Ha’aretz reports that Britain is going to “hold an international peace conference on the Middle East in London early next year.” I found the following comment very revealing:

The newspaper said the conference would probably be announced only after a January 9 Palestinian ballot to choose a successor to Yasser Arafat and would depend on the election of moderate former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

It quoted an unidentified Israeli source as saying “there will be no conference” if Palestinians elected Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for ordering militant attacks that killed Israelis.

In other words, Israel’s position on the elections: We support the democratic process as long as it works for us.

Considering the fact that a large portion of the population under Israel’s de facto rule is living under an undemocratic military regime, I guess I shouldn’t have expected more from the “only democracy in the Middle East”.