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Last update - 23:18 19/02/2009
Ehud Olmert, we will miss you
By Ariel Zilber
Tags: Israel news, diplomacy 

It's time for a left-winger's mea culpa, a letter of apology to the man who coulda, woulda, shoulda led our camp to the promised land. Make no mistake, we will rue the day we ran Ehud Olmert out of office.

We can comfort ourselves until we're blue in the face and say it was the right thing to do, the moral thing. After all, how can we keep looking away when allegation after allegation surfaces of Olmert's wrongdoing, some of which leaves you wondering how shameless the man could be for racking up frequent flyer miles at the expense of Yad Vashem and Friends of the IDF.

Still, we will curse ourselves for jettisoning this man, who for all his warts and criminal tendencies is still the best hope for the peace camp, perhaps the last hope for the peace camp. That is why we must pray that he be exonerated for all of the petty crimes which he is suspected of committing.
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The left-wingers who are now crying in their Miso soup following last week's election debacle have no idea how good they had it over the last two years. They have no clue as to who their prime minister was. Olmert is the great white hope, the knight in shining armor, the man that Israel needs to return to the political scene once his legal troubles subside.

Think about it: he is perfectly positioned to lead Israel out of the West Bank. He is the right mix of moxie, arrogance, egomaniacal drive, and Machiavellian slipperiness.

Ariel Sharon could not have picked a better successor, since they share so many of the same traits that enabled them to weather the rough waters of Israeli politics over the course of decades. Olmert is just as wily, just as slick and corrupt as Sharon. And, thanks to the bookend military adventures against Hezbollah and Hamas, he has proven himself to be just as brutal.

The carnage in Gaza will only enhance Olmert's "street cred" in the eyes of Israelis. For the job of peacemaker, wimps need not apply, especially in the Middle East. Yossi Beilin's ideas of how the region should look in 20 years are precisely in line with the policies which the Israeli government should adopt, yet Yossi Beilin is the absolute last person on earth who will ever be voted into office to see his vision through.

If Olmert steers clear of prison and overcomes his legal hurdles by the time the next elections roll around, he can lay claim to another hallowed piece of real estate - the center of the Israeli political map. He can attract votes from security-minded rightists by claiming that he deterred rocket attack in the north and the south by whipping Hezbollah and Hamas. To leftists, he can point to his peace negotiations with the Palestinians. If only those pesky police and prosecutors had just left me alone, we would have been out of Hebron by now.

Could anyone other than Charles de Gaulle have uprooted one million French settlers from Algeria? How does one explain Richard Nixon, the man who built a career out of the worst kind of red-baiting and whose hatred for Communism was legendary, executing what many historians consider to be strokes of foreign policy genius ? opening relations with Communist China and signing arms-control treaties with the Soviet Union? King Hussein was lauded as a peace-loving statesman, yet he would never have reached his position had he not brutally suppressed the Palestinian coup attempt against his regime in September 1970, which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Rabin could not have recognized the PLO without having ordered his army to "break the bones" of Palestinian stone throwers in the first intifada a few years earlier. And Sharon could not have withdrawn from Gaza without skillfully manipulating and subordinating Israel's democratic process to his will.

The moral of the story is that it makes little sense to hold our leaders to a standard that we ourselves could never reach. For as much as many would hate to admit, Olmert is a reflection of all of us. Who wouldn't want a steep discount on a pricey piece of real estate, or a chance to kick back in first class while sampling the finest bubbly and puffing on a fat Stogie? Olmert is simply a prisoner of his baser instincts. His hedonism brought about his downfall, and the loss is ours. Here's hoping a comeback is in the offing.

