President Obama said Tuesday that the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian peace “seems very dim” in the wake of pre-election remarks last week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he is evaluating “how we manage Israeli-Palestinian relations over the next several years.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Election Day high noon appeal to his supporters to go out and vote to offset the “droves of Arabs” flowing to the polling stations may have played a decisive role in his victory, the country’s best-known political pollster indicated Wednesday.

“Is Israel a democracy?” asks Dan Perry. “The answer is not so straightforward, and it increasingly matters given the diplomatic fallout over hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election last week.”

“For too long, the majority of the voices in the Jewish community have urged the treating of Israel with kid gloves, giving it the space and time to make its own decision to do the right thing,” writes Rebecca Vilkomerson. “But that has only allowed Israel to entrench its system of occupation and control while its population becomes ever more right-wing and comfortable with the status quo.”

“There is no use convincing the Jewish public to support the two-state solution, especially when over 500,000 settlers live beyond the Green Line and there is no guarantee that a Palestinian state will not be the source of terror against Israelis,” writes Yonatan Amir. “The only way forward is to grant full equality to all.”

One Ashkenazi leftist’s view of the post-election rumblings of class warfare between the “State of Tel Aviv” and the mainly Mizrahi periphery.

“Could a shift in U.S.-Israeli relations lay the groundwork for bolder legal and diplomatic moves in the international arena against Israel and the occupation?” asks Lolita Brayman.

EU representatives condemned Israel’s failure to meet its obligations to Palestinians in Area C during a meeting with the Palestinian Prime Minister on Tuesday.

In recent weeks a senior Qatari official has been mediating between Israel and the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, in a bid to negotiate a long-term ceasefire agreement and broker terms for the rehabilitation of the Palestinian coastal enclave.

MEE meets fighters training for the next conflict as unending siege reinforces continued armed resistance.

“Last summer’s bombing in Gaza has not left Palestinians optimistic about a future with Netanyahu,” writes Noor Harazeen.

As soon as the Israeli elections results were announced, Hamas expressed its concern that Benjamin Netanyahu might start a fourth war against Palestinians.