The shift away from politicians who emphasize negotiations with Palestinians and the country’s Arab neighbors means that Israel’s right, after years in the political wilderness, is almost certain to be back in control no matter who forms the next government. It will hold 65 seats in the new Israeli parliament, or Knesset, compared with 50 in the old one. As Likud party’s Binyamin Netanyahu and Kadima’s Tzipi Livni each race to put together a coalition, both are courting parties to their right.

The right’s resurgence, analysts say, reflects the sense among Israelis that years of talks have yielded little but violence and insecurity. It also stems from a prevailing belief that deep Palestinian divisions between Fatah in the West Bank, which favors negotiations, and Hamas in Gaza, which rejects Israel’s existence, leave little hope for peace.

“The outcome of the election is that the way of the left has failed. The public has realized it was leading us to destruction,” said Hanan Porat, a rabbi who has helped lead efforts to build Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank for more than three decades. “The Qassam rockets that have been falling are more convincing than all the speeches about peace.”

Yet the two parties that most directly benefited from those feelings in Tuesday’s vote represent distinctly different strains of right-wing thought. Likud, which is considered most likely to gain the prime ministership, has focused on the danger of giving up the West Bank to Palestinian control and the need to increase Jewish settlements there.

Okay, I got to ask this….was the most recent massive attacks in Gaza for security or for political reasons?  I would like to believe that the attacks had nothing to do with the election, but I do not believe in coincidence.