There were multiple winners of the Israeli elections and there were multiple losers of the Israeli elections.

The winners were Ariel Sharon, Amram Mitzne and Yose Beillin.

Sharon wanted to double the strength of the Likud in the Knesset. He did just that – from 19 to 38 so that he could lead the country into either war or peace with a clear mandate to lead.

Mitzne wanted to lead a small, compact Labor Party based on a new concept for the negotiation process: Unilateral Withdrawal and Surrender of Territory, instead of abiding by the reciprocity principles of the Oslo process, in coordination with the western nations Mitzne has an assortment of MK’s with strong international connections, beginning with Shimon Peres.

Yuli Tamir, the titular head of Peace Now, which succeeded in raising more than $2.2 million per annum from abroad and which has recently launched a campaign in the US to demand that US aid to Israel be predicated on Israeli dismantling of Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria. Katif and the Golan, and that US AID funds be deducted for any and all expenses incurred in “settlement activity”. See the website of Americans for Peace Now for further info on that campaign.

Rav Michael Melchior, who as the chief Rabbi of Norway maintains contacts with Scandanavian governments that continue to pour funds into Israeli peace groups. Michael’s father, Rav Bent Melchior, in Denmark, has joined Herbert Pundak’s efforts in Denmark to fund TAYOUSH, and organization that works towards the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from beyond the 1949/67 lines. Herbert Pundak is the father of Ron Pundak, the head of the Shimon Peres Center for Peace. As the head of the Israel government commission on anti-semitism, Melchior established useful international connections with all Jewish organizations.

Yitzhak Herzog, the Barak cabinet secretary who was the legal counsel to the Peres Center and who in the past raised funds through the Kahanoff and Evergreen Foundations in Canada, both of which are connected to his cousin, Shira Herzog Working with Tamir, Melchior, and Herzog, Mitzne can work with Peres to raise a war chest for the next election campaign. which can also finance effective work with the media.

Yose Beillin is the other winner of this campaign. He maneuvered his way out of a Knesset seat by accepting an unrealistic position in Meretz and will now be able to organize his EU-funded operation without any pretenses of accountability to the Israeli electorate.

The losers of this campaign are Natan Scharansky, Yose Sarid and the Oslo process:

Scharansky tried to be all things to all people. He played hard line while his record at the Wye conference in October 1998 showed that he was part of the Israeli negotiating team that unliterally sacrificed much of Israel’s sovereignty to the US. He appealed to religious audiences while at the same time ran a political party that endorsed opening of businesses and public transportation on Shabbat. Meanwhile, he asked the government of Israel to recognize Jewish status of non-Jews.

Sarid became obsolete, parroting slogans of the Oslo process that no longer had any meaning, while his sardonic attacks on Israel’s religious community were overshadowed by the direct attacks of years to come.

The Oslo Process died in these elections. The 12 MK’s of Meretz and the 44 MK’s of Labor (1992-1996) had proven to be a winning formula for Rabin. These two parties now constitute only 25 MK’s, less than half of what it took to advance the Oslo process accords of 1993-1995.

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.