After Annapolis

 Annapolis will prove that Oslo is dead.  The question for Israel is, "what next?"

In Israel, the Hebrew press is already into post-mortems about the amazing disappearing summit in Annapolis.  This was supposed to be the summit where Israel and the Palestinians agreed to divide Jerusalem and set up a Palestinian state.  Public opinion and (since the Lebanon war) its spokesman, Israel's right-wing opposition, put the heat on Shas and Avigdor Lieberman, and they put the heat on Olmert.  Olmert had to retreat and agree to turn the summit into fluff:  A solemn announcement of the two sides' determination to achieve, within a year, an agreement which neither is prepared to agree to now.  Meanwhile, it became clear that the Palestinians never had any intention of agreeing to anything but their most maximal demands.  Now, as the invitations are printed, it seems like there won't even be a joint statement, just a photo opportunity and eminently forgettable speeches.

At Annapolis, Olmert will go two steps further than Ariel Sharon did.  He will announce Israel's willingness to divide Jerusalem, and to negotiate a settlement before terror ends.  However, both statements will share the fate of Sharon's commitment to establish a Palestinian state:  They will fall stillborn from Olmert's lips, because the conditions that could make a Palestinian state, the division of Jerusalem, or the signing of a settlement at all possible will never be met.  As commitments they will be damaging enough, but one cannot foresee Israel actually implementing them.

It's time to leave off feverish speculation about Annapolis and consider, coolly and calmly, where we will be after Annapolis.  First we have to understand what happened.  Then we have to see what choices Israel faces.

Ehud Olmert is the most radical left-wing Prime Minister Israel has ever had, with the exception of Shimon Peres' brief stint in office in 1996.  He is willing to divide Jerusalem and multiply tenfold the human and political disaster created by the disengagement from Gaza and Northern Samaria.  In the absence of anything better, he is willing to take a powerless puppet like Abu Mazen and crown him "partner."  He is not going to succeed in doing any of this.  The reasons why are important.

What Olmert is trying to do at Annapolis, and what he will fail at, is to revive a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians as a live option.  Other than a few cronies in his government and the Israeli press, almost no Palestinians or Jews believe in this scenario.  Among the Palestinians, the only viable political force is Hamas and its allies, which want to destroy Israel and its Jews root and branch, not achieve a settlement with them.  Fatah and the Abu Mazen/Salam Fayyad cabal are moribund, and their incapacity to carry out any kind of agreement is common knowledge.  Among Israel's Jews, the Second Lebanon War and the subsequent takeover of Gaza by Hamas finally brought about the inevitable:  Deep awareness of how badly Israel has been hurt by Oslo, disengagement, and the flight from Lebanon, and deep skepticism about the possibility of a negotiated peace.  Don't get me wrong:  Most Jewish Israelis want peace, and would be willing to give up a lot in exchange for it.  It's just that they no longer believe in it, and have consigned the whole idea to the realm of political Messianism.  It's clear to everyone that any concessions in Judaea, Samaria and Jerusalem are going to wind up being a gift to Hamas and Iran.

These claims about the attitudes of Israel's Jews are based on in depth polls we conducted at the Israel Policy Center on the morrow of the Lebanon War and again toward the end of October 2007.  The Center's website is suspended pending elective surgery, so readers are invited to see a translation of the 2007 poll here, on Dr Aaron Lerner's website "IMRA."  The poll shows clearly that the Jewish public believes that Abu Mazen is a hollow shell, that Hamas will move into any vacuum the IDF leaves, and that those who oppose further disengagements outnumber those who want one by better than 3 to 1.

The Annapolis Conference will commit Israel, on the declaratory level, to a policy that cannot be carried out.  The situation will exhibit some odd characteristics.  Building in Judaea and Samaria will be frozen, because that is regarded as necessary for peace negotiations, but no meaningful negotiations will be going on.  Israel and the Palestinians in Judaea and Samaria will be locked in a conflict little less bitter than the hot war expected to break out in Gaza after Annapolis, and yet Israel will be incapable of doing anything about it because it will remain committed to a policy that it hasn't a prayer of implementing.  Israel will be deadlocked by its commitment to implementing a political daydream.   

