After a Brief Stint in Metallica...

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, pictured left pulling the invisible puppet strings of politics, has pulled ahead of Shaul Mofaz, the right-wing ex-general, in polls to succeed Ehud Olmert as leader of the Kadima party. The battle for leadership of the more lenient of the two brutally oppressive and racist Israeli political parties began when its leader, Olmert, announced he would step down after being bogged down by allegations of corruption. Livni is widely regarded as the more reasonable of the two candidates, having been Israel's chief negotiator in talks with Palestinian authorities for the past 10 months. Shaul Mofaz, on the other hand, has a reputation for being hawkish and belligerent, declaring 'I have no doubt that peace is achieved from a position of might and deterrence'. Although the mood in Israel at the moment favours the election of a more moderate, solution-seeking leader, a long-standing rivalry between Sephardic Jews of Middle Eastern descent and Ashkenazi Jews of European origin means that Iranian-born Mofaz stands more of a chance than he otherwise would. 

Israel's unicameral parliamentary system is given to fractious faction politics, with coalitions and parties rising and falling with remarkable ease. The Kadima party was founded by Ariel Sharon off the back of his long-standing Likud party, and has for the past three years acted in the characteristically schizophrenic manner of most Israeli governments, proffering both the olive branch in the form of unilateral withdrawals from occupied areas, and the cudgel of unrestrained military aggression, seen most notably in the psychotic devastation of Lebanon carried out by Israeli Defence Forces in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. The hot-headed and unstable politics of this key state in the Middle East are the reason that peace efforts have been so halting and prone to backslide. The absence in the Israeli parliament of an upper chamber, which would have provided a more sober second voice to that of the Knesset, also contributes to the mercurial nature of politics in Israel. Israel pretty much leads and determines the tone of Middle Eastern politics, and what is most needed for progress is a single, stable, unified voice coming from Tel Aviv.