To do, or not to do?

You can read my print edition weekend column (with Aluf Benn) in full here, or just read these couple of paragraphs:

Olmert

A few weeks ago Olmert renewed the "team meetings," known as the "ranch forum" under prime minister Ariel Sharon. Most deal with urgent issues, but above them hovers the big question of how to improve Olmert's public image. Should they look for a dramatic gesture of some kind, or wait for the winds to shift? Olmert's friends told him to hang on: The coalition looks solid until October at least.

The Labor Party will be in no hurry to dismantle the coalition. Both leading candidates for the party primaries next May, Ehud Barak and Ami Ayalon, want the defense portfolio, and their colleagues want to keep their cabinet seats. The criticism of Olmert within Kadima is not developing into a real challenge to his power. The Knesset doesn't want new elections. If the Winograd Committee doesn't topple him, Olmert will enjoy political tranquility at least until the Knesset's next winter session. In other words, he's safe until March, 2008 at the earliest.

Abdullah

Four senators who went on a Middle East junket recently were cold-shouldered by the Bush administration because they ignored Washington's boycott policy and met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus. A few were subjected to protests in Jerusalem, as well. The senators were not charmed by Assad and heard nothing very new from him. The Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Welch, who met with some of the senators before they left, warned them that this is exactly what would happen.

The senators' most interesting meeting was in Saudi Arabia, where King Abdullah expressed his country's apprehensions about a possible U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and its even greater fear that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons.

"The meeting with Abdullah was a Bedouin version of the meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu," one of the participants said. Netanyahu declaims to every U.S. visitor his speech - "This is 1938, Iran is Germany and it is about to go nuclear." The Saudi monarch, for whom the Nazi analogy is not his natural domain, expressed exactly the same fear, but in somewhat different words.

Rice

Olmert's aides are not in a tizzy over talk of renewing the peace process, seeing little chance of a breakthrough in the Palestinian arena. Olmert did his bit, as far as he is concerned, in his Sde Boker speech two months ago, in which he called for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Beyond this, it's hard to make progress. A dramatic move toward a final settlement, or the acceptance of the Saudi initiative, will set off renewed violence, as happened to Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. Israel is ready to take less grandiose steps, and it has a partner in Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. But the Palestinians are entangled in internal wars and all Israel can do is to strengthen Abbas quietly.

Rice's comments in recent months show that her personal level of commitment to the two-state solution is gradually rising. Israelis who have met her say her commitment to Palestinian independence goes beyond political calculations, and is deeply rooted in her childhood in racist Alabama.

Olmert has no reason to be concerned by the Rice visit: he is convinced that Bush is on his side. Foreign leaders who ply the Washington-Jerusalem route bring him regards from the president and say speaks admiringly of "my pal, Ehud." More important, Bush tells them to avoid doing anything that will weaken the Israeli prime minister. Too bad Bush doesn't have the same influence on the state comptroller, the police and the public atmosphere in Israel.


This week on Rosner's Domain:

Clinton vs. McCain: Who's better for Israel?

The General and the 'money people' and an update

Evangelical Christians and Israel: readers' reactions