Class warfare is odd anathema for politicians in a democracy. Whenever a policy is suggested favoring - however slightly - anyone making less than, say, $100,000 a year, the proposal reflexively is stamped with that very term and shouted down in a frenzy implying real and present danger of frothing peasants storming torchlit citadel keeps to judge by hayfork and bill-hook well-meaning, good-hearted fatcats.

The fear of "class warfare" seems to flow uphill, to the more advantaged; not so much of it trickles down to the rest of us, who realize, as we eke out a living paycheck to paycheck, that class warfare is an ongoing part of the American economic system, always has been, and that the less fortunate are the exclusive collateral damage left in its atrocity and wreckage.

The underclass here, as everywhere, has the privilege of fighting - and dying - in this nation's wars, and starving through its "market corrections", as well as shouldering the burden paying for these sporadic misadventures. Add in your life's blood, and that's really what's meant by the inevitable "death and taxes" bargain of "making a living".

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Indicative of the overweening preoccuptions that so nettle much of American media and government, the New York Times headlined its account of Iranian consent to President Obama's talks offer with "Iranian Overture Might Complicate Relations With Israel."

This is weeks after the slaughter in Gaza, and at a time when Israelis seemingly can't decide whether to elect a Prime minister who'll smash Hamas with fury - or with sad determination. Given this tiresome quandary, a growing number of Americans are ready for some complications. 

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As Israelis head to the polls today, amid rain and high winds perhaps portending the stormy outcome of this somehow interesting election, maybe it's time we reconsidered our own position in regard to the nation that has become the churlish Prussia of the Middle East.

Regardless of who wins, the election will leave the Jewish state with a Prime Minister vowing to get tough - or tougher, if that's conceivable - with restive Palestineans, especially Hamas, and with enhanced stature for a radical Zionist seemingly bent on solving the "Arab problem" by simply removing the Arab population. Putting names to the issue, either Tzipi Livni or former PM Benjamin Netanyahu will be ordering the next foray into Israel's Hamastans or into neighboring countries like Lebanon, and ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party is liable to pick up enough Knesset seats to bring serious consideration to its irrational and dangerous ideas. 

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