Plagued

In the first generation of Israel's life, a social democracy was built there, and that within Israel's internationally recognised borders. The Labour Movement was a friend of Israel, and Israel was a friend of the Labour Movement.

All of that, however, came to an end a long time ago. Before John Howard, before the Reagan Democrats, before Thatcherism, before anything else of that kind, there was the rise of Likud. It is the original and the archetypal neoconservative electoral force, complete with having been founded and led by old Marxists (in this case, by old Marxist anti-British terrorists) who had changed their views only insofar as they believed the bourgeoisie to have defeated the proletariat.

Today, not only is that party in government, as it usually has been during the last two generations. But it is in government, both with Shas - which, to be fair, is not without both a social conscience and quite a flexible approach to land issues, but which is still a party the presence of which around the Cabinet table raises very serious questions about the notion that Israel is an outpost of the West - but also, and much more disturbingly, with Avigdor Lieberman's lot.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef may want Mahmoud Abbas to be be visited by a plague, a view which he would share with Hamas. But he is content to leave that aspiration to any higher power in a position to give it practical effect. Lieberman, a true Zionist in being no fan of higher powers, advocates altogether more hands-on approaches. I know which I find more frightening.