Letter: Why Israel elected Bibi

Why Israel

elected Bibi

Sir: Patrick Cockburn's observation ("The irresistible rise of Bibi", 31 May) that "it was the black-hatted ultra-Orthodox Jews who flocked to the polls this week to give [Binyamin Netanyahu] victory" is a caricature that obscures more than it elucidates.

Among Mr Netanyahu's supporters there were certainly many secular, left- wing Israelis who could no more vote for Shimon Peres as the successor to Yitzhak Rabin than their American counterparts a generation earlier could regard George McGovern as the natural heir to the liberalism of Kennedy, Johnson and Humphrey. In both cases, the peace policy of the left's candidate had come to conflict with the reasonable security needs of a democratic state.

Any "peace process" worthy of the name has to recognise the limits, as well as the role, of diplomacy. If Mr Netanyahu's success convinces the Palestinian authorities that any further Israeli concessions will be contingent on their cracking down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad - and ceasing to refer to the bombers of buses as "martyrs" - the cause of peace will have been well served.

OLIVER KAMM

Bath, Avon