Vintage Olmert

Ehud Olmert's political valedictory was written by his defense lawyers.  It was a passel of lies.

Olmert spoke to the nation last night for about ten minutes.  As I listened, I was reminded of Berlin Diary by William Shirer (his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is better known).  Shirer was Berlin correspondent for the New York Times during the 1930s.  He would cover Hitler’s speeches on public occasions or in the Reichstag, and then go home and write in his diary how astounded he was that an entire nation should be spellbound by a speech full of lies that a 10-year-old could see through.
Some commentators praised Olmert for his statesmanslike, balanced valedictory. Actually, it was vintage Olmert: Bluff, spin and prevarication throughout.

Olmert took credit for strengthening Israel’s defenses; for improving Israel’s deterrent power (he didn’t mention Sderot); for removing the threat of attack from Israel’s north; for solving the problem of Israel’s impoverished Holocaust survivors (he gave them a hundred shekels a month); for supporting the poor and improving Israel’s education system.  The nearest he came to mentioning the Lebanon War and the Vinograd Commission was to claim credit for identifying needed reforms and implementing them (Judge Vinograd himself said some months ago that the IDF has implemented the recommendations of the report, while the government has neglected those it was supposed to attend to).

Except for improvements in the IDF’s tactical capability, not one of these claims is true.  We still have no idea whether the IDF is better able to use its better-trained forces in service of some useful and practical military strategy.  In addition, Olmert claimed wonderful achievements in areas, presumably security-related, that he claimed he couldn’t talk about.  Given the quality of his other assertions, one may be permitted to treat this completely unverifiable one with, to paraphrase Churchill, a double measure of the suspicion that attaches to all his statements.

Then there were the half-lies.  Olmert claimed to have preserved “economic and social stability” and the provision of employment for hundreds of thousands of new workers.  In truth, Olmert proved an indifferent guardian of the policies implemented by the man who really reformed Israel’s economy, Binyamin Netanyahu, whose feathers Olmert sought to steal.  Netanyahu slashed expenditure, balanced the budget, and reformed pensions policy.  As a result he was able to initiate a policy of progressive tax reductions, resulting in four years of rapid economic growth and rapid job creation. 
Olmert wants to create the image of a wise and farsighted elder statesman. He wants his judges to judge him on this mythical record, and treat his innumerable peculations as the small change a noble career. It worked for Shimon Peres, why shouldn’t it work for him?

During his two years in office, Olmert has thrown money at constituencies he wanted to bribe or who were able to make a big enough stink in the press.  Gradually, the deficit has been widening, threatening growth, tax reduction, and all Netanyahu’s achievements.  Ironically, next week the Cabinet is to meet to discuss a 9 billion shekel (nearly $3 billion) cut in the 2009 budget, 1.5% of GDP, 4% of expenditure, needed to close the deficit gap.  Hardly impressive stewardship of the nation’s economy.

Some commentators praised Olmert for his statesmanslike, balanced valedictory.  Actually, it was vintage Olmert:  Bluff, spin and prevarication throughout.

There’s a reason for all this.  Olmert’s political exit strategy is actually the entrée to his legal strategy.  There’s really little he can do to explain away envelopes full of cash, double-billing for junkets with the money passed on to family members, illegal appointments in government ministries, and all the rest.  His lawyers will do their best but the fact remains that Olmert is the epitomy of the corrupt politician in a public system characterized by the type.  No, Olmert’s real plea is to the grandstand.  He wants to create an image of a wise and farsighted elder statesman, dealing with grand themes and grand issues.  He wants his judges to judge him on this mythical record, and treat his innumerable peculations as the small change a noble career.

It worked for Shimon Peres, who was caught red-handed taking money illegally, why shouldn’t it work for him?

So it’s important to keep in mind that Olmert’s grand achievements and noble ambitions exist mainly in the scripts of his well-paid spin doctors.  He lost a war in Lebanon, let the Hamas take power in Gaza and then appeased it, utterly botched the prisoner exchange with Hizbullah, ran reckless with the government’s budget, legitimized Syria’s regime and Hizbullah’s de facto takeover of Lebanon for no visible return, and basically did nothing else besides.  His tenure has been “the years the locusts have eaten,” during which the strategic threat to Israel has grown enormously, the ring of heavily armed enemies has tightened about her, while her government sat paralyzed by indecision. 
Olmert’s theater is meant for the men and women in black gowns who make up Israel’s legal establishment, living in a dream world of their own, governed by dream values. He’ll probably get away with it.

