Olmert's empty chair

Life in Israel is slowly taking its course. Winter isn't in a hurry to get here. There's no war and there's no peace. There's no exchange of captives nor is there calm. There are committees of inquiry but no conclusions. It seems as though everything is procrastinating, waiting for some decision, or perhaps a resignation. But nothing is happening.

When I look at Olmert and Peretz and their incessant chatter, it becomes more and more apparent that their words and lip movements are not synchronized. One can almost hear the voice of the whisperer. It's almost as though he is kneeling at their feet, polishing a new announcement that would obliterate the preceding one.

Olmert the puppet

The frightened ruler is being activated like a puppet and his movements therefore are inconsistent, a fragmented series of goodwill gestures, moves and decisions that are not put into action. Something has gone terribly wrong in the arena where Israelis once drew their sense of security.

Eleven years have elapsed since Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination and his seat still appears to be empty. This is the revenge of a father's murder, a curse that is destined to last for generations to come. It is a tragedy brought on by the likes of Yigal Amir and his fanatic emissaries. Now it appears the situation has worsened. Olmert is the extreme embodiment of an empty chair. He embodies the full absence of the person occupying it.

Sharon once gave hope

For a short time, prior to his wondrous evaporation, his predecessor Ariel Sharon induced a sense of a fully occupied seat, and this wasn't only due to his weight and his long-term presence in Israeli politics. It was because there was something in his cynical character - often quite wicked, full of wrath and fanaticism, coupled with a passion for victory and warmth – that was flesh and blood. He was a tough and egocentric father, but a human one. He was a man who had a plan for the nation and he sought victory, often in a bloody and harmful way.

Sharon's predecessors Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu only spent a fleeting time on the chair, as if they never actually occupied it. One of them will forever be the lethal commando unit commander, who sparked much hope but who blew the peace process to smithereens. The latter was a daydreamer of a prime minister and a smart and fast decision-making finance minister, but he also expedited the exploitation process of the middle class and the transfer of national capital to the hands of a small group of people.

Olmert is an entirely different story. He is the man who appointed Amir Peretz to the post of defense minister for the sole purpose of giving the Treasury portfolio to one of his yes men – Olmert is in constant absence. Perhaps this is due to the qualities attributed to him throughout the years; qualities of a brilliant, cunning and successful man who is only interested in achieving his personal goals.

Alan B’ Stard and Ehud Olmert

Occasionally he looks like the source of inspiration for the British TV political satire character, Alan B’Stard MP, a devious British political wheeler dealer, whose sights are set solely on climbing the political ladder and in gaining wealth and power, lacking any moral restraint and worldview.

A few years ago I wrote a short piece warning TV viewers not to, heaven forbid, compare the British B’ Stard to then Health Minister Ehud Olmert. The minister called me and screamed at me over the phone for half an hour.

After a while the British TV series upgraded B'Stard and he became a minister and perhaps even prime minister. His antics became a national danger, and while referring to B'Stard and his ilk one can say that those who get themselves neck-deep into matters of fortune and power must never reach their aspired destinations – the prime minister's chair. This should be absolutely forbidden.

The peak upon which the prime minister is resting is visible from every direction; it is very exposed with thousands of decisions that are not related to fortune. It is bursting with ignorance and potholes. Those concerned about their well being should keep their distance.

Olmert, if we leave Britain and its villains behind, lacks the basic quality of public concern. The prime minister's chair, with all its crises and pressures, exposes the absence of a solid worldview by this attorney-politician.

The frightened Olmert is standing stark naked in the arena, a sort of poetic punishment for his political life with all its years of trickery, intrigues and fortune seeking. It is a punishment for him and a great danger to us, his concerned subjects.