THAT THE VICTORY of the right in Israel's election puts an end of a negotiated solution is no more than a myth, writes Bradley Burston:

A closer examination of the much-vaunted Gush HaYamin, or Bloc of the Right, suggests that it qualifies neither as a bloc, nor, strictly speaking, as the Right.

There is the Likud [27 seats], with its track record of having already withdrawn in the past from 89 percent of all the territory Israel captured in the 1967 war. There is Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu [15], which has made far-reaching proposals for ceding land to the Palestinians, and is the current standard-bearer for secular rights in Israel. There is the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism [5] which has shown some willingness for flexibility in negotiations toward a future peace settlement. At this point, only the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi Shas [11], the settler-dominated Jewish Home [3] and the far-right National Union [4] can be reliably counted upon to reject compromise.

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