repercussions here in the united states. president obama has pushed for a two-state solution to the israeli-palestinian conflict. those are two issues where he is at odds are prime minister netanyahu. there would be no palestinian state as long as he is prime minister telling the israeli news site nrg, there is a real threat here that a left-wing government will join the international community and follow its orders. joining me now from tel aviv is ben burnbalm and jeremy. ben, let me start with you over in tel aviv. what can you tell us about turnout? there was a lot of speculation that there would be increased turnout, specifically among arab-israelis. that s correct, alex. we re still getting indications of how high turnout is going to
series of ethics scandals. we joke about the red room and the downton abbey decor, but certainly the allegations continue to mount. the latest a very shady property deal to the tune of 600,000 that may have been enabled by schock donors is straight up corruption. that is a very serious allegation. first, congratulations to ben for getting this story going and getting other reporters on. that s really an important job for any reporter in washington to do, so kudos to you, ben. i can t keep track. i made a cheat sheet of all the scandals that have come up in the last few weeks. it is not just this property deal but took out a mortgage from donors for 600,000. he sold his private home for
he ll get the first crack at forming the coalition and he should be able to piece it together. ben, has netanyahu s last-ditch pulling out all the stopped appealed to the conservative base alienated certain parts of the electorate? yeah. it s too early to say. basically what you have seen in the final days is netanyahu and herzog, they ve been trying to cannibalize other parties on the right or the left. netanyahu was sort of waving the flag if the gap that had opened up in the polls between labor didn t close, that you were going to get a left-wing government that was backed by the arabs, that was backed by
these civilian areas. we have reported what it has been like for the palestinians and a lot of people we have been speaking to who either had telephone calls or warnings to leave or getting leaf lets dropped on their homes, they simply have nowhere to go. we have seen israel bombing city of city, area after area. it s not like they can leave from the north to the south or the east to the west. gaza is under siege, closing all it s borders and egypt closing it s border in the south. the palestinian population in gaza, they re simply being held hostage in the middle of this conflict, they re unable to get out. and as a result of that, the situation continues to worsen. the u.n. and held officials here are calling it catastrophic as a result of the ongoing fighting, alex. ben, you have magnum opus in the new republic in which you talk about when kerry assumed office as secretary of state, he said there was either one or two
u.n. schools, the hospitals overwhelmed today again as you mentioned, one of those hospitals in central gaza destroyed, they had to evacuate all those patients and those who have retreated there. ben, we know that secretary kerry arrived in the area this afternoon with a goal to try to broker the cease fire. there was news yesterday that michael orrin thinks that kerry was not even invited to cairo and was not wanted in the peace talks. what is the acticuracy of that? kerry also had that moment where he was caught on a hot mike basically mocking the israeli operation. he s still someone who has av lt