It will take weeks to find out the real winner of the Israeli election but one thing is clear. Whether Israel is governed by a coalition led by Tzipi Livni’s Kadima or Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, the public’s shift to the right ensures that there are losers beyond the Jewish state’s borders.

One of them is Mahmoud Abbas, the embattled president of the Palestinian Authority, who has been desperately seeking a revival of a peace process.