Looking Beyond Olmert

We had two years to prepare an alternative political and ethical leadership for Israel, and we haven't done it.

Behind his portly frame and seemingly unsophisticated exterior, Binyamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer, Minister of Infrastructure and Ehud Barak’s closest political ally, possesses one of Israel’s most cunning political minds.  Fuad has been a diehard opponent of new elections:  As of now, Labor looks like shedding a quarter of its seats in the Knesset, and if that happens the Labor party will hand Barak his head.  Yesterday Fuad told a meeting of the Labor Party faithful, “make no mistake—we’re heading for elections.”
Something happened in the summer of 2006: The Israeli public lost its faith in the political and cultural shibboleths it has followed since Yitzhak Rabin was elected in 1992.

If even Fuad believes it’s elections, then it’s elections.  Time to look beyond Olmert, beyond Kadima.  I cannot do so without a strong sense of disappointment at lost opportunities.  It’s not just Olmert who’s wasted two precious years of Israel’s time but ourselves as well, the author of this blog and all who share concern for a Jewish Israel.  Israel is going to the polls, but with no real choices other than the discounted ones of yesteryear.

Something happened in the summer of 2006:  The Israeli public lost its faith in the political and cultural shibboleths it has followed since Yitzhak Rabin was elected in 1992.  People want peace but no longer believe in it.  They oppose territorial withdrawals and think they’re bad news, with or without a piece of paper saying “treaty” on it.  They have lost faith in all their public institutions:  Government, politicians, courts, army, even the media, whom they despise even as they consume them compulsively.  Deep beneath the surface is rising concern about the fate of the Jewish state.

The governing culture, whose various representatives are the chief candidates in the forthcoming elections, is losing its self-confidence.  It is still strong, still able to defend its position, but it is in decline.
This would be an opportune time for an alternative political leadership to present itself to the public with an alternative public agenda and an alternative cultural and ethical narrative to justify it.

At the same time, the public declares that it feels more Jewish and more “right wing.”  It is hard to determine exactly what these terms mean to those who use them.  But as is often the case with social trends, the process is clearer than the particular point we have reached in it at the present or any other time.

This would be an opportune time for an alternative political leadership to present itself to the public with an alternative public agenda and, more important, an alternative cultural and ethical narrative to justify it.  It’s no secret what these are:

1. We need to preserve the Jewish state, because it’s under mortal threat from enemies without and within.
2. To do that, we need first and foremost to be convinced of the justice of a Jewish state and of the policies needed to promote its welfare.  That means we need to take traditional Jewish values seriously and make them the foundation of our public policy.
3. We need new policies in specific areas:  A much more decisive foreign and military policy; large new incentives to encourage Palestinian emigration; new legal and media institutions; and a more open, competitive educational system which, without forcing anything on anyone, facilitates (=funds) access for all to the traditional Jewish values on which Israeli society must now be reconstructed.
We aren’t ready. We haven’t put forth the leaders and we haven’t put together the message. But we could, if we put our minds and our effort to it.

An alternative political leadership broadcasting this message in a way accessible to the entire Israeli public would cast a giant shadow over Israeli society.  It would set the agenda of this election campaign.  It wouldn’t necessarily win this time, but it would set the terms of debate.  And having once done so, its eventual victory, in the next elections or the ones after that, would be assured.

Unfortunately, it isn’t about to happen.  We aren’t ready.  We haven’t put forth the leaders and we haven’t put together the message.  But we could, if we put our minds and our effort to it.  I think I know something of what we should be doing and, G-d willing, will write about more in the weeks ahead.

Why Is Olmert Different From Sharon?

Olmert is being thrown out of office by the same people who looked the other way when Sharon was Prime Minister

It’s pretty well accepted in Israel’s political scene that Olmert is finished.  By Israeli law civil servants, including elected ones, may not receive gifts.  Taking bribes is a felony carrying a 7-year sentence and by past Israeli caselaw, one doesn’t need to prove that the target of bribery actually did something for his money.  It’s enough to establish that the money was given and received with the understanding that a quid-pro-quo would one day be expected..
In Sharon’s case, the Israeli legal system simply couldn’t bring itself to stop the corrupt Messiah of disengagement. Why isn’t Olmert considered as holy?

The police and state prosecution have been devoting a lot of effort to Olmert’s case since November last year, when the State Comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, seized computer files from the Ministry of Trade, where Olmert served as minister in 2005.  By law, material in the State Comptroller’s hands cannot be used as evidence in a trial, so the Comptroller returned the materials to the ministry and told the State Prosecutor, Moshe Lador, “go have a look.”  Lador and the Attorney General, Menahem Mazuz authorized the police to take out a warrant for Olmert’s files from the Ministry.  The rest is history.

The real question is, why is Olmert being treated differently from Ariel Sharon? 

This question has aroused a lot of conspiracy theories.  In Sharon’s case, the Israeli legal system simply couldn’t bring itself to stop the corrupt Messiah of disengagement.  Why isn’t Olmert considered as holy?  Surely there must be some deep reason why “they” want Olmert out and so have given “instructions” to topple him.

I think the conspiracy theory is subtly off the mark.  A ruling elite cannot function without morale.  At its height, this morale is expressed in the belief that what’s good for the elite is what’s good for society.  Fifty years ago Communist parties used to believe this.  Anything that increased their power was good for “the revolution,” and that justified everything.
The elite hasn’t stopped believing in its core values, but its more sensitive members are beset by doubts. The elites have betrayed their values in pursuit of the Messiah of peace. Increasingly, some members of the elite wonder if the public’s view of them isn’t justified.