Ariel Zilber is a writer and editor at Haaretz.com
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  1.   Peace camp? Appeasement camp more like. 19:25  |  Steven 19/02/09
  2.   Ariel Zilber your not correct in your assessment 19:26  |  Silver 19/02/09
  3.   Olmert is a reflection of all of us. I don`t think so 19:29  |  Shepherd 19/02/09
  4.   The moral of the story 19:37  |  Israeli citizen 19/02/09
  5.   Olmert a peacemaker? Reality speaks different than Ariel 20:05  |  Realist 19/02/09
  6.   Olmert Killed Our Chance At Peace! 20:07  |  Robert 19/02/09
  7.   Ariel? Are you serious? 20:09  |  JfromC 19/02/09
  8.   The left is so pathetic 20:16  |  Marty 19/02/09
  9.   Ehud Olmert, we`ll miss you -- much like a kidney stone 20:38  |  bye bye lefty 19/02/09
  10.   More Delusion from the Radical Left Wing 20:44  |  Baruch Gold 19/02/09
  11.   If Olmert is the best hope for peace, I`ll take Netanyahu 21:01  |  Natallie Durson 19/02/09
  12.   Olmert? Miss him? Not at all! 21:03  |  AF 19/02/09
  13.   Is This Guy for Real ? Sadly, Yes. 21:05  |  Tod Zuckerman 19/02/09
  14.   The `peace` camp? Is that what you call the man who started 2 war 21:17  |  peacelover 19/02/09
  15.   MISS HIM? HIS GAZA PULLOUT, LEBANON DEFEAT, FREE GESTURES, ENVEL? 21:20  |  DAV zee 19/02/09
  16.   We Won`t Miss Olmert 21:23  |  Rich 19/02/09
  17.   Olmert and Sharon: not similar enough 21:30  |  Ilan 19/02/09
  18.   Ya, Ariel Zilber does make a valid point... 21:32  |  Esther 19/02/09
  19.   He was one of the worst for peace 21:40  |  Ben 19/02/09
  20.   ben gourion brother used to sell newspaper at a tel aviv kiosk... 21:59  |  Gabriel 19/02/09
  21.   This would be a nice story if the Palestinians really wanted Pea 22:09  |  ROBOCOP 19/02/09
  22.   I will admit that King David has his shortcomings, but . . . 22:34  |  Zev Davis 19/02/09
  23.   To the Author: Sometimes Honesty is the Best Policy 22:56  |  Dav Lev 19/02/09
  24.   Don`t You Guys Get It? 23:05  |  Dav Lev 19/02/09
  25.   Israel Needs Secure Borders and Definition 23:15  |  Dav Lev 19/02/09
  26.   Baruch Gold 23:19  |  A.M. 19/02/09
  27.   Zilber, you are are not the Peace Camp, you are the Danger Camp 23:37  |  Jake 19/02/09
  28.   What exactly did the man do wrong? 00:08  |  MIKE 20/02/09
  29.   Ehud Olmert, good ridance 00:50  |  Efraim 20/02/09
  30.   Thats about right Zilber, 01:01  |  nehemia dB 20/02/09
  31.   Peace Process corrupts 02:57  |  er 20/02/09
  32.   Haaretz contradict themselves on Lieberman 03:34  |  Yoni 20/02/09
  33.   The only hope that Israel had with the menace mert was PIECE/not 04:12  |  glenna 20/02/09
  34.   why, where are you going? 04:15  |  lolbb 20/02/09
  35.   Great article...that`s what I`ve been saying all along 05:01  |  Smadar 20/02/09
  36.   Wrong on all counts 09:30  |  Joe Sittizen 20/02/09
  37.   yoni 10:27  |  A.M. 20/02/09
  38.   Olmert 16:32  |  Ucannot B Seerios 20/02/09
  39.   Ehud Olmert 20:35  |  david 20/02/09
  40.   To Natallie Durson (#7) 20:40  |  Morris Valentine 20/02/09
  41.   You don`t know Zilber 00:28  |  Rick 21/02/09
  42.   You Never Know 05:08  |  Palestinian 21/02/09
  43.   ariel zilber od hai ? 14:12  |  shmulik 21/02/09
  44.   Olmert 5th atmpt. in different posts 19:15  |  The Teacher/Instruct 21/02/09
  45.   Palestian, if I recall . . . 21:02  |  Zev Davis 21/02/09
  46.   Good riddance, Olmert! 23:27  |  Yaakov K. 21/02/09
  47.   Ariel Zilber 01:01  |  No Leftist 22/02/09
  48.   kudos-brilliant 05:07  |  Justin White 22/02/09
  49.   to Baruch Gold #6 - 2nd try 10:24  |  zeev 23/02/09
  50.   to Steven #1 - 4th try 09:26  |  zeev 25/02/09
  51.   No a true leader 17:24  |  Avi Fein 30/08/09
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