the foreign minister Tzipi Livni and the former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu

But after Tuesday's election in Israel, both the foreign minister Tzipi Livni and the former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu claimed that they had won the general election - and the figures seemed to bear them out.

Confused? So are Israelis. Confused, disillusioned, depressed and pessimistic. When Barack Obama was campaigning for the US presidency, he said voters should choose hope rather than fear. Many of the Israelis I've been talking to over the past few days seem to have done exactly the opposite.