Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in trouble. His support in public opinion polls is somewhere around one or two percent. More support is given to Arkady Gaydamak, a Russian billionaire who made his money selling arms to one side or another in Angola's civil war, is wanted for tax evasion France, and under investigation here for money laundering. Gaydamak's popularity derives from his high profile ownership of a sports team, and contributions to distressed groups that have fallen through the government's welfare nets.
Olmert's most immediate problems come from an announcement by the official commission investigating last year's war in Lebanon. It will make an interim report next month that will include personal comments about the figures who took prominent roles in the decisions to go to war, and to manage the war. One can wonder why the commission is giving such advance notice about what is likely to be a damning report. It has prompted a month-long period of speculation about the worst. Politicians are upping their attacks on the prime minister and the defense minister, and positioning themselves to take over.
The prime minister began his defense in a speech before a party meeting called to put in place the procedures that may be used for choosing the next party leader. He can be a good speaker, and this was one of his best. He detailed the numerous difficult problems facing an Israeli national leader, including those that demand quick decisions in a setting of limited information. He said time and again that he was not popular, but asserted that he was more concerned about national interests than personal popularity. About his management of the war, he noted that he had succeeded in achieving important objectives while limiting Israeli casualties.
The commission set to criticize him is headed by five distinguished individuals: a retired judge, a professor of law, a professor emeritus of political science, and two retired generals. The political scientist is Yehezkl Dror, well known for his view that governments should decide on its actions systematically, after choosing its goals on the basis of calculating the advantages and disadvantages of all apparent options, and taking into consideration a full range of the factors likely to affect its achievement of the goals chosen. Careful planning is his motto.
Close to 40 years ago, when I was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, I wrote a negative review of Dror's major book. Then and now, his aspirations seemed to me impractical, and not taking sufficient account of the problems in their implementation.
On the basis of that book review, Dror recruited me to be a colleague in the Political Science Department of the Hebrew University. He told me that students and colleagues needed a point of view different from his.
We have had a good personal relationship, and I continue to do what he asked: criticize his views of what is feasible in public policymaking.
On this occasion, I do not know what he has contributed to the closed discussions of the official commission. If, as widely anticipated, the commission criticizes the prime minister and others for not following ideal ways of making decisions, then I will see Yehezkl's input on the commission's work.
In Olmert's defense, I would say that the onset and management of a war is not likely to be neat and systematic. It was not in the case of American efforts in Vietnam or Iraq, or in most Israeli cases. The onset of the Sinai campaign in 1956 and the Six-Day War of 1967 did come as a result of protracted discussions, but their subsequent management, conclusions, and follow-up decisions showed enough imperfections to join the long list of other wars managed with too little forethought and too many quick decisions coming from the guts of someone or other acting under pressure.
All this may be entered into the column of Prime Minister Olmert's defense. On the other side, is my memory of several speeches he gave during the recent war, and the settlement he accepted at its close. He sounded like Churchill during the fighting, and too much like Chamberlain at the end. Moreover, I and many others are troubled by a number of open charges against Olmert for actions taken while moving up through the ranks of Israeli politics. None of them, in my mind, qualify as serious violations of good practice, or corruption deserving severe condemnation and punishment. Yet there is an accumulation of actions in the grey area of unseemly political behavior, less than clearly kosher. It is easy to be tired of Ehud Olmert, and to hope for someone better.
But he made a great speech in his defense, so far commended by a number of commentators. We have yet to hear the charges promised by the commission for next month.
It is likely to be a month tolerable only to those who thrive on political speculation. It will rekindle my frustration at not being born a Norwegian Lutheran or a member of the established church in New Zealand. Then I might have had the luxury of pondering trivial matters according to the standard recipes for rational decisions, far from conditions that make such activity impossible.
Please do not embarrass yourself by trying to understand or make excuses for the pathetic man that the odious and corrupt Ehud Olmert is, was, and will always be. He is an incompetent louse who cares not for the people of Israel otherwise he would have a different Defense Minister then a neo Stalinst buffoon named Amir Putz. Ehud Olmert is a vain, cynical, incompetent nonentity and if he went to bed tonight and did not wake up would not even be mourned by his lunatic wife and children - to say nothing about the Jewish people of Israel. One who would miss him is Hassan Nasrallah.
Posted by: Joel on March 16, 2007 01:03 PM