Vintage Olmert

(Israelnationalnews.com) 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.

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. 

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. 

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.