In the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray’s character must relive the same day over and over again, he is overheard responding to someone on the telephone: “Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.” In October, I wrote about how one possible outcome of the upcoming Israeli elections (now precluded by more recent developments) would have put Tzipi Livni on the wrong end of an exact replay of the last time she tried to challenge current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Today, however, Livni held a press conference in Tel Aviv that might have yet again given Israelis the sense they were stuck in their own version of “Groundhog Day”–and not one they would like to relive. The press conference was to announce that Livni will be joined on her slate of candidates by Amir Peretz. The last time the Jewish state saw the two of them serve together was in the summer of 2006, when Israel fought what was considered a badly mismanaged war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The government’s handling of the conflict was clumsy and erratic, both diplomatically and strategically. As foreign minister at the time, Livni was the country’s chief diplomat, and as defense minister, Peretz was in charge of the military prosecution of the war. Now, with missiles once again aimed at Israel from southern Lebanon, the duo is asking for another shot.
