Palestinians fear for peace process after Israeli vote

RAMALLAH, West Bank, (AFP) - Faced with a possible right-wing Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority is bracing for its tottering peace talks with the Jewish state to halt completely.
"It is obvious that Israel will not get a government capable of continuing the negotiations," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
"These elections have complicated the political situation in the region," Abed Rabbo told AFP.
"It's obvious the Israelis have voted to paralyse the peace process," senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
"The outcome of the Israeli elections indicates there won't be in Israel a government capable of doing what is needed to achieve peace."
Fawzi Barhum, a spokesman for the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza, said Israelis had voted for "extremists."
"These results confirm that the Israeli public has voted for the most bellicose candidates, those who are the most extremist in their rhetoric," he said.
"The arrival of the Livni-Netanyahu-Lieberman trio confirms that the terrorist culture dominates Israeli voters."
Meanwhile, Israel's electoral lurch to the right throws cold water on US President Barack Obama's push to keep Middle East peace hopes alive and shore up US interests in the region, experts said Wednesday.
"The election results are bad news for the region's security and stability," said Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans for Peace Now.
"They are very bad news for the Obama administration, which seems determined to push for Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace," he added in a statement sent by e-mail.
Meanwhile, Arab newspapers and analysts voiced pessimism on Wednesday about Israel's indecisive election, with many voicing fears that the real winner was the extreme-right wing party of Avigdor Lieberman.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima won 28 seats in the 120-seat parliament, well short of a majority, and just one seat more than hawkish ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party amid a resurgence of the right.
"How is it possible that a society aspiring to peace can give a fascist like this such broad support, giving him the possibility of one day becoming prime minister of Israel?" Egypt's state-owned Al-Ahram daily wrote of Lieberman.
Opinions of Netanyahu, who has campaigned as a security hardliner pledging to topple the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, are little better.
"For those who don't know him, Benjamin Netanyahu feels the Arabs only understand the language of violence," Egypt's state-owned Al-Gomhuriya wrote.
"Simply put ... if the peace process is encountering obstacles at the moment ... with Netanyahu it will be hindered by several thousand mines."
"The main issue here will be if Kadima can lead the new coalition or not," Emad Gad, analyst with Cairo's Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, told AFP.
"A Kadima win means a relaxation, means new hope, but at the same time it's not going to be easy for Tzipi Livni to form a new government."
"If Netanyahu is prime minister, it will be a very big problem between Egypt and Israel because we have to go back to 1996-99. I think the relationship will go back to being as bad as it was then."
Syria's official Ath-Thawra daily said Arab nations should respond to the Israeli election by backing resistance movements.
"There's no difference between Livni and Netanyahu. Their coming to power will change nothing of the current realities," said an editorial.
Arab nations "should support the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance" because "the strategy that leads to peace requires a strong Arab position ... which will push the Israelis" to accept peace.
In Jordan, the government-owned Al-Rai newspaper said Israeli leaders have "limited" options.
"Israel should realise that its policies of killing Palestinians have failed to achieve any political progress. There is still a chance for peace and for a two-state solution. It's up to Israel to listen to the logic of peace, or continue to be arrogant."
The English-language Jordan Times said the results make "little difference" for the Arabs.
"While Israelis may have differed over who to vote for among party leaders in their country, for the Palestinians, Arabs in general, the differences between the candidates are marginal, and of little or no consequence."
Dalal al-Bizri, a columnist with the pan-Arab Al-Hayat, told AFP the Israeli election "is like entering a vicious circle of spiralling violence."
"Violence leads to violence which leads to another kind of violence. I think this is the expression of a deep crisis within the Israeli entity itself which is at once incapable of making peace or war."
"This is one of the paradoxes, since there's no hope left for peace inside Israel, the Israelis have entered this vicious circle.
"And I think that we (Arabs) are also trapped in the same vicious circle, the more we make war, the more we put the extremists as the leadership of our programme and our political vision.