In search of real leaders
Op-ed: Probe into flotilla raid reveals how pathetic our political leaders have become
On Wednesday, the defense minister gave us a brief leadership lesson. He told the Turkel Committee that the political leadership determines the “what,” while the military leadership decided on the “how.” But now we’re asking: What about the “who”?
Is there someone, for heaven’s sake, in our political establishment who would once and for all assume responsibility without saying one thing for the protocol and another thing for public opinion? Someone who would not declare that he is responsible yet a moment later shift the responsibility elsewhere?
However, everyone around here assumes overall responsibility, yet then rushes to shift the burden to someone else. In that respect, there is no difference between what Barak did Wednesday and what Netanyahu did Tuesday, with one exception: Barak assumed overall responsibility before the committee, for the protocol, while Netanyahu assumed overall responsibility outside the room, in the hallways.
Yet in the final analysis, none of them truly assumed responsibility. Each one of them said: I’m responsible but Barak, or the army, are at fault.
It would be enough to look at the Rashomon-style performance we’ve seen in the past two days before the committee in order to look away in shame: After the prime minister admitted Tuesday that top government ministers only discussed the media and PR effect of the operation, Barak arrived Wednesday and spoke of a lengthy, in-depth discussion where “ministers without portfolio yet with much brains” asked questions.
God help us all
So we have a question too: Excuse me, were these two figures, Netanyahu and Barak, present at the same session? Are they members of the same ministerial forum? And really, do they in fact live in the same country? What’s going on here?
These people granted the committee a pathetic mandate to draft a report that is not supposed to threaten anyone, yet here they are enlisting the services of top-notch lawyers, withdrawing into their offices, performing endless simulations, and ultimately performing a saber dance.
Now, the questions no longer focus on the decision-making process, but rather, on who told the truth to the committee and who manipulated the truth in a convenient manner.
What was revealed to us in the probe’s testimonies is a PM who cannot be responsible because he was abroad, a defense minister who claims to be “Mr. Security” but whose job – as he explained Wednesday – is to determine the “what” and not the “how,” and a group of seven ministers, including two former army chiefs, said to possess incredible skill but sitting there like Muppets and engaging in a discussion about PR.
By the way, if this was indeed the case and the ministers only dealt with the PR angle, how could it be that the operation’s greatest failure was on the public relations front?
What will ultimately determine where the truth lies among the various versions are the minutes of that miserable discussion held by the top seven ministers. Only then would we be able to see the weight given there to the intelligence briefing, the attention given to the army chief’s words regarding risks versus chances, and which subject participants focused on.
Yet as to what will be revealed in the process, God help us all, because there’s simply nobody else that could help us out there.
