Saturday, January 31, 2009

Not a debate,But a confident Netanyahu


(Haaretz)."It was a make-believe debate, styled on an American model. But in fact, it was not an American-style debate. In the United States, questions by surfers were integrated into debates in real-time, to deliver difficult and piercing journalistic queries.

In Israel, one candidate replaced the other on a conveyer-belt rotation system. The dramatic peaks of the event occurred when the candidates shook hands with one another. Real live drama. The questions were as predictable as the answers. Netanyahu, the leading candidate, was the only one whose address yielded a headline. "Iran will not arm itself with nuclear weapons," he said with a menacing expression."