But I was amazed at how organized the Palestinian election authority was, how competent they were in setting up their polling places and the poll workers they had.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders - leaders not compromised by terror.
Hamas, the opponents of Arafat, the opponents of peace, urged a boycott of the election, and yet there was an 85 percent turnout where Hamas is supposed to be strong. Isn't that really quite incredible?
The Fayyad cabinet may well be the best the Palestinians ever get. But whatever its good qualities, there is no democracy.
Those who elected Hamas in Palestine did so on the basis of its political platform.
I think we need to change the system of elections in order to give less power to some sectors in Israeli society.
I was critical of the Israeli government, however, for not being prepared for the move. One does not uproot thousands of people without planning in advance what will be done with them. This was a political and human error in which the government functioned poorly.
I understand the importance of political power, so I will use my strength and influence to convince as many people as I can within the party and outside the party that a Palestinian state is bad news for Israel.
For a good chunk of Israelis, it doesn't matter who is in power when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians. Their focus was more on economic issues.
I have no doubt that the Palestinian Arab leadership made a mistake when it did not accept the partition plan in 1947, but I want to try to understand it.
Sometimes the results of a first free election will find the moderates so poorly organized that extreme groups can eke out a victory, as Hamas did when it gained a 44-to-41 percent margin in the Palestinian election of 2006.
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