Politics is a tough ‘game’. In many places it’s extremely violent and dangerous. In some places it’s just tough and requires people of great intellect, character, humility and humor.

Such a place is Israel.

Watching PM Netanyahu recently I began to wonder if he is playing for an endgame set in place some time ago. He doesn’t seem to me to be someone concerned with current circumstances.

What I have in mind is a possibility, sheer speculation. In the past there was the Conservative Likud party and the Liberal Labor party and many lesser parties. Labor party leader Ehud Barak had been PM before. Tzipi Livni was seen as an up-and-coming politician. Did they have to be derailed if the Likud party were to remain in power? Think of the way presidential candidate Pat Buchanan destroyed the (Perot-built) Reform party by simply joining it and leading it over a cliff. What if Kadima, the political party created by (or joined by former Likud leader) Ariel Sharon was meant to be such a dumping ground? what if PM Sharon created the situation which led PM Olmert (Sharon’s successor) to fight in Gaza in horrible ways which are now being reviewed?

I don’t know much about Olmert and I don’t know how much influence the leadership of Sharon may have had on him. What we know is Sharon disappeared (after a sudden illness) and Olmert became PM and ordered the war against Palestinians in Gaza. Livni was Foreign Minister at that time and was almost certainly in discussions with Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak (leader of the Labor party) on whether to go to war and how to wage that war.

Is it far-fetched to think this was a trap meant to catch Olmert (who wasn’t terribly feared as a politician prior to all this), Livni and Barak in a debacle?

I don’t think we can look at the situation in Israel as having occurred entirely by happenstance. I think we need to know who precisely created this situation. If it’s allowed to run it’s course as is, then both the Kadima and Labor parties and Barak & Livni could be destroyed. That would leave Likud as the only major party and Netanyahu as the only major ‘leader’ for many years. That would not be a proper Democracy. It would be close to a dictatorship I fear.

Unfortunately this also leads to the question of whether someone inflicted physical damage on Sharon. Considering the number of leaders in the Middle East who succumbed during that time I would appear there was an effort to change the political landscape by force. Who wanted that? The Bush White House was one we must consider!

“Who dunnit?”

It’s a classic question and it plays a large role in politics. In this instance in Israel it is THE question. I hope the Truth of the matter is known before a judicial system issues any verdicts. I don’t believe we should be willing, as a nation, to allow the Israeli political system to be destroyed if Justice is not seen to be done.