Such commitments don't last.  Israel is going to need a whole new policy, a whole new direction, a whole new way of thinking about and resolving its conflict with malignant Palestinian hostility, one that does not involve making a settlement, evacuating territory, or setting up a Palestinian state, because that is clearly impossible.  The public is not going to allow its politicians just to sit on the problem forever without doing anything about it.  There's going to have to be a new approach, and whoever comes up with one that sounds reasonable is going to sweep the next elections.

From this perspective the most interesting element of our poll is a question we asked the public in 2006 and again in November 2007:  "Do you approve of Israel offering Palestinians in Judaea and Samaria reasonable compensation in return for emigrating to other lands?"  In 2006 a plurality of Israel's Jewish population, 48%, answered "yes" to this question.  In 2007 the majority has risen to 54%.

Heresy

For Israel's peace camp, the people responsible for the forthcoming failure of the Annapolis conference are those who warn of it

The fog surrounding the upcoming Annapolis Conference is starting to clear a little.  Ehud Olmert will go to Annapolis and take care to mention Palestinian rights to a state, including rights in Jerusalem.  He will not say what Israel plans to do about those alleged rights.  His coalition partners, Avigdor Lieberman of Yis
For the Israeli Left, the "people to blame" are not those who cause the conference to fail, but those who warn that it will.
rael Beitenu and Eli Yishai of Shas, will proclaim themselves satisfied.  If Abu Mazen makes trouble, Olmert will ask him before the international press, "are you prepared to say right now that you acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state?"  If Abu Mazen says "no," as he must, the conference will collapse and the onus will be on Abu Mazen—for 24 hours, at any rate.  The "Jewish state" question is Olmert's ace in the hole.  It means that he won't have to shoulder all the blame when the conference becomes a bust.

What Olmert will say about a Palestinian state and Jerusalem is bad enough, and we will hear about it henceforth in every international conference and from every foreign ambassador.  But nothing will really happen in Annapolis, nor result from it.  Both the wild hopes raised in some quarters by the conference and the dire predictions of the consequences of failure will prove empty.  The Palestinians will not "lose hope," because no rational human being ever vested much hope in Annapolis.  They will not take a new turn to violence, because every element in Palestinian society capable of harming Israel and Israelis is already doing everything within its power right now to encompass the downfall of the Jewish state. 

What will happen is that there will be a lot of disappointed people on the Left of the Israeli political spectrum. They will start looking around for someone to blame, and in doing so reveal an interesting psychological phenomenon:

For the Israeli Left, the "people to blame" are not those who cause the conference to fail, but those who warn that it will.

The reason for failure is the complete unwillingness of Palestinian society to come to terms with a Jewish state.  From this position flows Hamas' commitment to neverending Jihad against Israel until all its Jews are dead, fled or converted to Islam.  From this stems the fact that Abu Mazen—who would gleefully join Hamas' Jihad if he weren't totally dependent for his life on Israeli protection—refuses to acknowledge that such a thing as a Jewish state can actually exist.  As a result, any steps Israel takes toward ending its military rule of the Palestinians will lead to Judaea and Samaria becoming a base of operations meant to destroy Israel.

Mind, these are not necessarily the reasons I would give for not cutting a deal with Abu Mazen.  I believe that Judaea, Samaria and Gaza, to which the IDF will soon return, belong to the Jewish people, and that if any accommodation with the Palestinians is possible it has to start with their acknowledgment of that fact.  But these are the reasons why any rational Israeli leftist ought to concede that we will not see a Palestinian-Israeli agreement, or a Palestinian state, in our time.  Some of these points were made last week in an article by MK Gidon Saar, head of the Likud Knesset faction, in a Hebrew daily.

The reaction of the Israeli Left was explosive.  An editorial in Ha'aretz equated Saar to Haled Masha'al, the head of Hamas who hangs out in Damascus.  Saar was the equivalent of a world-class terrorist, not because he is trying with blood and fire to sabotage the Annapolis conference, but simply because he refuses to believe in it.

