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Photo: Yotam Ronen
Olmert in court. 'There is no shred of joy in a former prime minister going to prison'
Photo: Yotam Ronen
Nahum Barnea

Don't rejoice at Olmert's downfall

Op-ed: Former prime minister may be a convicted felon, but he is not Satan. His jail sentence is not a cause for celebration.

By the time this article is published, the sentence in the Holyland trial will already be signed and sealed. Judge Rozen will have delivered his sentence.

 

 

I have no intention and no desire to affect his decisions. Journalists who gives judges orders – and there are those who do just that – speak pretentiously about the rule of law, but in fact make a laughingstock of the rule of law.

 

The reading of the verdict, a month and a half ago, was accompanied by an unusual outburst of hatred, unusual even in terms of Israel's acceptable impulses. Ehud Olmert was the devil, the evil spirit which refuses to leave, the demon that must be expelled.

 

The expulsion ceremony resembled a religious ritual, a voodoo ceremony. Olmert's enemies organized a party to celebrate the blood. Retired legal experts and different commentators filled the newspapers, the radio, the television and the social networks with curses against the convicted felon and words of praise for themselves.

 

None of them asked themselves what a decent professional should ask in such a situation: Does his or her response refer solely to what is being discussed in this case, Holyland alone, or does it stem from a different, much more impulsive, much more charged, much more personal place. What exactly are we talking about here, in the conviction celebration, Holyland or Olmert?

 

I assume that Judge Rozen dealt with this question during the trial. He even alludes to it in the verdict.

 

There is no argument over the fact that in his decades-long political career Olmert acquired many enemies. His aggressive, callous behavior, his exaggerated responses to criticism, his frequent trips abroad, his connections with wealthy people around the world – all that and more made many people agree. When he was appointed and then elected prime minister following Ariel Sharon's illness, some saw him as an unfit candidate. "I am not popular," Olmert once said about himself. And he was right.

 

And there was the war. The Second Lebanon War got off on the wrong foot and ended in bitter disappointment. Today, eight years later, we can see the accomplishments, the deterrence achieved against Hezbollah and the long state of calm on the Lebanon front. But the lack of trust remained unchanged.

 

The rest was the result of the humiliating interrogations, the embarrassing testimonies in the Rishon Tours affair, American businessman Morris Talansky's early testimony, and later on former bureau chief Shula Zaken's attempt to avoid jail time by providing harsh testimonies against her former boss.

 

I also find it difficult to distinguish between the Olmert of the Holyland affair and Olmert the man. My professional relations with him lasted decades, since he was a young Knesset member. He never lied to me and never deceived me – which is something that, unfortunately, I cannot about some other politicians who are seen as the mark of integrity. He helped me understand complex situations quite often and explain them to the readers.

 

I called on him to step down twice in the newspaper: Following the Lebanon War and in the midst of the Talansky testimony. But only people ruled by their personal instincts are blind to the praise for his term as prime minister, the sincere effort to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, an effort which greatly strengthened Israel's status in the world, the government's efficient work during his term, the readiness to make decisions.

 

Olmert is a convicted felon – and he will remain a convicted felon at least until the Supreme Court appeal is settled – but he is not Satan.

 

There is no shred of joy in a former prime minister going to prison. I suggest, therefore, that all those who sucked up to him and were fed by him and are now, in his downfall, spitting on him, that all those who convicted him years before the Holyland compound was even planned, that all the attorneys and police officers who failed in dealing with the crime families and murderers and Jewish terror and searched for their atonement in this affair, keep their joy to themselves. They should not take pride in this joy.

 


פרסום ראשון: 05.13.14, 12:56
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