Down, But Not Out By Sarah Honig (October 26) The ultimate schlemiel is someone who gets into accidents that were supposed to happen to someone else. Indeed, to hear Ehud Barak and astonished sidekicks, none of his misfortunes should have befallen him; they were precisely what they all direly predicted Bibi would bring upon us. It's almost a shame Netanyahu wasn't reelected, because he could now be blamed for the deaths of more than 100 rock and firebomb hurlers, for the police shooting at Arab Israeli rioters, for the dispatching of helicopter gunships to blow up empty buildings in Ramallah and Gaza, for deploying tanks in Gilo, for Gilo coming under fire in the first place, and for failing - five months after the helter-skelter flight from Lebanon - to erect a fence on the border's most sensitive stretch. If any of this had occurred on Netanyahu's watch, no national emergency could have saved his political hide. Unity would have become the dirtiest of words, and a righteously indignant opposition would have clamored for inquiries, and for his downfall. He'd have been accused of poisoning the otherwise salubrious atmosphere, and his prompt, ignominious removal would have been prescribed. The Left would then have shown what it's capable of. Delegations of Israeli intellectuals would've deluged Gaza with expressions of support and sympathy. Kikar Rabin would have brimmed over with demonstrators, parading before TV cameras with placards calling Bibi a mass murderer. Oslo boosters would have reconfirmed their status as honored members of the great international community of progressive promoters of the Palestinian cause by eagerly collaborating with the foreign press in the portrayal of Israel's villainous premier as obnoxious. To avoid precisely these epithets, Barak obligingly ditched Netanyahu's insistence on reciprocity. He boasted of his willingness to take the Oslo process further than even its originators, who resurrected the near-defunct PLO, rehabilitated its chieftain and imported him and his minions from Tunis to help them establish an independent irredentist state. As long as Barak sacrificed Israel's vital interests, the world smiled upon him and he was appropriately appreciative. The Left, therefore, was plainly unprepared for abrupt international disapproval. For years it preached that the world really isn't against us and that it's high time Israelis set aside the remaining vestiges of unjustified, anachronistic Jewish paranoia. But that's not the only reason Barak's bunch was so unready for rejection. While it was in harmonious sync with international sentiments, the Left's energies were spent elsewhere. No effort was spared to vilify Netanyahu or anyone else who wasn't its fellow traveler. Ha'aretz diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar recently informed us that our Foreign Ministry mounted an all-out campaign against Yoram Hazony's thought-provoking volume The Jewish State, The Struggle for Israel's Soul. Amazingly, there were no hysterical denials from our diplomats, nor audible protests about a democracy's civil servants battling books. To decry the official onslaught on Hazony was to exile oneself to the lunatic fringe. Most sane folks prefer running with the pack - even when its leader is struggling for his political survival. His rescue (i.e. a national unity coalition) is indeed now a national cause celebre. Coming to Barak's aid has become synonymous with coming to the aid of the country. Those helping Barak regain the parliamentary majority he lost (way before Arafat went on the warpath) are patriots. All others are despicable scoundrels, manipulated by the evil Netanyahu, who's a potent threat merely because the polls show him as besting Barak. In the spirit of reconciliation, Haim Ramon pulled no punches: "Bibi hasn't reformed. The ugly old Bibi is back." Another campaign of demonization is presumably in the works, this time in the hallowed name of the ever-popular national unity notion. The expedient cause of solidarity notwithstanding, political priorities must remain paramount and scores, no matter how petty, must be settled. Like the one with Israel's consul in New York, Shmuel Sisso. He was appointed to the lucrative post by his patron David Levy, and was safe so long as Levy sided with Barak. Now that Levy doesn't, Barak wants Sisso sacked. Yuli Tamir and Avraham Burg took precious time off from their altruistic diplomatic sorties to assail Sisso. With limitless air time at their disposal, they lambasted his alleged incompetence, never forgetting to laud what they described as their own indispensable contribution to the propaganda war. From Burg's own unstinting testimony it emerges that he should be decorated for valorous PR victories, which he immodestly attributed to what he described as his excellent English. Before I realized that his linguistic skills were our secret weapons, I confess to having cringed with embarrassment at his preposterously affected American accent, which echoes bygone Jewish greenhorn stereotypes, whose sing-song intonations defeated their pretentiousness. Burg should sue his English teacher and leave the talking to his mentor Shimon Peres, who at least doesn't try to sound like something he's not. But the trouble with both, and with others of their political persuasion, is their constant attempt to please enlightened audiences and sound objective, even in situations which demand passion. Defensive tones imply a weak case. We have yet to hear leftist spokesmen compare depictions of Israelis as child-killers to medieval blood libels, or rail against the passing off of a Gaza nine-year-old dying of natural causes as a martyr felled by Israeli bullets. But those who deliberately sought to conceal the unsavory nature of their peace partners may now have a hard time exposing the truth about them. Their heart may not be in it even now. Deep down, the diehard Oslo enthusiasts haven't entirely given up on doing business with Arafat some day after all. And to facilitate that, Netanyahu's comeback must be uncompromisingly combated - at any cost. The Palestinians' abysmal lack of cooperation is an unexpected, hopefully temporary impediment on Barak's reelection trail. The big chances he took and the bad choices he made caused him to lose his footing and led to a nasty fall. Like the quintessential schlemiel, he landed on his back, yet managed to break his nose. But though he's down and looking awful, he's not out and not admitting any failures.