A similar point of view is expressed by Uzi Benziman, writing in the same journal this week.  Benz
I have often wanted to ask an Israeli Leftist, "Under what circumstances would you believe an Israeli-Palestinian peace not possible within a reasonable period of time?" I've never had the opportunity. I suspect that anybody with a reasonable answer to that question thereby disqualifies himself from membership in the Israeli Left.
iman notes the repeated assessments of Israel's military establishment that Annapolis will go nowehere.  "The problem," writes Benziman, "is that this opinion, even if entirely accurate, reflects not just intelligence assessments regarding the Palestinian position but the spiritual and ideological state of its holders in the Israeli establishment."  What Benziman is demanding is not a changed assessment of the facts, for which there is no warrant, but for Israeli generals to undergo a spiritual conversion and be born again as unconditional believers in peace.
 
What this means is that when it comes the Israeli Left's views on Israeli-Palestinian relations, we are not dealing with a foreign policy perspective but with an act of faith.  In the real world, opinions on things have to be falsifiable in order to be considered seriously.  If someone asks you, "what would have to happen in order for you to change your mind?" you have to have an answer.  Otherwise your opinion isn't based on reason.  It's just a belief, which nobody but you is required to take seriously.  I have often wanted to ask an Israeli Leftist, "Under what circumstances would you believe an Israeli-Palestinian peace not possible within a reasonable period of time?"  I've never had the opportunity.  I suspect that anybody with a reasonable answer to that question thereby disqualifies himself from membership in the Israeli Left. 

The Israeli Left likes to describe itself as the "rational camp."  There doesn’t seem to be anything rational about it, however, just a blind faith that cannot be challenged by any facts, no matter how persuasive.  In this "spiritual and ideological state," the people to blame are not those who are responsible for making dreams impossible but those who dryly point out the facts.  These people are heretics, and we know the punishment for them.

Military Intelligence

The IDF, Israel's army, is in a bad way.  True, most of its units are far better trained today than sixteen months ago, on the eve of Israel's abortive war in Lebanon.  But it has a serious manpower problem.
The IDF, Israel's army, is in a bad way.
  Peace, it seems, is not around the corner, and the IDF has to plan for simultaneous fighting in Lebanon, Gaza, and the Golan Heights.  40% of Israeli males of draft age either dodge the draft or get thrown out in the middle of their stint, and there isn't enough manpower to go around.  The problem would be less severe if the IDF had a large body of trained reservists to draw upon, as it's supposed to, but up to a year and a half ago the assumption was that peace was indeed around the corner, and the IDF let reserve training slide.  Fixing this will take years.

That's far from the worst of it.  The IDF depends on thousands of young, relatively low-ranking officers to do immensely responsible jobs, anything from leading troops under fire to making sure every man in a division gets his three square meals a day.  About half the IDF's junior officers have left or want to leave.  A source tells me that about 50 critical supply and administrative positions are unfilled because their incumbents have left and there is nobody competent to replace them.

These young officers leave partly because civilian jobs pay more, but the chief factor seems to be lack of confidence in their top leadership—the score or two of top generals who actually run the army.  They don't want to serve leaders who don't inspire and whose incompetence may waste lives.

So the IDF's problem is not just numbers.  It needs motivated, dedicated, intelligent soldiers at all levels, from the top down.

As it is, there is a source of such soldiers.  Young men from the national-religious community traditionally are highly motivated to serve.  About 40% of the latest batch of newly minted officers, and 50% of those slated for combat command, wear knitted kippot.  Among the brightest are those who go to pre-military academies (mechinot) and hesder yeshivot, which combine military service with Torah study.

These soldiers represent a problem, however.  The problem is that they are not mindless automatons. (Wait, we thought that was what the IDF needed!)  They have values and convictions, and view service in the IDF as part of the larger skein of values that govern their lives.

One of these values is that one does not throw a Jew out of his home.  Some months ago several of these soldiers were ordered to help expel Jews from their homes in Hebron.  Six of them refused orders and were sent to jail.  A busload of the rest were sent to Hebron.  They stayed on the bus, and a military policeman sent to get them off was expelled from the bus at high velocity (fortunately the bus was parked at the time).
Ashkenazi and Stern seem to have a problem with real, live soldiers, whose code of values don't fit into their neat categories of good and bad.