Many years before Communism collapsed for good, doubt set in.  Good Communists did not doubt the goal of Communism, but they began to doubt that the Communist Party actually served that goal.  For many middle-level Communist bureaucrats (such as a young district Communist leader named Mikhail Gorbachev), it became important that the party actually act in accordance with principle, even when doing so led to the weakening of its own political position.  Before long, it became evident that doing good implied the opposite of shoring up Communist rule.  At that point Communist parties began to tear themselves apart, riven by conflict between those who were motivated by the good of the party and those motivated by the good of society.  Communism fell, to be replaced by something completely different.

Something like that is starting to happen in Israel today.  In Israel, the ruling ideology is not Communism but peace and post-Zionism.  The elite hasn’t stopped believing in its core values, but its more sensitive members are beset by doubts.  Disengagement has gone badly wrong, as its opponents predicted.  The public no longer believes in peace.  For that matter, it no longer believes in the elites, in Israeli political institutions, in the elite’s views of democracy and the rule of law, because the elites have betrayed those values in pursuit of the Messiah of peace.  Increasingly, some members of the elite wonder if the public’s view of them isn’t justified.
As the elite continues to lose self-confidence, it will increasingly lose the ability to implement its policies no matter what the cost.

The business of Olmert, Sharon and Attorney General Menahem Mazuz is a case in point.  Mazuz was appointed to his job in 2004 to get Ariel Sharon off the hook.  He delivered the goods, refusing to indict Sharon in two corruption cases that seemed open-and-shut (in one case, Sharon’s son was convicted and now doing time, based on evidence that should have put Sharon pere behind bars as well).  In the last two years, other decisions of Mazuz—first to prepare a severe indictment against former President Katzav and then be forced to accept a plea-bargain with him, then to indict Haim Ramon, only to have a court declare there was no moral turpitude in Ramon’s kissing a young officer stationed in the Prime Minister’s office—have contributed to a precipitious decline in the legal system’s reputation.  Today, Mazuz has no choice but to indict Olmert if the evidence warrants it.  The entire legal system expects him to.  If it fails to deliver on Olmert, it will have lost its raison d’etre in its own eyes.
 
Which is the point.  Today, Israel’s ruling elite can only justify its existence by harming its ideological goals and its grip on power.  As the elite continues to lose self-confidence, it will increasingly lose the ability to implement its policies no matter what the cost.  It is in fact on skids.  Its greatest good fortune is that there is not yet any effective, incisive faith-based alternative to challenge it for control of public opinion and public policy.  And that’s our fault.

A Dumb Idea

Peace negotiations that lead to peace are wonderful.  Peace negotiations that are likely to fail deserve a different adjective.

One of the striking things about Olmert’s new negotiations with Syria is that very few people are coming out and saying that the talks are a bad idea.
Few people have confidence in Assad but equally few are willing to tell the Israeli public that a peace treaty is simply not among the options that the real world offers.

Ehud Barak, who probably has been kept a little bit more in the know by Olmert than most of us (and, in the last month, than Tzipi Livni) spoke about how he’s always favored negotiation.  We just have to be careful about Syria and understand that nothing can be accomplished (assuming any treaty will be an accomplishment) quickly.

That seems to be the pattern.  MK Michael Eitan of the Likud says on A7 today that “negotiating with Syria is like negotiating with Iran”—which one presumes means it’s a futile or dangerous idea—but says he’s in favor of negotiations.  Netanyahu is in no position to say he’s against negotiations, he negotiated when he was prime minister.  Various other people in different parts of the political spectrum have said similar things.

Even politicians on the right are not saying outright that the negotiations are a mistake, though they may believe it, because you cannot tell the Israeli public that the prospect of peace with Syria is a mistake.  Few people have confidence in Assad but equally few are willing to tell the Israeli public that a peace treaty is simply not among the options that the real world offers.  That’s a regrettable weakness but politicians spend their lives accommodating their constituents’ regrettable weaknesses.
I think the negotiations are a dumb idea. Since it appears impossible to conclude them successfully, they tend to increase the likelihood of war.

The difference between Syria on the one hand and Hamas and the Arabs in Judaea and Samaria on the other hand is that the latter two are already doing us all the damage they can muster.  No matter what we do in a military way, things won’t get substantially worse.  Syria and Hizbullah could in principle do us a lot more damage than they’re doing now, and people are afraid of that. 

For the record (just scroll down a bit), I think the negotiations are a dumb idea.  Since it appears impossible to conclude them successfully, they tend to increase the likelihood of war.  But even I haven’t said we can just decide to back out once we’ve begun, because that implies the relations between Israel and Syria are fast deteriorating toward war, and war is to be feared.  Winding down these negotiations without damage will take time, patience and finesse to ensure that missiles don’t start raining down on Tel Aviv soon after they end.  If they do start raining down on Tel Aviv we’ll have to go after the people firing ‘em, and that will be no fun at all.

In fact, I think that both Syria and Israel were better off before the news of negotiations broke, before they were both committed to succeeding or failing at peacemaking.  Not negotiating also means not forcing a confrontation once negotiations break down, as they almost inevitably will.  If you can’t solve a conflict, the next best policy is benign neglect. 
I think that both Syria and Israel were better off before the news of negotiations broke, before they were both committed to succeeding or failing at peacemaking.

For Syria as well as Israel, open war would be an unmitigated disaster.  They say Assad has been under enormous pressure from the Americans, because they boycott hum and because they press the international enquirey into the murder of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri; that he wants negotiations, not peace but simply negotiations, to get American pressure of him.  If so he’s not a lot more farsighted than Olmert.  The ante in this poker game is liable to be a lot higher than he anticipated.