The game we call Snakes and Ladders was born in ancient India under the name Moksha Patam, a board designed not for amusement but for moral instruction. Virtues lifted the player upward on a ladder toward moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Vices sent the player slithering down a serpent’s back. The British carried the game home in the Victorian era, stripped it of its theology and sold it as a children’s pastime. What they kept, perhaps without realising, was its central truth: no amount of skill protects you from the next square.

The 25th Knesset voted itself out of existence on 17 July, 62 to nil, clearing the path for general elections on 27 October. It had managed what no Israeli parliament had done since 1988: serve a full four year term. In a political system where fragile coalitions routinely collapse and snap elections are the norm rather than the exception, completing the course is itself a considerable achievement. But completing the game is not the same as winning it. What matters now is what the next roll brings, and not only for Israel.

The........

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