If Livni proves able to stay on the offensive, to challenge Netanyahu to present his own plan for securing Israel's safety and prosperity in the long-term, the Israeli public might ultimately side with her. The truth is that Israel's democratic right has no vision. It offers no solutions to the current impasse, other than a continuation of the status quo, with which most Israelis (rightly or wrongly) are deeply unsatisfied.
Of course, "creative" policy proposals are plenty on the anti-democratic right, which believes that peace can be achieved by offering the Palestinians a menu of delectable choices, ranging from forced expulsion, to voluntary transfer, to second-class citizenship. Even someone as cynical as Netanyahu, however, is unlikely to embrace such policy proposals. He will be hard-pressed to devise a clear and plausible policy sufficiently different from Livni's for centrist voters to choose him over her.
Ehud Barak, in the meantime, is pursuing the bankrupt strategy that has bedeviled the Labor Party since the end of Barak's last government. His political games are squeezing out the vision and experience that the party's committed parliamentarians and ex-ministers could bring to the art of government. Unless he changes tack, Barak will lead his party to the impotence predicted by current polls. If they become too fed up, those on the left of the party may join Meretz, while those on the right will jockey for positions in Kadima.
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