Channels
Tal Cohen
Eitan Haber
Tal Cohen

Will Olmert survive?

PM prepares to face Winograd Report, but may not be grasping deep national rift

The wave of protest that flourished in the State of Israel following the Yom Kippur War threatened to oust mostly two figures: Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan. A short time after the war, I happened to meet Dayan for a brief moment.

 

“We will go into the trenches, we will put on a helmet, and the tanks will drive over us,” Dayan said, referring to his attitude in the face of the protests. A mythological hero such as himself did not fear the protest waves. Who are they and what can they do to me?

 

About a week or two following that random conversation, Dayan was sent packing to his northern Tel Aviv home on Yoav Street.

 

Ehud Olmert, our current prime minister, is well prepared to offer his responses to the Winograd Report, which will be published next week. The public can already sense the wave of reactions coming out of the Prime Minister’s Jerusalem residence.

 

Immediately following the publication of the Winograd Report, the country will be flooded with an effort to make it clear to all of us how necessary it is for Prime Minister Olmert to remain in power.

 

As one who believes that Olmert’s functioning at this time is indeed worthy and that he is doing his job well, I seem to think – although I may be wrong – that the prime minister and his associates fail to grasp to deep currents. They fail to comprehend the rift that resulted from the Second Lebanon War, a national rift that has not yet been healed.

 

Everyone expects Kadima collapse

The clear indication of this is Olmert’s low approval rating, which is lower than that of any other Israeli prime minister in the past, and which fails to go up with the passage of time. The view hold by almost everyone is that his party, Kadima, will be collapsing in the upcoming general elections.

 

What can Olmert do at this time to get out of this bind? At this time, and the emphasis is on “this time,” it appears that he and his partner, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, must agree on a date for the next general elections, say in another six months, and until then stay in their posts.

 

To me it appears (and I may be wrong) that this way the two would be able to present themselves as leaders who delivered on their promise to the public.

 

Will they be back in power following the next elections? Very possibly yes. I do not seem to see other worthy leaders coming out from every direction yet.

 


פרסום ראשון: 01.23.08, 10:30
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment