thoughts on sad fate of Ehud Olmert

Friends, Druzya, I had promised to respond to Locke's missive published below and will do so next time, but given that the Winograd Report has come out with a damning account of Olmert's behaviour on the Lebanon War, I thought I would write a little about Olmert today.
As I write, Olmert seems to be hanging by a thread after being excoriated for "severe failures" by the Commission. Whether he will be forced to resign immediately depends in part on the intensity of the demonstrations against him over the next 48 hours and whether Kadima continues to back him. According to the latest press reports, the party chairman, Avigdor Itzhaki, plans to call on Olmert to resign at a meeting scheduled for Thursday. Itzhaki is said to have called several Kadima members of parliament today to ask for support. It is quite possible that the party might dump Olmert in favor of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. It is noteworthy that the party's leading Russian-speaking figure, Marina Solodkin, is so far the only Kadima MK to call for him to leave.

It seems to me that Kadima ought to follow the Dump Olmert for Livni option if only for the sake of survival; Olmert is dead meat aqainst Netanyahu if elections are called soon, (as would be Labor leader and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, or likely whoever replaces Peetz in Labor Party elections at end of month) whereas if Livni, who is relatively untainted by the Lebanon debacle, can become PM without elections, perhaps she has a chance to refloat a moderate Israeli politics that can stand against the right-wing maximalism of Bibi. I certainly hope so, although, given that the peace process is stuck anyway, maybe its OK to let Bibi come in and discredit himself again, as he did the last time around. If Bibi does take over, he will have to moderate his position to deal with political reality as even Bush won't accept a totally rigid Israeli position re the West Bank. But I would certainly prefer to let Livni become Israel's second woman premiere, a youngish, relatively fresh face, who although from a Revisionist family, seems more prone to moderation vis a vis the Palestinians than the likes of Bibi.

In any case, whether Olmert goes now or lingers on for a few more weeks or months, he is kaput as PM. What happened to this very talented, very bright, politician to cause him to self-destruct so spectacularly? Even more than most politicians, he was a shrewd political insider-technician who seemed long ago to have sold out whatever principles he may have had and came to savor the so-called finer things in life; luxurious homes, gourmet pasta and fine cigars that captivated so much of Israel's nouveau riche class. As a result, when things went awry in last summer's war, it soon became clear that there was 'no there there', no substance at the heart of Olmert. Rather, he turned out to be the classic empty suit, albeit a finely tailored suit.

I interviewed Olmert back in 1989 in Jerusalem for several American Jewish newspapers during the period he was serving as deputy minister for Israeli Arab affairs--in other words, the minister responsible for improving the lot of the Arabs living inside Israel's 1967 borders, then maybe 800,000 and today more than a million. When I told him what various Arab leaders had said to me about the endemic discrimination they suffered vis a vis Israeli Jews--in terms of job discrimination, not being able to live in Jewish areas, much lower government funding for Arab schools, municipalities etc, than Jewish ones, Olmert readily acknowledged that was true and said it was a dangerous situation for Israel's longtime security and that he was committed to trying to make some improvements. I was struck by his intelligence and sensitivity on the subject, something I hadn't expected in a Likudnik. Looking back, it seems to me that he quickly figured out my politics (it doesnt take a genius to do that) and was playing to that in how he answered my questions. As far as I know, he subsequently did next to notbhing to improve the condition of Israeli Arabs during his tenure as deputy minister, and a few years later stoked right-wing anti-Arab sentiment in defeating Teddy Kollek to become mayor of Jerusalem. Once he became mayor, he constantly pushed for expansion of Jewish neighborhoods in Arab areas and allowed armed settlers to move into Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem like Silwan and bully terrified residents. Yet based on my interview with Olmert, I knew that he knew better, knew he was playing a demagogic role in order to become mayor. It was all about satisfying his ambition.

Another anecdote that I will share about Olmert is a bit more titilating and falls under the rubric of lashon hara (malicious gossip), so those with Judaic scruples about indulging in such things should read no further. An American Jewish woman whom had lived in Israel with whom I was once friendly, sought to escape a stifling marriage in the late 1980s and went for a four day spiritual getaway in Esalen, a hippieish new age paradise overlooking the magnificent Pacific in Big Sur California. One of the things people do in Eslaen is to get naked together in hot tubs--all in a deeply spiritual and non-sexual way, of course. Anyway, my friend was in such a tub blissed out and contemplating the meaning of life when she realized that the guy sitting next to her in the tub, naked with a big cigar between his teeth, and urging her to go with him to his bedroom, was none other than Ehud Olmert. A few years later, of course, when he was running for mayor, he denounced violations of Shabbat by clubs in downtown Jerusalem and totally pandered to the ultra-Orthodox, who voted for him en masse.

Again, what is manifiesat here is a shameless hypocrisy which we see in many politicians, but which, it seems to me, was so advanced in Olmert that he didnt believe in much of anything except advancing his own career and increasing his bank account with shady real estate deals. And its very sad, because he had a great deal of potential. I have detested quite a few politicians including Richard Nixon, Arik Sharon, and George W. Bush. Olmert I don't detest. Indeed, I rather like him. He had the intelligence and drive to be a great leader, but he blew it somewhere along the way. Chaval, djalka, for him, but also for the rest of us.