Should go home. Peretz
Photo: Avihu Shapira
They'll fall on their own
No need for commission of inquiry to topple three heads
There's no need for a commission of inquiry to know that the heads of the military - political echelons will roll, and if this is the sole reason to set up a commission of inquiry, then it's a waste of time and money as well as unnecessary and futile.
And the defense minister is not likely to be sent home by a commission of inquiry either. The Kahane Commission charged with probing the Sabra and Shatila massacre was the exception to the rule. Arik Sharon was being probed at the time. During that Lebanon war he was immeasurably and irrationally despised by the enlightened circles, just as he was later loved during the disengagement from Gaza.
Those who are calling for a commission of inquiry just for the satisfaction of seeing Olmert and Pertez going home, are likely to be disappointed. Commissions of inquiry tend not to topple prime ministers, and rightfully so.
In a democracy it is the people who are the sovereigns and not the judges. In a democracy, in order to change a government there is a parliament and elections. And just as it's not a good idea for a prime minister to fire a judge, it's not such a great idea for a judge to fire a prime minister. Even without this authority judges already have too much power.
Some tips
Baruch Leshem
Helpful tips for Olmert, Peretz, Netanyahu, and Barak
In 1982 there was not a single judge, intellectual or a general who would permit himself to acquit Sharon without endangering his career and losing his professional prestige.
This is certainly not the case when it comes to Amir Peretz. For better or for worse, he is not Sharon. At a time plagued by political spins and campaigns, even the third head, Dan Halutz, is likely to come out of a commission of inquiry with nothing but a reproach, but not a dismissal. And the signs of a talented media consultant working on behalf of the chief of staff are already visible.
Question is why, not who
There's nothing more damaging for drawing conclusions and remedying shortcomings then the focus of a commission of inquiry on the question of who is guilty and who is innocent, and the weary battles conducted between the commission and top notch attorneys hired to protect those being probed.
There's no need for a commission of inquiry to know that these three heads should pack their bags and go home, every child understand this. There's no need for judges or attorneys. The three heads have nice houses, particularly Olmert, so 'going home' is not such a bad punishment.
Going home is the natural outcome of a failure of such magnitude. And they will go. The Olmert cabinet is crumbling in the face of protests on the streets, the budget crises, lack of discipline in the coalition, and the potential indictments coming from the General Attorney Menachem Mazuz and the State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss.
With or without a committee of inquiry, the cabinet will not survive these forces. The important questions facing the committee will be questions pertaining to 'what' and not to 'who'. What were the mistakes; what were the shortcomings; what were the differences between the assigned missions and the missions carried out on the ground; what was the extent of unaccomplished missions, or operations that were changed due to varying circumstances in the battlefield?
How will the reserve stocks remain full even during prolonged peacetime; how will the military and cabinet be assured that they receive better intelligence, and from how many sources; how will we make sure the prime minister and defense minister understand their roles and that they will not try to conduct themselves as though they were members of the General Staff or division commanders in battle.
A committee of inquiry will be established eventually, and it will probe all these questions. But no one will examine the two greatest, basic failures of this war, because they are seemingly not directly related.
The failure of the hasty flight from Lebanon in 2000 that created the Katyusha threat over Haifa and in fact led to this war, and the failure of the separation fence that is creating a Katyusha threat over Tel Aviv and may lead to the next war.
The Golem of Prague
Ehud Barak, the leader of the flight from Lebanon and the founding father of Hizbullah Land, with its tens of thousands of Katyusha rockets and missiles, is already hinting at his return to the political arena, and no one is raising an eyebrow. Just as though a building contractor, whose building collapsed, were applying for the post of chief construction engineer.
And the separation fence is still being built like the Golem of Prague who draws water from the well and keeps pouring it out again and again. No one knows how to tell him to stop. Billions of shekels are still being funneled to the megalomaniac Chinese Wall project, known as the separation fence, that has absolutely no value in the Katyusha era.
Building contractors are making money out of it, landscapes are being ruined, Jewish and Arab citizens are suffering from it, although everyone knows that it was a safety measure planned for the previous war. The next war will be a war of Katyusha rockets and missiles, and they will easily fly over the fence near Kfar Saba and will burst into laughter on the streets of Tel Aviv.
If the mistake of this horrible and ugly fence cannot be admitted and dismantled, at least the billions of Shekels should stop being funneled. Every Shekel that goes to the separation fence is taken from the budgets allocated to the poor, the single parents, and the elderly, for medicine and for students.
