“Nothing succeeds like success,” say the Americans. In Israel, the very opposite is true: “Nothing succeeds like failure.”

What other explanation can there be for the prospect that in the coming elections two monumental failures will face each other?

Barak and Netanyahu, Netanyahu and Barak: two Prime Ministers who did not succeed in finishing even one term in office, two politicians of many promises who have not succeeded in fulfilling even one of them, who have broken everything they touched, who have destroyed Israel’s greatest achievement of the last generation: the beginning of reconciliation with the Palestinian people.

Seemingly, Netanyahu and Barak are very different types. But a harder look reveals that these differences are superficial, and underneath they are remarkably alike. Both are alumni of the General Staff commando unit, both are narrow-minded nationalists, both adore force, both view the Palestinians as an enemy to be subdued. Neither of them is able to create a relationship of trust with other people ot to cooperate even with their own ministers. Both can’t stand independent people near them and surround themselves with obeisant yes-man.

A question arises: What’s wrong with the Israeli society, if out of millions of citizens it cannot produce any candidates but these two serial bunglers?

(Contrary to a Hebrew proverb, there is no comfort in the trouble of others. The same question can be posed in the US: What’s wrong with American society, if out of more than two hundred million citizens it produces two candidates who are so mediocre, so boring, that nobody really cares who will emerge victorious from the present ridiculous muddle? Is there something in modern democracy that prevents an astute person of integrity and vision from rising to the top?)

About Netanyahu, more than enough has been said. When we got rid of him, the whole country emitted a sigh of relief. The masses that gathered spontaneously on the evening of election day at Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv, in an unprecedented outburst of joy, celebrated the victory of Barak less than the debacle of Netanyahu – a final debacle, or so it seemed.

The possibility – some say, the certainty – that this person will now return to power, carried by the enthusiasm of the masses, Is an insult to the Israeli public. Something is basically wrong. Maybe we need a national psychiatrist.

The case of Barak is more complex. It can be summed up in three words: a work accident.

We bought him like the proverbial cat in the bag. He was advertised as “the man who can beat Netanyahu.” That was enough for us. It can be said that Barak is Netanyahu’s revenge.

Rumor had it that Barak had been an excellent Chief-of-Staff. Nobody asked: Wait a minute, in what did he excel? In what way was he superior to his predecessor or successor? Did he, in all his term as C-o-C, do anything that left a mark – except oppose the Oslo agreement?

Afterwards he started on a political career. In this rather short time he did nothing to show any promise. It was not even a term of internship; for him it was only a time of waiting.

His election propaganda sounded good. “Peace with security within (I have forgotten how many) months.” “Money for education and not for settlements”. We wanted to believe. We wanted to believe that he was Rabin’s the successor. After all, like Rabin he was a former Chief-of-Staff; Rabin, too, was a tough security-first person; Rabin once gave orders to “break the bones” of Palestinians, before he saw the light and became a determined peace-seeker.

We should have listened when, before the elections, Barak promised the settlers of Ophra and Beth-El that they would remain forever where they are. Ophra? Beth-El? Two concentrations of the most extreme, fanatical settlers, in the middle of the West Bank. They, forever? But we told ourselves that it was only another election gimmick. Now we know that this was the only honest statement he made throughout the election campaign. All the others were invented by his spin-doctors, professionals whose job it is to translate the results of public opinion polls into propaganda lies. This single statement reflected his inner truth, much like his declaration after the elections that he feels closer to Yitzhaq Levy, the chief representative of the radical settlers in the Knesset, than to Yossi Sarid, his loyal left-wing servant.

Barak is not a successor of Rabin, but of a nearly-forgotten figure: Israel Galili, the guru of Golda Me’ir, who founded the settlements in North Sinai, including the late town of Yamit, as well as Gush Katif in the Gaza strip. Galili, more than anyone else, pursued policies which led to the Yom Kippur war, leaving thousands dead.

Barak pretended to be someone else. We elected him by mistake and he destroyed the chances of peace. He did not he fulfil any of his other promises either (except the flight from South Lebanon in the darkness of night, after he had supported the “security zone” throughout his years as Chief-of-Staff.) Anyone who still has hopes pinned on him needs to have his head examined.

Barak is a work accident, like Benjamin Neyanyahu. Their place is at a reunion of commando veterans, not in the Prime Minister’s office. There we need a leader of vision, wisdom and talent.