Tin-eared

...and on the heels of Ehud Olmert's bizarre confessional, the Israeli parliamentary election committee bans Arab political parties from participating in the upcoming elections.

I don't understand how an entire country, apparently, could suddenly be overtaken by political tone-deafness. I mean, the last party to be banned from elections was the party that advocated for expulsion of Arabs from Israel. Does that not suggest to Labor, Kadima, and the other parties that supported this that this might be a bad plan? Especially in the context of invading and shelling Gaza?

Meanwhile, Ehud Barak, Labor chairman, "did not comment on the vote and his aides said he would not deal with political issues these days."

The war, of course, being entirely apolitical. I can only imagine how this is going to play in the Arab world.

I should make it clear that I think this is terrible, although I'm not as up in arms as I might be since most seem to think this will get struck down in the Supreme Court fairly quickly. It's a really sad comment on Israel's political climate regardless. But for the record, I'm not just apoplectic over poorly executed political posturing; I am, however, more surprised at bad Israeli politics than I am at Israeli dislike for Arabs.