It would be interesting to know what would have happened at the end of 1973 had the chief of staff at the time, David (Dado) Elazar, decided that he would be the one to investigate himself, or if then chief of staff, Rafael (Raful) Eitan, had appointed a commission of his own on the matter of Sabra and Chatila in 1982. And how would our streets look today had prime ministers Golda Meir and Menachem Begin appointed commissions whose moral authority was doubtful from the outset? Indeed, the state commissions of inquiry Meir and Begin decided on were not established because of their desire to do so, but instead because they were compelled to do so by public opinion. Nonetheless, they bowed to the judgment because they had a sense of moral and public obligation far beyond their formal obligation.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert belongs to a different era. He has spent most of his public life in secured movements in the gray area where politics is adjacent to business - a realm of commerce in political influence and personal connections in the right places. In this profession the only existing sanction is criminal conviction. Therefore, Olmert is immune to public opinion: He knows that demonstrators get tired, that the dwellers in tents across from his office and those who assemble in the squares go home in the end, that a newspaper is relevant for only a few hours and that television programs move on to the next item within a few minutes. But Olmert also knows something more important: Our society has changed. A generation separates us from the Yom Kippur War and about a quarter of a century has elapsed since the Israel Defense Forces' entry into Beirut. Israeli society has broken up into its constituent parts, there is no solidarity or mutual responsibility and the already meager opposition lacks leadership. Defense Minister Amir Peretz wears a Janus face of hawk-dove and nothing but a sad memory remains of organizations like Peace Now and the Kibbutz Movement.

In such circumstances, the art of politics is reduced to a talent for playing for time, frittering away with society's existential problems and transforming them into soap operas. Olmert, Peretz and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz suffered an embarrassing defeat, at the end of which they are now handing Lebanon over to the mercies of the guerrilla movement they had set out to destroy. Despite all this, they have been informed the Supreme Court does not see fit to disqualify the government's decision to investigate itself by people who were chosen by the prime minister himself.

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The government of Israel is not perturbed by the harsh criticism leveled against it, which was expressed even by the majority justices: As far as it is concerned, it got what it wanted. The same applies to the army: If the government is allowed to investigate itself, why should the army be forbidden to conduct a farce of its own? If the chief of staff doesn't like Doron Almog's report about the general staff's functioning, it will be amended - and a failed chief of general staff will also get what he wants.

Since public opinion has vanished, the expansion of the authority of investigative and judicial bodies is the only way to save from extinction basic norms of governance, without which democracy cannot exist. The disgraceful attack on the state comptroller, especially when it is joined by members of the academic elite - even if only a few - is already an omen of worse things to come. No less dangerous is the Supreme Court's decision to shut itself in to a narrow interpretation of its role. Today more than ever a stringent normative review is needed.

Because of the horror show of the past six months, all that remains for Olmert to do is to escape forward. If, despite it all, he wants to raise himself to the level of a statesman, he must rescue the ailing cease-fire and aim for a comprehensive solution of the Palestinian problem. But the internal front is equally important: Instead of the Winograd Commission, there must be a state commission of inquiry also in order to rescue the Commission of Inquiry Law in general. It is no less vital to prevent the army from dictating a policy of its own in the territories. For Olmert and his government, this is the last chance to prevent their descent into the history books as a footnote, or as another serious accident that happened to Israeli society and left it bleeding.