Yes, yes, as it was expected, Ariel Sharon's Kadima won the the majority in the elections yesterday with 28 of the possible 120 seats in Parliment. Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (a guy I've never heard of) speaking to members of Kadima said in his victory speech: "In the coming period we will move to set the final borders of the state of Israel, a Jewish state with a Jewish majority," and "We will try to achieve this in an agreement with the Palestinians. This is our hope and prayer."

But of course, this IS the party founded by Ariel Sharon, so, something tells me the bulldozing and assassinations won't be stopping any time soon.

Anyways, I guess there's some light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, they say they're willing to negotiate, which is a good thing, if only I am a bit skepticle because they haven't actually negotiated with the Palestinians since the mid-ninties when Arafat was in charge.

Somehow the idea of ultra extreme Hamas and "centrist" Kadima(in other words, a balance of murder and socialism.... just like the Republican Party)seems pretty implausible if you ask me. Hamas wants Israel, in their words, "dead" so, I assume it's gonna be kinda hard to negotiate with them.

Now do I like Kadima? No, not really. To be honest with you, I don't like any of the Israeli parties. For that matter, I don't like Hamas either.

I think the people in Palestine were just fed up with the Fatah party and their blatant corruption that they went with the ole standby of religion. Now, I know better.

I'm a secularist, so any "Islamist" party is unlikely to get me excited. Especially because Hamas holds a socialist view of the government and seem to think they are justified in meddling inside people's private lives for whatever reason.

And then they justify their actions with vague hadiths and obscure scholars, claiming anyone who disagrees with them is a puppet of the West or a heretic. See, that's the part I don't like.

I'm pretty much what they would call a "Classical Liberal" in the vein of Jefferson, Locke and Paine so I am as suspicious and misanthropical on this new Hamas led government as I can be.

But why would the Palestinians vote for them? As I mentioned before, I think the people in Palestine are fed up with endless bloviating and babbling that the Fatah has been doing for the past 20 years. Hamas seemed like a fresh start to them, and what with their strategy of calling anyone who opposed them sell-outs, they managed to become the punk rockers of the Palestinian political scene.

And like the punks, they'll wear out people's patience in about 3 years. That or they'll sign to CBS records. Either way is bad.

Right, I've gone off topic. Ermm... where was I? Oh yeah, Kadima, the "centrists" won the elections. Although they don't have a clear majority, they are likely to get at least some support. (graph was stolen from the BBC)

Anyways, only 62.3% of elegible voters turned up to the polls, which means soon enough Israel will turn into the US as far as voter turnout is concerned.

So yeah, this pretty much means more of the same in Israel, and because the politics in Israel affect the rest of the Middle East, and the politics in the Middle East affects the rest of the world, we can expect more of the same kinda stuff that's happening now (that is, car bombs, Islamophobia, assassinations, anti-semitism/anti-Americanism, hostage taking, gas shortage and air strikes... what a wonderful world)