March 18 - Netanyahu's Surprise Victory; Strengthening Alliance Between Netanyahu and the Republican Congress; Terrorists Tried to Derail Tunisia's Path to Secular Democracy

Full program

Part 1

We begin with the surprise victory of Prime Minister Netanyahu who won a fourth term as Israel’s leader in an election that pollsters said was very tight but nevertheless Netanyahu’s Likud Party clinched a convincing win making Netanyahu Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Gideon Levy , an Israeli journalist and columnist for Ha’aretz who is the former spokesman for Shimon Peres, joins us to discuss the consequences of Netanyahu’s last-minute racist appeals to overcome the Arab vote and his vow to ultra-nationalist right wing voters that he would not create a Palestinian state.

Part 2

Then we look into what is expected to be an even stronger and more coordinated alliance between Netanyahu and the Republican Congress in thwarting President Obama’s efforts to make a deal with Iran and stifling any chance of a peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. M.J. Rosenberg, a special correspondent with the Washington Spectator and a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, joins us to discuss the extent to which a newly-empowered Netanyahu and an implacably hostile Republican Congress can block Obama’s pending deal with Iran.

Part 3

Then finally we go to Tunis, Tunisia to get an update on the terrorist attack at a prominent tourist attraction in which 20 European tourists were killed and up to 50 were wounded. Massoud Romadani, World Forum organizer and member of the Committee for the Maghreb Regional Social Forum and a Tunisian researcher on the uprisings in the region, joins us to discuss this latest attempt to impede Tunisia’s post “Arab Spring” path to secular democracy and the likelihood that the massacre was carried out by some returnees from the 3,000 Tunisians who have gone to Syria or Iraq to wage jihad with the so-called Islamic State.