As Olmert and the rest of Israel’s political elite know, with the possible exception of Tzipi Livni, all of Olmert’s peace negotiations were a sham, a shadow theater for a particular narrow constituency whom it was Olmert’s concern to appease.  Israel can make concessions but it cannot conclude peace with Syria, the Palestinians, or Hizbullah, and Olmert, who is not stupid, knows it.

I doubt most Israelis are like the Germans of the 1930s.  Watching TV last night, many will have pulled a wry smile.  Israelis tend to be politically passive but few retain any illusions about Olmert.  They're content to let Olmert have his say as long as gets on with moving on.  Sof-sof!

All Olmert’s theater is meant for the men and women in black gowns who make up Israel’s legal establishment, and who, while living in a dream world of their own, governed by dream values, decide issues of life and death of which they have no comprehension.  He’ll probably get away with it.

Tzipi Speaks Out

Tzipi correctly describes "the situation" as "not simple," but assumes that her audience is.
At long last Tzipi Livni has said something that sounds like a candidate for Prime Minister.  From the Kadima party.

What’s a person like Tzipi Livni, who, as far as we can tell, never put an agora in her pocket that didn’t belong to her, doing in a party like Kadima?  In her first public attempt to act like a Prime Ministerial candidate, she made it clear.  She’s announced that she wants to form a National Unity government which can stretch to include even Meretz and (horrors) the Likud, in order to deal with Israel’s situation, which is “not simple,” in her words.

Tzipi’s right about the situation.  She also assumes that while the situation is not simple, her audience is.

Somewhere, beneath the spin and the corruption and the nauseating display of  the titanic ambitions of little people, politics is about important issues.  Eons ago, Tzipi Livni was elected on a platform of tossing another 100,000 Israeli citizens into the dustbin and making a lasting peace with the puppet of the Mukata.

That platform lasted for about 90 days, before the Olmert government could get properly comfortable in it
Livni's political blindness has been monumental. She bears more responsibility for Israel’s predicament than any person alive with the exception of Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak.
s chauffeured Volvos.  Since then Israel’s situation has changed dramatically.  Just about everybody realizes that instead of being on the brink of peace, we stand on the brink of a war of annihilation.  We’re just not doing anything about it.

In this situation, which is “not simple,” Tzipi Livni is not a tabula rasa.  She comes with a record.  She bears more responsibility for Israel’s predicament than any person alive with the exception of Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak.  Her political blindness has been monumental.  She hasn’t done a single thing to warn the public of the dangers or to avert them.  She hasn’t changed her personal positions an iota since the day before the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War.  She’s pursued the will-o-the-wisp of peace with the Palestinian Nonentity long after a majority of the country has recognized it for what it is, a farcical scam.  Till her statement yesterday, she seemed totally oblivious to the rapid and ominous darkening of Israel’s political horizon during her tenure in office.

That in itself would be reason enough for her to leave the political stage now rather than to seek to dominate it.  At the very least, she should let the public know what she intends to do with her “national unity government.”  What’s her platform?  What does she intend to do about Gaza?  About Judaea and Samaria?  About Hizbullah?  About Iran?  Parties join a government on the basis of that government’s proposed policies.  Nobody now has any idea what a Livni government would stand for, other than for Tzipi Livni. 

Israel has had a hollow government for over two years now, full of comments about our serious situation but with no plans to do anything about it.  The real object of those currently sitting around the government table is to . . . keep on sitting.  When Livni discusses whom she wants in her government, rather than what she proposes to do with it, she’s indicating that she’s really proposing more of the same.  Like the entire Kadima lineup, she’s gotten the country into a situation that she’s too small to handle, or even to think constructively about.  Good enough a reason to flee her “national unity government” rather than join it.
What does Livni intend to do about Gaza? About Judaea and Samaria? About Hizbullah? About Iran? Nobody now has any idea what a Livni government would stand for, other than for Tzipi Livni.

News scoop :)

Peres and Abu Mazen were meeting in the Israeli President’s residence when Abu Mazen’s constituent went on his tractor rampage on King David Street.  In the ensuing uproar, few noticed when Abu Mazen pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and began measuring Peres’ rooms for his furniture.

Poor fool.  He doesn’t realize that Ismael Haniya in Gaza has the complete floor plans of Peres’ residence in Jerusalem and Abu Mazen’s suite in the Mukata in Ramallah tacked onto the wall of his office.

Michael Melchior's Mitzva

Israel's new educational "stream" offers faith-based Israeli Jews the opportunity to engage in social engineering on a massive scale.

