“Kahane Was Right”

Jeffrey Goldberg hangs with Peace Now's settlement monitor, Hagit Ofran, in Israel:

When we met up she very calmly told me that her phone might be ringing more than usual today, because she discovered grafitti this morning near her apartment that read, "Kahane was right," a reference to the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane. Then a neighbor told her he found another painted slogan on a wall that read, "Hagit, you're dead." The press was interested in this, she said, in part because it's the third time she's been threatened this way in the past 10 months.

The first time, the vandals wrote, "Peace Now, the end is near!!!," and the second time, Ofran came downstairs to find "Rabin is waiting for you," a reference to the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a pro-settler extremist.

Meanwhile, the collapse of the unity government means one important thing:

With the economy strong and domestic terrorism all but disappeared, few doubt Mr. Netanyahu’s re-election, even if the draft failure has hurt him; now, it seems clear he will run from the right, and less likely that he would take steps on settlements or the broader Palestinian conflict that might alienate conservative and religious voters.

When Netanyahu had to choose between the Israeli center and the religious right, he picked the religious right. No wonder he and Romney get along so well.