Last update - 00:00 31/01/2008
ANALYSIS: Mixed verdict in war report leaves protesters in a quandary
By Lily Galili, Haaretz Correspondent
Shortly after the final Winograd Report was released Wednesday evening, the atmosphere in the protest tent across from Defense Minister Ehud Barak's Tel Aviv home was like that in a courtroom after the reading out of an ambiguous verdict. Bereaved parents clutching pictures of the dead children and reservists who joined the fight for the prime minister's resignation wanted to hear an unequivocal verdict.
Instead, they got the complex formulations of a cabinet-appointed committee. These were immediately translated into a question: Do we go on, and if so, how? The first part received an immediate "Yes." The "how" was not affected at all by the character of the report.
Some protests feed off anger, others from pain. The one in the freezing, drafty tent is fed by both. And by hate. The report avoided conclusions about the people involved; in this protest, everything is personal.
One by one, activists approached the microphone and read out the parts of the report that mention the political leaders. Even after the publication of the report, the goal is still the resignation of Ehud Olmert. Barak is still the means of action, through direct and indirect pressure on the prime minister. It is not for nothing that the protest tent was pitched in front of Barak's apartment building, Akirov Tower.
"Unlike Olmert, Barak still has a lot to lose," the reservists said. "It's also our way of showing Olmert that we don't count him, even for the purposes of the protest."
Near the end of the evening in the cold tent, Tafnit Chairman Uzi Dayan, a senior partner in the protest and a reserve major general, announced that the protest arena was now moving to the parliament. Trucks, loaded with equipment for rallies and protests throughout the country, are ready and waiting for their marching orders.
The first certain target is the Knesset, across from which a big rally is scheduled to be held during the plenum session on the report. The remaining venues will be determined beginning this morning in accordance with political developments and the weather. But Barak will remain the object of the protest.
"We will follow him wherever he goes," the activists promised. "We will act directly." The aim is to get him to follow through on his promise to resign after the release of the final report. "He's already sending out feelers to open a communication channel with us," Dayan told Haaretz.
No learned formulations of a cautious committee could quell the pain and anger in the freezing tent that was nearly knocked over in the wind. "This prime minister, he must not be given soldiers," Dayan said, with uncharacteristic bluntness. "This report is much worse than we expected."
Lior Dinamez, a major in the reserves in the Alexandroni Brigade, who joined the protest soon after the war, says the same thing but in the first person. "I, as a reservist, am afraid to go to war with Olmert as the head of state. I know that I will report if ordered, but it will be with fear. It doesn't matter what the report says. The circular deal the prime minister cut by appointing an unqualified defense minister to give the treasury portfolio to a friend cost lives. For that, no inquiry committee is needed," Dinamez said.
More on the Winograd Report: