For everyone
who has any interest at all in Middle East politics, the commentary below was
especially interesting, just gleaned from my morning harvest of news.
The future of
the new Kadima party is uncertain, with its controversial, founding member in
an induced coma after a massive stroke. Other commentary suggests that the
historic era for Israel of founding warrior-politicians is passing away with
the exit of Ariel Sharon. - kwc
Also in my
Israel/Sharon files this week:
Ariel Sharon family bribery scandal back in
the news: police have prima facie evidence indicating that
Austrian brothers Martin and James Schlaff were involved in transferring $3
million to members of PM Ariel Sharon's family, possibly with the intention of
bribing Sharon…
In response to the Channel
10 report, MKs from various political parties demanded that Mazuz make a
decision on the case before the elections, and several demanded that Sharon
either resign or suspend himself. Members of Sharon's Kadima Party insisted in
response that there was nothing new in the report, and it therefore had no
political significance. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/665843.html
Analysis: A tragic end to Ariel Sharon’s
one man show http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/666405.html
Deputy Olmert in charge: “The
Basic Law says that
if 100 consecutive days have passed since the acting prime minister has taken
on the position of the prime minister, and the prime minister has not returned
to his job, the prime minister will be considered permanently unable to
discharge his duties. In such a case, on the 101st day, the government is
dissolved. After
consulting with the political parties represented in the Knesset, the president
must appoint a Knesset member to form a new government within 7 days in the
above circumstance and within 14 days in the case of the prime minister's
death.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/666383.html
Ehud Olmert: Profile in Leadership
by Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, Jan. 05, 2006
I met Ehud Olmert, the newly named acting
prime minister of Israel, in June at Richard Gere's home in New York. I was
scheduled to MC a dinner held by the Israel Policy Forum the next night at
which Olmert was to be the keynote speaker. The off-the-record conversation
centered on the imminent withdrawal of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and
parts of the West Bank.
It was clear that
Olmert's Nixon-goes-to-China embrace of unilateral disengagement was not born
of an attempt to test the political waters for Ariel Sharon - as some have
alleged - but out of a deep conviction that this was the only way for Israel to
achieve security and a lasting peace.
He recounted the moment when he went public with his plan for withdrawal. It
was November 2003. He received a call very early in the morning from Sharon,
who had the flu. The prime minister asked Olmert to take his place and speak at
a ceremony honoring the 30th anniversary of the death of Israel's founding
father, David Ben-Gurion. Olmert decided this would be the perfect opportunity
for him to raise the idea of unilateral disengagement - which he did, setting
in motion the seismic political shift that culminated with this August's
pullout.
Unlike so many of our political class, Olmert is able to maintain two competing
thoughts at the same time: that withdrawing from land captured in the 1967 war
would be both really, really, really painful, and really, really, really
necessary.
As he put it the next night, at the IPF dinner: "We are tired of fighting. We are tired of being courageous.
We are tired of winning. We are tired of defeating our enemies. We want that we
will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our
enemies. We want them to be our friends, our partners, our good neighbors. And
I believe that this is not impossible."
Whether in the small setting of Gere's living room in his shirtsleeves or at
the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in his dark suit, Olmert is a brilliant,
passionate speaker with a mischievous sense of humor. Using no notes, he
addressed the IPF with clarity and absolute conviction about what he termed
"perhaps the most serious internal crisis that the State of Israel"
had experienced in its 58 year history. "We are prepared to take
the first risk,"
he said. "We are prepared to risk the
existence of this government, the majority that we have in the Knesset, the
stability of our political party, in order to break through so that this
reality will not be hypothetical but will indeed be part of our lives.
Everything depends on the success of this disengagement."
That kind of fearlessness is the hallmark of Olmert's brand of leadership.
Indeed, the disengagement came at the price of the Likud Party's stability -
with Sharon and Olmert eventually leaving Likud to form the Kadima party (a
move he blogged about for HuffPost).
Another hallmark of leadership is the ability to change course when staying the
course has proven to be the wrong path (sound unlike anyone you know?).
"I voted against Menachem Begin,"
Olmert, who had objected to the Camp David Peace Accords, has said. "I told him it was a historic mistake, how dangerous
it would be, and so on and so on. Now I am
sorry he is not alive for me to be able to publicly recognize his wisdom and my
mistake. He was right and I was wrong. Thank God we pulled out of the Sinai."
As Jonathan Jacoby, the executive director of the Israel Policy Forum told me:
"Olmert is the ideal person for this moment in Israel's history. Because
he's both extremely experienced and extremely pragmatic. If something doesn't
work, it doesn't matter
how much it fits into his ideological belief system - if it doesn't work, it's
not good for Israel.
He's come around to the position that what Israelis need to think about right
now is one thing: what's going to end this conflict? As opposed to the dreams that have kept the ideology alive
but aren't going to help keep Israel alive."
Fearless, pragmatic, willing to risk his and his party's political future to do
the right thing for his country. Maybe in his spare time, he can offer a course
in political leadership to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/ehud-olmert-a-profile-in_b_13342.html