Another value is modesty with respect to the opposite sex.  This modesty is impossible to maintain where men and women train together in combat exercises, which is an experiment the IDF has been attempting in recent years.

These values have raised the dudgeon of senior IDF commanders, specifically the Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, and the head of the IDF's manpower division, Gen. Elazar Stern.  These officers maintain there is no place for private convictions in the IDF—except of course when those convictions raise a soldier's motivation to serve and make him a better soldier.  Ashkenazi and Stern seem to have a problem with real, live soldiers, whose code of values don't fit into their neat categories of good and bad. 

Recently Ashkenazi and Stern decided that the solution to the IDF's manpower problem was to draft more women and use them in every possible combat role.  This might solve the problem of quantity—though I doubt it—but it would make the problem of quality far worse.  Mixed-sex combat units in the IDF perform worse than their all-male counterparts, since soldiers find it difficult to concentrate on the mission at hand when their attention is distracted by something else.  Also, the policy bids fair to drive increasing numbers of the IDF's most motivated soldiers out of the service and into jail for refusing orders.

An interesting test case came to light recently, in the IDF's training program for soldiers who will serve in Field Intelligence.  A significant crop of this year's trainees are students from the Yeshivat Har Beracha in Elon Moreh, now doing their military-service stint.  Field Intelligence training includes a lot of nighttime cross-country maneuvers, and many of the instructors are women.

One of the trainees told his commander that it went absolutely against his religious conscience to engage in training of this sort in close contact with a woman.  His commander accepted his argument and declined to punish him for refusing orders.  The rest of the soldier's yeshiva colleagues hastened to make the same complaint.  Result:  No women instructors will be assigned to this unit.  In three months these soldiers will finish their training and begin to make life very difficult for terrorists in Hebron, Ramallah, and—who knows?—maybe Gaza and Kuneitra as well.
The IDF ought to get out of the business of expelling Jewish civilians or upholding abstract principles of equality of the sexes at the expense of the combat ability of its field units.

That junior Field Intelligence officer made an intelligent decision (remember, the IDF desperately needs officers capable of intelligent decisionmaking).  His unit needs motivated soldiers and that's what interests him.  He isn't about to make a stink over his men's private conscience and whether their convictions fits some abstract notion of obedience.  He wants his men to fight hard and serve him enthusiastically, not with reservations and lack of motivation.

What the IDF needs now is not to fight ideological battles with its best soldiers over whether their conscience suits some abstract ideal of obedience.  The IDF's mission is to attract and retain quality soldiers who have come to fight the enemy, not turn those very soldiers into the enemy.  The IDF ought to get out of the business of expelling Jewish civilians or upholding abstract principles of equality of the sexes at the expense of the combat ability of its field units.  If its top commanders are incapable of realizing this and emulating the intelligence of their subordinate in Field Intelligence, maybe they should look for something else to do.

Accident Prone

Olmert's skills as a political survivor cannot forever obscure his dismal record as Prime Minister.

Recently a foreign journalist asked me if Olmert's multitude of criminal investigations would lead to his downfall.  I had to tell him that the smart money in Jerusalem was betting they wouldn't.  Even if Olmert is indicted, the letter of the law says he doesn't have to quit until convicted.  One can expect Olmert to hang on to office until led out in handcuffs by the police.  The shame and self-doubt to which ordinary mortals are
The shame and self-doubt to which ordinary mortals are prey, and which are so essential an element of civilized society, seem to have no part in Olmert's makeup.
prey, and which are so essential an element of civilized society, seem to have no part in his makeup.

"So does that mean Olmert is likely to see out the end of his term?" my foreign journalist asked.  "Not necessarily," I replied.  "We're all fascinated today by the question of how long he can hang on in office because he made an immense blunder last summer.  The real question is whether he possesses the judgment required of a Prime Minister. What if he blunders again?"