Michael Melchior, a Haredi rabbi elected on Labor’s Knesset list, is a dyed-in-the-wool leftist.  He’ll prefer Palestinian interests to Jewish interests any day, and he voted without compunction for the crime against the Jewish people perpetrated upon Gush Katif.  But he has done a mitzvah at last.  If he knew I thought so, he might have reconsidered.  But the deed is done, and it only remains for us to take advantage of it.
Michael Melchior has done a mitzva at last. If he knew I thought so, he might reconsider. But the deed is done.

Last week the Knesset passed a law setting up a new, “pluralistic” educational stream in which children from religious and nonreligious families are supposed to study together and learn about Judaism, with the object of getting Jews of all backgrounds to feel comfortable with each other.

The object of the emphasis on tolerance is to create an environment in which all approaches to Jewish identity are considered valid.  If the new system of education were actually to work that way, it would represent a challenge for those who believe that, in fact, there is a canonical standard of Jewish faith and observance.  But that is not how the new education system is likely to work in practice, its founders’ intentions notwithstanding. 

Consider:  Most Jewish parents consider themselves traditional.  Most want their children to come into contact with genuine Jewish tradition and values, in a non-coercive framework.  It's only a small minority of leftist elites who are interested in pluralistic Judaism for pluralism's sake.  Most teachers of humanities subjects in Israel, even today, are products of the religious teacher-training network.  If this new education stream gets really big, the only place it’s going to be able to draw enough teachers from is the Orthodox teacher-training system, and from the Yeshivot and Midrashot.  And by defining itself as “pluralistic,” the new stream will probably have to give access to Orthodox teachers and principals.  What matters is who teaches in these schools, and what they teach there.  That’s going to determine the character of the new education stream, not what politicians put on paper.
What matters is who teaches in these schools, and what they teach there. That’s going to determine the character of the new education stream, not what politicians put on paper.

There is nothing Israel needs more than to bring the majority of Jewish youth into contact with Jewish values.  Israeli education, and Israeli society, is withering away for lack of values.  Judaism has values to teach that are immediately relevant to state and society:  Respect for other people’s persons and property, the sanctity of marriage and the family, the obligation to be upright and honest in all one’s dealings, respect for women as persons, not objects, prohibition of slander and libel.  The obligation to care about society and state, to shoulder common burdens, to settle the Land of Israel.  The idea that the proper role of the State of Israel is to guard and perpetuate Jewish interests and values, not combat them as it now often does.  All of this can be taught without challenging the formal definitions of the new educational stream.

What about Shabbat and Kashrut?  What about the Master of the Universe?  The new educational stream is meant to attract people whose views on these subjects are ambiguous.  These schools are not supposed to ram observance down their throats.  But one can imagine a school that teaches that Jewish values ought to be authoritative in man’s relationship with his fellow-man and with society, and that also teaches that Jewish observances come from the same source as Judaism’s binding ethical commandments.  What is the kid in the school going to do about it?  That’s up to him or her.  If he or she chooses to try some prayer or Sabbath observance, there'll be help.

Of course, this requires teaching Orthodox teachers how to function in a challenging environment, one where a majority of their students are not Orthodox.  Where one must be tolerant of different Jewish lifestyles, where religious observance (for even if not one Orthodox student goes to these schools some students will be drawn to Orthodox practice) takes place alongside religious nonobservance.  These teachers must understand that they have a mission:  Not to make their charges religious, but to ensure they have a sympathetic exposure to Judaism—and that becoming observant is portrayed as a live option, not anathema.  On the way, they’ll be making Israel safe for Judaism, which it isn’t just now.
There is nothing Israel needs more than to bring the majority of Jewish youth into contact with Jewish values. Israeli education, and Israeli society, is withering away for lack of values.

I think the Orthodox educational establishment should get together and make a commitment to moving into the new educational stream in a big way:  Training teachers to teach in them, even setting up a network of primary and secondary schools committed to functioning within the new dispensation.  What really will determine the effect of the new educational stream on Israeli society is who teaches in the schools and who determines, at the level of the school, the content of curriculum.

Some people in Israel’s faith-based community will complain about the new education stream and how it doesn’t really teach an authentic form of Judaism.  This misses the point entirely.  I wouldn't send my kids to the new educational stream, because I want my kids in an environment combining Torah teaching and Torah lifestyle.  These schools are not meant for my kids.  It’s going to be mainly secular and traditional parents who send their kids to these schools for a taste of Judaism, and if we do it right, for a taste of genuine values, without pre-committing to an Orthodox lifestyle.  Michael Melchior has handed Israel’s faith-based community a golden opportunity to engage in social engineering on a massive scale.  We ought to take up the challenge with both hands.