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Eitan Haber
Photo: Shalom Bar Tal

Too bad, Ehud

Decision to embark on Second Lebanon War, corruption charges doomed Olmert

Ehud Olmert ended his term as prime minister on the evening hours of July 12, 2006, when he, along with Defense Minister Amir Peretz and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, decided to embark on the Second Lebanon War.

 

On Sunday, Olmert submitted an official document to the president, as required by law, and by doing so officially ended his term at the most important office in the State of Israel. Yet based on the impression formed Sunday, he is not packing his bags just yet.

 

Olmert was not the first or only Israeli prime minister to exercise wrong judgment and made decisions that led to needless bloodshed. There were others who left behind very many graves. Olmert was also not the most corrupt Israeli prime minister. He was a righteous man compared to some other ones.

 

However, Olmert illustrated the statement attributed to American Vice President Spiro Agnew, who left his post because of corruption charges: The bastards changed the rules and didn’t tell me.

 

But actually, Olmert was certainly informed. After the frightened flight of Likud heads in the face of the infamous Central Committee and the establishment of Kadima, and after the police and State Prosecutor’s Office launched probes against the “king of Israel,” Ariel Sharon, Olmert should have realized that the “rules of the game” have indeed changed.

 

Yet even if he would have internalized the abovementioned Agnew statement, it would have been too late: A large part of the acts attributed to him by police and the state prosecutor were done in the past.

 

Brilliant superficiality

Too bad. Ehud Olmert was, and still is, one of the most talented figures in Israeli politics. Indeed, before he became Jerusalem’s mayor he did not hold executive posts – yet nonetheless, he displayed impressive abilities as a politician: He was able to weigh different considerations, take decisions, explain his views, and maneuver well in the corridors of power.

 

Even though he was never considered a natural candidate for the premiership, he was able to positively surprise his (many) rivals. As many others in his generation and within the rightist camp, Olmert realized, even if late, the “facts of life” in the Middle East. He subsequently changed his views, and moved to Kadima.

 

In the future we will likely find out that he was willing to go far in order to leave his mark in Israel’s pantheon, yet this dream required partners on the other side, who did not reach out to Israel because of the assumption that time is working in their favor and that very soon we shall end up with a bi-national state.

 

Olmert is done. What kind of mark did he leave? I once heard someone talking about someone else and saying that he had been gifted with “brilliant superficiality” – and that was a compliment. Olmert will certainly not like the second word, but it appears to me that this is what his term in office was characterized by – brilliant superficiality.

 

One way or another, I think that what we have here is a missed opportunity, not to mention a great personal tragedy. Too bad.

 


פרסום ראשון: 09.22.08, 11:08
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