The Israeli elections, Part Two

My post from late last night about a possible Obama effect on the Israeli elections, now set for early next year, contained a factual error regarding the chronology of past U.S. meddling. You can read the original post with the correction here.

My apologies for the error and my thanks to P. David Hornik for calling it to my attention.

UPDATE: Noah Pollak emails to suggest that the “Obama effect” on the Israeli election could go either way:

One school of thought holds that an Obama victory would help Livni, because Israelis would want their leader to be seen as being in harmony with America’s leader. But the other school of thought is that an Obama victory would push Israelis to Bibi [Netanyahu] because they would trust him to hold the line against any dangerous creative thinking emanating from Washington.

Both scenarios are plausible. My guess, as I tried to say last night, is that Obama’s early steps will be reassuring to the Israeli public (e.g., no public reemergence of Samantha Power) and that the Israelis will want to keep him happy.

However, I do know a few Israelis who normally would never vote for Netanyahu, but who distrust Obama enough possibly to consider doing so.

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