Feeling Lonely At The Top

In Khartoum for an Arab league summit last week, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas received hourly dispatches on the vote in the Israel elections. There was no secret about who he wanted to win: Ehud Olmert, leader of the centrist Kadima party, and political heir to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has lain in a coma since January. Olmert's party did better than any other; but Kadima scooped up just 29 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. Opinion polls before the vote had suggested that it would win nearly 40. "I wish Olmert had more seats," Abbas told his aides. "Now...

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