There’s another electoral crisis in the world. In Israel, the Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak resigned on Saturday to give himself a clean shot at running again in February — without having to face his Likud rival Bibi Netanyahu. Barak took advantage of an election law that says only Knesset members can be candidates. But out of exile yesterday, Netanyahu declared himself a candidate for Prime Minister and asked the Israeli parliament to wave him into the race. This could be worse than the chad crisis in America — a legal battle to test Israel’s 50 year young democracy….
Ehud Barak was the peace candidate a year and a half ago. He buried Netanyahu on the promise of an accord with the Palestinians. Seventeen months later there’s a new Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza, Bill Clinton is leaving Washington and peace is no where in sight. Barak’s Gamble is this hour on the Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Gershom Gorenberg, senior editor for The Jerusalem Report and author of “The End of Days:Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount”
and Lee Hochstater, Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post.