Israel’s Wretched Choice

There has been much grumbling in Israel over the choices for prime minister in the upcoming election. Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians too many concessions in 2000. Benjamin Netanyahu did nothing for the peace process at all. And Tzipi Livni is inexperienced and lacks charisma. "How have we gotten to this point?" Benny Morris asks in today's Los Angeles Times. "These self-serving, affluent leaders are an apt reflection of the development and character of Israeli society over the last few decades: a shift from the idea of the collective to the cult of individualism, from socialism to capitalism, from lean youth to middle-aged paunch," he writes. With no particularly desirable candidates, "Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is an Israel governed during the next four years by a Netanyahu-Livni-Barak triumvirate."