We are now marking three years since the day the centrist Kadima party, with the cheerleading of the left-wing Labor party, embarked on a murderous and completely unnecessary war in Gaza, which saw nearly 1,500 people killed. Some 18 months earlier the same liberal parties went to a similarly unnecessary war in Lebanon, which saw nearly 1,300 people killed.
In-between the two wars, the two parties engaged in every kind of political debauchery, including smaller incursions into Palestinian Territories, extrajudicial executions, artillery and aerial bombings, spectacular corruption and rampant settlement construction, all the while enjoying the international aura of a “progressive” government
Kadima ever-so-deservingly fell from grace, Labor even-more-deservingly disintegrated and the conservative Likud took office. While prospects for civil liberties within Israel look bleak and nationalism is skyrocketing, Israel has also come under more grassroots and establishment international scrutiny than at any time in the last 20 years. Despite the cabinet’s warmongering rhetoric and several acts of senseless bloodshed (like that on the Mavi Marmara), overall under Netanyahu the death toll in the conflict went from over 3,000 to something like 300. Kadima, meanwhile, continues to screech from the opposition benches for a second Cast Lead, in those very words.
You wouldn’t believe it, but some Israeli and Western progressives still want to see Kadima and Labor back in power instead of the Likud. The mind boggles.