 intensive cellular network. They take trips abroad whenever they can and return to a country where last summer's war also shattered the last remnants of its traditional politics.
Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is still in a coma in hospital. The joke goes that he opens his eyes for a moment, sees what is happening and goes back to sleep.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on whom everything landed when he was unprepared, is still trying to survive at any price without making a single unnecessary move. He is neither working towards the peace Tony Blair wants, nor supporting the war the army has very much in mind.
To this end he has taken as an ally and as Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who crashed in the previous Lebanon war in 2000. This is an alliance of political cripples who are leaning on each other.
It appears that temporarily the power has migrated to the corridors of the legal system. Attorney General Meny Mazuz is the one who will decide Olmert's fate, based on the |
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| Ariel Sharon is still in a coma in hospital. The joke goes that he opens his eyes, sees what is happening and goes back to sleep |
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investigations of corruption.
The commission chaired by retired Judge Eliyahu Winograd for the investigation of the war is expected to publish a deadly final report that will determine the fate of the government. And the State Controller, also a former judge, has just published a grave report on the government's shortcomings in dealing with the home front.
Only the money is continuing to flow here as always, because Israel is a goldmine of know-how in a world of global trade and its military-political situation has no effect on its prosperity.
In the midst of all this, as I travelled with my daughter from the north of the country to its southern extremity, from the Lebanese border to Sderot in the south where people live under the threat of simple rockets from the Gaza Strip, I felt a heaviness in my heart. It seems as though the Israelis are sunk more than ever in survival, watching ridiculous reality shows on television and obsessively shopping as a way to forget what is happening and what is yet to happen. 
FIRST POSTED JULY 30, 2007
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