Olmert's sheer skill at day-to-day survival has won him a reputation for political wizardry that translates into grudging respect.  Boy, he must be smart, people think to themselves, to be so universally despised and yet hang on to office.  In part, Olmert's success lies in getting us to focus on the drama of his continued tenure in office, rather than on how he actually uses the authority vested in him.

Olmert's next blunder seems not far off.  It came about in typical Olmert fashion.  He needed to keep certain people happy:  Condoleeza Rice, who bullies him; Attorney General Menahem Mazuz, a left-wing radical (he favors left-wing draft dodgers but prosecutes right wingers) who will decide whether to indict him; and a few important journalists and intellectuals, who might help shore up his reputation if he subscribes their dreams of withdrawal and peace.  Above all, he had to present himself to the public as doing something.  To accomplish all this he had to commit himself to making Abu Mazen happy.

Trumpeting the prospect of peace, Olmert rushed in where any reasonably prudent angel would fear to tread.  The consensus among Israeli security experts is that Abu Mazen's potential for actually ruling Palestinian society is nil.  Right now he is in effect an Israeli puppet, sustained exclusively by the Israeli bayonets against which he rails.  If Israel were to hand him an independent Palestinian state, Hamas would have his head within a month.
The real question is whether he possesses the judgment required of a Prime Minister. What if he blunders again?"
 

Promising to give up everything, including Jerusalem, Olmert failed to appreciate the adverse political forces he was arousing.  He did not foresee the pressure that would be brought to bear on his coalition partners, Shas and Yisrael Beitenu, and within his own Kadima party.  Yet he rashly gave his word to Condoleeza Rice to deliver, and she is squeezing him to do just that.  The Annapolis conference, if it ever happens, seems likely to end in an Israeli debacle.  Nothing will be achieved, and everybody will be angry at Israel.

Olmert's behavior appears to be based on a shockingly autistic world view:  There are no real issues.  Nothing really matters to anybody but their public image and private perks.  The Prime Minister's office puts at his disposal immense resources to manipulate and satisfy personal ambitions, a kind of city hall writ large.  Surely, with such advantages, this master of brokering and massaging can manage anything?

Alas, no.  For Ehud Olmert's savvy as a politician is matched by his utter incompetence as a statesman.  He appears to have no real comprehension of the large issues he deals with.  He recklessly embraces projects which anyone with the understanding of a child would shun.  He did so last summer, and he did so again this spring with his Abu Mazen peace accord gambit.  He seems to be doing so yet once more with the issue of a
Ehud Olmert's savvy as a politician is matched by his utter incompetence as a statesman.
constitution, declaring on the first day of the Knesset's winter session that he will adopt a constitution that "everyone, I mean everyone, agrees to," this in a country deeply divided about the most fundamental issues. 

True, he did bomb something in Syria, with apparent success, but that was a single, isolated incident, not a major policy issue.  Moreover, in this case, exceptionally, Olmert learned about the issue and made his decision through the filter of professional intelligence and military advisers.  On issues he deals with himself, he gives the impression of being out of his depth, a bush leaguer deposited by serendipity in a place ordinarily reserved for the major leagues.

A master manipulator can make a serious mistake and survive.  Olmert, however, is on his way to acquiring a reputation for being an accident-prone prime minister, always botching the important issues.  That makes him a serious liability to his party and coalition colleagues.  Not to mention the rest of the country.

The Blue Pushke At Stake

A constitutional crisis is shaping up in Israel over a fundamental issue of Jewish nationalism.

I imagine most readers of this blog grew up, as I did, with the little blue JNF pushke as part of their cultural baggage. 
Founded nearly 100 years ago, before the Jews created a state in the Middle East and the post-Zionists hijacked it, the JNF was established in order to buy land in the Eretz Yisrael and hold it in trust for the Jewish people
Founded nearly 100 years ago, before the Jews created a state in the Middle East and the post-Zionists hijacked it, the JNF was established in order to buy land in the Eretz Yisrael, hold it in trust for the Jewish people, and settle Jews upon it.  To this day the JNF controls vast tracts of prime Israeli agricultural land and a significant proportion of the most valuable urban real estate in the country.

