Anshel Pfeffer on (Israeli) politics and self-destruction:

'Technically, Kahol Lavan isn’t a party. It’s a list formed out of the candidates of three different parties: Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Benny Gantz’s Hosen L’Yisrael and Moshe Ya’alon’s Telem. The first two parties present themselves as resolutely centrist while Telem is a party of right-wingers who have fallen out with Benjamin Netanyahu and believe he must be replaced as soon as possible.
The slate includes trade union leaders along with capitalist free-marketeers; staunch believers in the two-state solution and those who oppose any concession to the Palestinians; militant secularists mingle with religious-Zionists candidates. The only thing that brings them together is a burning desire to end Netanyahu’s rule. That is why they joined forces and what is keeping them together.
The only accurate way to describe Kahol Lavan is as the project to get rid of Bibi. What will happen to it the day after the election? Does it have a life expectancy?'

(...)

'What are the chances that Kahol Lavan will avoid the infighting and the splits, maintain a succession of leadership and retain the loyalty of centrist voters? Next to nil. But then, so is its life expectancy. Just like a salmon that swims upriver to mate, spawn and die, all Kahol Lavan has to do is stay together, win and replace Netanyahu on April 9. It won’t last much longer.'

Read the article here.

Win, replace, die - the objectives and consequences of politics in a nutshell.