Olmert verdict is an earthquake for Israel
Analysis: The man who knows the State of Israel's top security secrets, who belongs to the exclusive group of people which knows the nuclear briefcase code, may go to prison for many years.
Like thunder on a clear day – that was the feeling Monday morning as the verdict was being read out at the District Court. Some will say it was like thunder on a rainy day, because that after so many trials involving public figures we should have been prepared. Some of the top politicians and businesspeople have been convicted of serious crimes, one after the other. People who we thought had everything – from money to a respected position – got their hands dirty like the very last criminals.
The judge who sealed their fate on Monday did not spare them and did not go easy on us. He took us on a 360-degree virtual tour of a dark world. A world of entrepreneurs and wheeler dealers, of wealthy people and public figures, of people offering a bribe and people accepting it. People who were supposed to serve the public in the best way possible and only thought about the best way to serve themselves. People who took advantage of their public position to improve their personal status. People who looked corruption in the eye and did not lower their gaze.
And that, according to what Judge Rozen told us, is the reality we are living in.
So the shock cannot be exaggerated. The real, authentic blow which hit a broad part of the Israeli public on Monday. And those who only felt malicious joy and did not experience grief and a feeling that we have lost our way, alongside relief and even pride over the thorough clean-up – are failing to fully understand the intensity of the earthquake which took place here.
And it's not that we're naïve. A country which put a president and a finance minister in prison, a country in which corruption has long ago become a necrosis in its most important organs, should not be surprised. And yet, seeing a former prime minister, who up until a year ago was still courted by senior politicians who pleaded with him to run for prime minister again, and who is now required to deposit his passport like the very last criminal – is not something that can be ignored.
Ehud Olmert, the man we followed from his first days in politics, from the times he fought corruption fearlessly, through the stations of his life, his positions, his trials. The cigar smoke and luxurious scent he was wrapped in turned over the years into a cloud of suspicions and charges. Some see what happened to him as a symbol of what happened to the state: A brave, talented state seeking good, which turned arrogant and drunk with power over the years.
The list of culprits in Judge Rozen's courtroom – a horrifying mix of former mayors, entrepreneurs, business owners and senior government workers – only increased the shock. The State Prosecutor's Office, which in the beginning spoke about the most serious corruption affair in the history of the state, apparently did not exaggerate. So it's no wonder that Monday's verdict provokes thought.
After days of speculations, of guesses and assumptions about the prosecution's demands and the judge's decision, after revelations of betrayal, lies, recordings and accusations which we had yet to see – the court indicated the direction. Legal experts may have been able to detect the path according to Rozen's responses to the prosecution's request to postpone the ruling following the plea bargain with Shula Zaken. But it appears that even the most experienced people did not imagine the verdict's strength and impact among the Israeli public.
The man who knows the State of Israel's top security secrets, who belongs to the small, exclusive group of people which knows the code of the nuclear briefcase, may go to prison for many years. Will he be escorted there by security guards? Who will protect those who were supposed to protect us?
What have we come to? This is what so many people felt on Monday. What kind of country have we become? And what overpowers what: The corruption which stuck to the elite, or the way we deal with it?
"One day I'll say what's in my heart," Shula Zaken said at the end of the most dramatic day of her life and the life of the "man she worshipped," as diagnosed accurately by Judge Rozen.
But why should we care what's in her heart? What about our heart?
