Mr. Prime Minister, it’s over
When everything around you is so unstable, it appears almost an act of insanity that you would continue to sit quietly in your seat
1
Mr. Prime Minister, it’s over. It is really over.
2
It’s been only a year since the national elections and already you are without a party, dealing with developments on a day to day basis, surrounded by ministers under investigation face serious diplomatic problems, lack the public support and hide behind silence.
Mr. Prime Minister, some light in you has gone out, something of the energy you once had, the joie de vivre. You may have had your eyelids lifted and congrats on your bald status but it seems to me the job is too big for you right now, that you are suffering the same depression that characterizes the situation of the country, you are willingly stagnating and it doesn’t suit you.
It seems to me that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is looking for the old and better Ehud Olmert, looking but not finding.
3
We believed, many of us, in the disengagement plan. You were one of its main architects, but we have yet to see the wonderful achievements resulting from the disengagement. Even if its damage to Israel is still unclear, there is consensus – no more unilateral withdrawals.
Mr. Prime Minister, we erred and your name tops the list.
4
Like the disengagement plan we were intrigued by the idea of a truly center party, one that would end the customary and boring, as well as largely irrelevant, split between right and left. It seemed innovative and right.
We were so smitten we chose, many of us, to shut our eyes to the fact that Kadima , like the other parties, was chock full of old time politicians even if there was a sprinkling of newcomers who weren’t the brightest stars in the firmament.
Mr. Prime Minister we were wrong, and your name tops the list: Kadima is a footnote in the Israeli political history, a passing phase that will blow away in the first storm. And those of us who innocently voted for the party feel cheated.
5
Mr. Prime Minister, you had good intentions. I met with you both before and after you were elected. We spoke at length a number of times and I was convinced of your sincerity. You quickly followed through on your promise to Moti Shaklar for which I was present that you would appoint him director general of the Israel Broadcasting Authority.
That is not the only positive thing you have done. Sir, you meant well, truly you did. But good intentions do not guarantee good results. And in a country where everyone lives on the edge it is impossible to continue without results.
6
Mr. Prime Minister, the cynics will have to forgive me my unpopular opinion, but I don’t think you are corrupt. I have been closely following the fictitious accounts affair. It seems to me that there isn’t an innocent individual in this world who has had to put up with the insufferably protracted legal torture this case has been. Also selling an apartment for a price slightly higher than its market value is not so rare and certainly not something that even remotely smells like organized crime.
Mr. Prime Minister, I don’t think you are corrupt nor your personal assistant Shula Zaken. It would be wise to tell those who are eulogizing her to wait until the investigation ends: I am not yet convinced she received bribes, but rather she helped others. And no, to receive tickets to the VIP section of the Teddy stadium is not bribery. If it is then I am in trouble as well.
7
Mr. Prime Minister, I do not believe that you lack the required skills to stand at the head of a government in Israel. But when everything around you is so unstable, it appears almost an act of insanity that you would continue to sit quietly in your seat.
In a country where the president has been suspended for the most serious of reasons; the justice minister has been replaced for the most embarrassing of reasons; the finance minister may have to stand trial; the defense minister watches a military exercise through binoculars that still have the caps on; the tax authority director is arrested; the army still licks its wounds after suffering the worst blows in its history; the police force is collapsing and the public security minister makes impulsive decisions; Mr. Prime Minister, change is really needed.
8
Mr. Prime Minister, personally I like you, really. During the war in the north, I thought it important to show my support because it seems to me that you were trying to change the security situation along the northern border, to force our enemies to recognize the reality. But something bad happened there. The determination you showed in your speeches was not reflected in the decisions that came afterwards.
The eloquence you showed in speeches to the public disappeared when you defined the goals of the fighting for the army. The saddest thing of all is that you are convinced we won, that the enemy was defeated and we raised our national ability to overcome attacks. All of this while we sadly watched how we bitterly lost the war.
9
You are a smart and entertaining guy, Mr. Prime Minister and your wife Aliza is special and good hearted. Having breakfast with you, something that maybe after this column is not going to happen again, was always fascinating. You are a man of privilege and it is possible that you have not had your last word. But for now, at least this time around, you will have to believe us when we tell you that it is over.
10
It’s not the war in southern Lebanon, and not your slip of the tongue regarding Israel’s nuclear capabilities, and not the cracks in the coalition or the rule of law. It’s not even about the many police investigations or the chaos in the army and the police and the diplomatic channels.
Mr. Prime Minister it is something else entirely. It is something more general, something so elusive but so very crucial that we have lacked for a very long time.
It’s direction, I believe it is called direction.