The State of Israel was established in 1948 and it, too, controls vast tracts of land.  The policy of the JNF became the policy of the State of Israel:  Public land was supposed to be used for Jewish settlement.  In 1961 the JNF and the Israel Lands Authority signed an agreement:  The Authority would manage the JNF's land as part of a national land policy.  The state committed itself to manage the JNF's land in accordance with the JNF's charter:  JNF land was to be used for Jewish settlement, and never sold, only leased.  After all, the JNF's land didn't belong to the State of Israel.  It was held in trust for the Jews.

In the 1990s the JNF set aside land for what is today the suburban settlement Katzir.  Like all JNF settlements, Katzir was supposed to be Jewish.  An Arab named Ka'adan decided (with the help of lots of well-financed and ideologically motivated friends) to buy a house in Katzir.  He took his case to Israel's Supreme Court, then dominated by the legendary Aharon Barak.  The court ruled that it was illegal for the Israel Lands Authority to enforce the JNF's charter, as it was committed to doing, and to refrain from leasing land to Ka'adan, even though he wasn't a Jew.  Today Ka'adan owns a house in Katzir.  At one blow, ninety years of Zionist policy and a key tenet of Zionism was struck down.  The court also struck a blow for a key principle of post-Zionism:  Jewish nationalism is discri
What Israel's Supreme Court now proposes to mandate is, in my view, a form of judicially sanctioned theft. And it's not theft of the wealthy or privileged, but of generations of Jewish poor, whose hopes and dreams created Zionism and a Jewish state
minatory, if you will . . . racist.  Something we should all be ashamed of.

Barak hedged his Ka'adan decision with caveats, and the equivalent of a judicial smirk.  He wrote that the Ka'adan case was to be regarded as an individual case , not setting a general rule.  He well knew that the principle he was establishing—that Zionist land policy was discriminatory—could not long be confined to a single case.  Arab advocacy groups like Adala and Mussawa took the hint.  They soon mounted a legal challenge against the JNF's charter.  As we write, the JNF is knuckling under:  Under court order, its management is negotiating the surrender of its most valuable urban lands to the state, no longer to be reserved for Jewish settlement.  In return the State of Israel will pay the JNF money.

For four generations, tens of thousands of Jews around the world, in Polish slums and New York sweatshops, put their pennies in the blue pushke to redeem the Land of Israel for the Jewish people.  The JNF's land is held in trust for the Jews.  Selling it—which is what the JNF's management now proposes to do—is illegal under its charter.  What Israel's Supreme Court now proposes to mandate is, in my view, a form of judicially sanctioned theft.  And it's not theft of the wealthy or privileged, but of generations of Jewish poor, whose hopes and dreams, now so basely betrayed, created Zionism and a Jewish state.

Last month an interesting thing happened.  In defiance of the Supreme Court, the Knesset passed, on its first reading, a law meant to write the original JNF charter into Israeli law.  The vote was a landslide, 64-16.

The vote immediately produced judicial murmers offstage.  Israel's Attorney General, Menahem
A constitutional crisis is shaping up in Israel, pitting elected legislators against judges who appoint one another, with a fundamental issue of Jewish nationalism at stake. Who will win?
Mazuz, declared the law unconstitutional.  Israel has no constitution, and never had a law that authorizes the Supreme Court to strike down the Knesset legislation, but Israel's judges have never let trivial matters such as the legality of their own decisions hinder them in the past.

Today, however, things are different.  The prestige of Israel's judiciary has declined precipitously.  It is viewed now as it really is:  insular, inefficient, presumptuous in its grasp for powers the people never granted it, and intellectually unimpressive.  Also, there is a new undercurrent in Israel:  Olmert is still Prime Minister, but among the grassroots Jewish nationalism is making a comeback.  Five years ago, the Knesset would never have defied the Supreme Court.  Today is something else again.

The "JNF Law" still has to be reported out of the Knesset's Economics Committee—which seems a shoo-in—and pass a second and third reading.  A constitutional crisis is shaping up in Israel, pitting elected legislators against judges who appoint one another, with a fundamental issue of Jewish nationalism at stake.  Who will win?