“Ay tu Olmert?”

By Guy Rakover

I flip through the news this morning and article after article I see the classic blame-shifting that has become so familiar in modern politics. Olmert blames Halutz, Peretz jumps on the bandwagon and does the same. It is like they are all sitting in a room quietly till one of them says, “Ok, one of us has to die to appease the mob. Who’s it going to be?” That may satisfy people who just glance at the headlines and say, “Well, let’s hope it was really his fault,” but as someone who served in the second Lebanon war, I am not appeased.

The politicians have gotten used to rectifying mistakes by offering us a sacrificial lamb. It is like they are a mob of con artists that are trying not to get caught in the fix, and when the mob chooses a victim they display no honor amongst thieves, and do whatever they must to hold onto to their jobs. How are we not ashamed of our elected officials? Yes, we elected these men and women, sent them to the parliament and this is what they do with the power we have granted them. The problem is that we watch the news as if it is a sitcom or soap opera, and then we send them back as if we are voting in order to keep our favorite characters on the show. I don’t think that the show should be canceled; obviously it just needs a re-write.

Some members of parliament are screaming for elections, others are saying that we should call for an emergency government in order to not look completely incompetent in the eyes of our enemies. Both options seem futile to me on the basis of the motivations behind them. When I hear Leiberman say that we should not have elections he is making himself look like he is not interested in the position of prime minister, and that only means that he is. Maybe he wants to hold on to the power he has because he fears he would lose it in an election? Politicians like Natenyahu call for elections, but we have seen his government in action in the past. There were positive economic developments but the rest was stagnant. He demands that a leader have a vision. I couldn’t agree with him more, too bad he doesn’t really have one.

So where do we go from here? It is hard to tell until a new option comes along. Perhaps we should all vote for the tiny parties, give them a chance to mess with things. In any case, one thing is clear: We need new blood in the arena. We need to have someone who cares more about the country and its future then his own political success and profit. The problem is that the minute a person like that would step into the arena he would most likely be stabbed to death on the Knesset floor.