Doctor Strangedove

(Israelnationalnews.com)  

The Labor Party primaries are coming up.  At the moment there are only three contenders left running to head what is Left of the once dominant party in what had been a One-Party Israeli State.

The three who remain include Amir Peretz, whose chances of getting elected are about the same as those of Dennis Kucinich.  After last summer's fiascos, the public understands that Peretz is incapable of properly managing a felafel stand or of tying his own shoes.

The other two contenders are Ehud Barak, who was Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001, and Ami Ayalon.  Ayalon is slightly ahead in the polls.  Ayalon is basically a bald Yossi Beilin and his preferred policies and platform are simply Uri-Avnery-Lite. 

So from the point of view of Israel's survival, which of the three is the contender whose victory in the primaries would be the most beneficial?

The answer is clearly Ehud Barak.

Huh, you say!   How can that be?  After all, Ehud Barak personally dropped 4000 katyusha rockets on northern Israel this past summer!

Well, if you are going to answer your own questions, you don't need me.

Of course, Barak dropped 4000 rockets on northern Israel this past summer, some not very far from me.  That is why it would be good if he were to win the Labor primaries!  The public KNOWS that those missiles landed in northern Israel all because of Barak's cowardly unilateral capitulation to the Hizbollah in 2000.   So with Barak as head of the rump Labor Party, any leader of the Likud or of a post-Olmert Kadima could easily defeat the Labor Party!  Labor would pass into history as a curious anachronism, sort of like the Whig Party.

In contrast, Ayalon would be the new boy on the block and that might protect him from the public's contempt for the Labor Party.  Of course, Amir Peretz is hated even more so than Barak and is regarded as much stupider than Barak.  So his winning the primaries would also be good for Israel, by producing the demolition of the Labor Party.  But that seems unlikely to happen.