates are busing people in to vote. They have no idea what they’re voting on, probably never voted before. I understand how all this works.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not being naive here. I’m just still stunned that according to the pre-election polling data that it’s this close. I mean, I try to think, what if the United States were the size of New Jersey and every other state surrounding us hated our guts just because we are alive, and had hated our guts for the last 230 years, and had made no bones about the fact that they wish we weren’t there and that they want New Jersey for themselves because it’s theirs. We don’t even have any right to it.

They gave us New Jersey way back when because they said we were entitled to our own state. The people that disagreed with that have disagreed with it ever since it happened and they want to wipe us out. So we got an election in New Jersey for whoever’s gonna run the show. And one of the candidates thinks we can make peace with the 47 other states that want to wipe us out. I don’t think that candidate would have a prayer. But he would. Because the left lives in eternal devotion to the never and impossible dream of utopia.

They believe that if the right people come along, good people like them, and simply treat these hatemongers the right way, that they can rid the haters of their hate and turn them into massive amounts of love and appreciation, and it just never happens. Conflicts such as this have never been solved with words. Ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force. So we will see. It’s quite interesting. It’s fascinating and it does have ramifications for US policy, and also, don’t forget, the Regime, the Obama administration has been over there campaigning for Netanyahu’s opponent.

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RUSH: No, no. The TV show is The Honourable Woman. It’s a great spy thriller. It happens to be about the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I’m not recommending it ’cause there’s anything to learn about that, other than the utter futility of trying to solve this conflict with good works. Ain’t gonna happen. The TV series illustrates that, but it’s just a great spy thriller, BBC.

The story is fascinating and if you want to try to relate it to real-world events, feel free. I’m just telling you that the conclusion the program came to, which is the common sense one, is that no matter what you do, the good works, all the effort in the world, all the sabotage, everybody that tries great things end up being undermined, and it always fails. And not because of lack of effort, not because people involved aren’t good people.

It’s just that this kind of conflict is never, ever gonna be solved with an agreement. Just like World War II was not gonna be solved with an agreement. You get the agreement after one side surrenders, and there’s only one way to make that happen is if you beat them in war. And that, of course, can’t even have that on the table. No, no, no, no, no. Not even gonna go there. So the utter futility. I’m just amazed at everything and how it keeps repeating itself. Different people saying the same things, different people doing the same things, different people proposing the same things, different people, depending on the year, the generation, different people concocting a new variation of an old idea.

It never works and it’s not even based on reality. The reality over here is Iran and what their intentions are with their nuclear weapons. And they’ve said so. So the decision, I guess, is, do you believe them, or do you roll the dice and say they’re just huffing and puffing? At any rate, Reuters has a story on this today, and the headline: “‘King Bibi’s’ Reign Challenged in Israeli Election.” Do you know how many Arabs live and vote in Israel?

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RUSH: I was in Israel in 1993 for five days. I’ve not been back. But I’ll tell you, one of the things that surprised me was the high population percentage of Arabs that live and vote in Israel. I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did. As of January of this year, just a couple of months ago, the number of Arabs living in Israel is 1.7 million. That’s 20% of the country’s population. And the women can vote and the women can drive. The women, the Arab females in Israel have much more freedom than they have in their own native countries.

But that’s where the anti-Netanyahu vote is. I don’t know what percentage of that 1.7 million Arab population is of voting age, but it’s sizable, and that’s the constituency that’s being bused to the polls today to vote against Netanyahu. So we’ll just have to see. Netanyahu, of course, as a conservative is hated and reviled, as this piece in Reuters so clearly illustrates.

“‘King Bibi’s’ Reign Challenged in Israeli Election — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s march towards becoming the longest-serving leader of Israel could be halted on Tuesday in an election that has exposed public fatigue with his stress on national security rather than socio-economic problems.”

What an unbiased headline and lead paragraph that is. King Bibi. Imagine the uproar if Obama were referred to as a king by Reuters. King Obama. King Obama’s reign challenged by senator’s letter to Iranian mullahs. Can you imagine what the reaction would be to a headline like that? King Obama’s reign challenged by traitorous 47 Republican senators and their letter to the Iranian mullahs.

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RUSH: The point here is that whenever the leftists are left to their own devices, they bomb royally, such as on MSNBC trying to compete with Fox, or in defending actions that Obama is taking here. And Reuters: “‘King Bibi’s’ Reign Challenged in Israeli Election — Surging rhetoric against Iran and the Palestinians has apparently done little to close Netanyahu’s lag behind center-left opponent Isaac Herzog.”

There’s nothing center about Isaac Herzog. He’s as leftist as Obama is. There’s nothing centrist about the opposition candidate in Israel. So, anyway, we’ll just keep a sharp eye on this here, folks, and what I’m thinking, my sincere hope — and it is a hope — is that the polling data on this is so skewed and that we’re gonna have a result tonight that really isn’t even close. But since we got representatives of the Obama administration over there, and since a large percentage of the Arab population is being bused to the polls, it’s impossible to tell and to get a good read on it.

But it does matter, because what’s at stake here is the American nuclear deal with Iran. Well, more than that’s at stake. The actual, I think, future of Israel is on the table here, too, which is what boggles the mind. I don’t even understand why it’s close, but it is.

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RUSH: Here’s Karen in Canton, Georgia, as we start on the phones. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet. Glad you’re here.

CALLER: Okay, thank you. Longtime listener. I think Bibi is going to win because rationale people are gonna come out and vote for him. The conservatives are going to march to the polls. Anybody that’s 25 and older that knows what’s been going on there are gonna go into that booth like we all do and at times we change our mind and say, “Hey, this may not be the right way to go so we’re gonna vote conservative.”

RUSH: So that’s just what your heart is telling you?

CALLER: Yes. Hm-hm.

RUSH: My heart told me the same thing in 2008 and 2012. It did! Especially 2012. In 2012 I believed it all. I thought we had won that. I thought we were gonna win that election. My heart told me that the country had awakened and seen the foibles of Obama, that Romney’s appearances were drawing mega crowds, overflow crowds. I thought we were in the tank. I thought it was over. And I didn’t believe the polls that showed Romney losing by six points ’cause my heart said, not possible.

CALLER: Well, with this situation, though, Rush, you know, the people are gonna have to understand that their very survival is on the line.

RUSH: I’m telling you, half of that country doesn’t seem to think that. Half of that country either doesn’t agree with that, doesn’t think that, or isn’t worried about it. Same thing here. This is my point. You’re making a fatal mistake here. Not your fault. You are attacking this rationally and you are talking about irrational people. It’s impossible to predict irrational people. You just can’t do it. Well, not true. You actually can predict irrational people if you have enough data on their irrationality.

That’s why I’m telling you, I agree, it ought to be a slam dunk. The leftist candidate ought not even have a prayer in the world of common sense and sanity. But we don’t live in that world anymore, at least not right now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One other thing about Israel, the elections today, and it is about the Arab population, and there’s no question that the Arab population, if it holds true to form in the past, the Arab population will be a factor.

According to the Daily Beast: “Seventy-five percent of the Arab population in Israel participated in the 1999 election that swept Labor’s Ehud Barak to the premiership.” It was a disaster, but nevertheless he won. This is a huge percentage. The Arab population of 1.7 million Arabs living, working, breathing, enjoying total free democracy in Israel, it’s stunning. It would be one of the things, if you ever go to Israel, if you’ve never been, it would stand out how many Arabs there are.

You’ve been told the Arabs hate the Jews. You’ve been told the Arabs hate Israelis. You’ve been told all this, and you see them walking around with full-fledged rights. They’ve got access to everything anybody else has in Israel — water, food, they vote. They’ve got more freedom and democracy in Israel than in many of their home countries. It’ll shock you. If you arrive in Israel and all you know is the conventional wisdom story that the Arabs hate the Jews and the Jews hate the Arabs, you’re gonna be stunned, or you would be.

The Arab population of 1.7 million in Israel today and back in ’99 75% of that population showed up to vote and they secured victory for Ehud Barak. That’s an amazing turnout, folks. So I imagine they used the equivalent of busing, it may in fact be busing. Now, in the 2009 elections that Netanyahu won, the Arab turnout was 53%, 53% versus 75% back in 1999. That’s not much to go on. It’s a widespread date range there, but it does illustrate the impact that the Arab population has on Israeli elections.

And I guarantee you, just once again, people that only know Israel and the Middle East by virtue of watching Drive-By Media coverage would be shocked and stunned at the number of Arabs living peacefully within the confines of Israel in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv.

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RUSH: This is Harry in New York City. I’m glad you waited, Harry. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to speak to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I just wanted to go back to your initial comments about the Israeli elections.

RUSH: Oh, yes.

CALLER: Yeah. You had spoken about Tzipi Livni. It’s pronounced Tzipi, but I think you have it right, ’cause she’s a zip.

RUSH: Wait a minute. You’re saying I mispronounced her name?

CALLER: Her name is Tzipi but you pronounce it Tzipi, which is perfect because that’s what she is, zip, zero, nada.

RUSH: It’s T-z-i-p-i, I thought was Tzipi.

CALLER: It’s okay. I just wanted to shed some light, if I can. She’s been in the corridors of power for a while now of these —

RUSH: Oh, I know who she is, I know who she is.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: I think the reason why they dropped her is because the woman has no principles. I mean, she started off as a member of the Likud party. She was a right winger at one point —

RUSH: I know, that’s what I used to like her.

CALLER: Right. In the last ten years she’s gone continually left. I think she was the foreign minister. Basically she went with Ari Sharon when he gave back Gaza, and we know how good that turned out.

RUSH: Well, she has been, if her name is Tzipi I’ll pronounce — Tzipi. I’m deaf so I don’t hear names pronounced, I only read them, so I was literal in this case. I didn’t mean to insult her by calling her Tzipi. I wasn’t. If it’s Tzipi, Tzipi, fine.

Anyway, she has been touted as a potential prime minister for years over there. The reason she was dropped from this rotation arrangement is because her negative numbers have skyrocketed, and also because this guy Herzog, there’s no way he’s gonna give up the prime ministership after two years if he wins it. That was all a ruse from the get-go.

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