The various investigative committees in Israel, with their quasi-judicial authority and their strict operational rules - the committee is the investigator, the prosecutor and the judge, and the accused has no right of appeal - are a hybrid unlike anything found in Western democracy. The reason for that is the structural defect in Israel's culture of government, which has caused the judicial system to accumulate power unparalleled in other democracies, to the point of eroding the separation of powers. The weakness of the regime and a defective political culture are the main reasons for the frequent use of investigative committees in Israel, and they are also the explanation for the fact that leaders, after being described as failures by the committee that they themselves appointed, do not resign on the spot.

Investigative committees usually fulfill their role faithfully, and for the most part their conclusions are worthy. But through no fault of their own, they have become a kind of national therapy, creating the appearance that the truth is being thoroughly investigated and "things put in order," with the help of "recommendations" and "conclusions." At the same time, they always investigate the symptoms of the existential problems, and never the profound ills themselves. In so doing, they enable Israel to avoid even confronting its basic problems, not to mention solving them, thereby allowing the country to limp confidently into the next catastrophe.

The illusion provided by the committees, to the effect that they have found the redeeming formula for correcting the disaster that led to their establishment, accords well with the overall desire for the best of all worlds. The committees free us from the need to deal with the true sources of national malaise - the conflict with the Arab world and the impossible status of the Israeli Arabs. In addition, they provide politics with its ultimate entertainment: beheadings in the city square, which is the highest expression of diverting attention from the issue itself.

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Repeated failures

It would be possible to live with the Israeli addiction to investigative committees if in addition to hanging the responsible party, the failures they note were not to repeat themselves.

Did the conclusions of the Agranat Commission, which discussed the failure of intelligence, the army and the government to anticipate the Yom Kippur War, prevent these very same bodies from being surprised at the outbreak of the first intifada? With the exception of several recommendations on intelligence, no significant change in the organization and operation of the Israel Defense Forces resulted from that committee's work: The job of the special intelligence adviser to the prime minister fell into oblivion, and as we know, the National Security Council is a weak organ.

And also: Did the conclusions of the Or Commission regarding the events of October 2000, one of whose main targets of criticism was this writer, prevent a repeat of the police's "trigger-happy" approach toward Israeli Arabs? Or the injuring of left-wing demonstrators at the separation fence by rubber-coated bullets fired by IDF soldiers, bullets that, according to the commission's recommendations, should be prohibited? More than 20 Israeli Arabs have been shot to death by the police since that tragic confrontation, and needless to say, nothing much has happened regarding the recommendations to bring about a significant improvement in the status of the Israeli Arabs.

The Winograd Committee was only fulfilling its mandate when it raised the need for "a decision-making process" to the level of a categorical statement. Did a proper "decision-making process" prevent, throughout history, military defeats and mistakes in assessments and judgment? Empires, like the British Empire, were established unintentionally, and collapsed through an orderly process of decision making.

It is doubtful whether there is a more orderly decision-making system than that in the United States. But the U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson led their country into the Vietnam War, one of the greatest political and military disasters in American history, out of a total misunderstanding of the arena and backed by the advice of "the best and the brightest," as secretary of defense Robert McNamara put it. George W. Bush broke the record of assessment failures set by his predecessors when he was dragged into war in Iraq. Although this was due to an ideological fixation, it was also a product of his reliance on an orderly hierarchy of advisory institutions and "decision-making processes."

When the norm is that leaders hold on to their jobs at any price, the Israeli commission of inquiry is nothing but Russian roulette, where the fate of leaders is determined at random. In the absence of a pattern that determines when and under what conditions an investigative committee is established, it arises only as a function of the balance of power between public pressure and the endurance of the prime minister, who tries to prevent its establishment or to weaken its mandate. The stronger the government, the less the chances that an investigative committee will be established. In this manner, for example, the events of October 2000 were investigated, but not the riots that followed the opening of the Western Wall tunnel in 1996, during which dozens of Palestinians and 16 IDF soldiers were killed.

In order to explain the paradox of commissions of inquiry in Israel, we can only describe what would have been investigated had such a committee examined the outbreak of the first intifada, in December 1987. After all, this was a historic failure of governments and an army that did not know how to assess the currents and pressure building in Palestinian society, which finally erupted and led to a radical military and political change. Such a committee would have examined how 20 years of Shin Bet security service and Military Intelligence deployment in the territories, and of defense ministers "suited to their job," did not help reach a proper assessment of what was about to happen.

The ultimate paradox of such a committee would have been reflected in the conclusion that then-defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, on whose watch the outbreak took place, was unsuited and unworthy of his job. When the intifada broke out, he was in the U.S., and because he "didn't understand," "didn't anticipate," "didn't assess" and "didn't prepare the army" for the new battlefield (these are all expressions popular with investigative committees), he didn't even move up his return flight. The intifada continued for almost six years, and one of Rabin's considerations when he signed the Oslo Accords as prime minister was bringing Arafat into the territories so that he would stop the uprising the IDF had failed to suppress.

Everything's personal

The systemic conclusions of investigative committees interest the public much less than the fates of the failed leaders. In the final analysis, everything is personal. But we have not been successful in bringing about a civil awakening that would lead to the resignation of those responsible for the failure. Instead, in Israel we latch on to a commission of inquiry to do this job, and only after receiving its approval do we find the courage to demand the heads of the leaders.

A hundred thousand people came to Rabin Square in order to demand the removal of Ehud Olmert. What this means is that they demonstrated in order to pave the way back to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, who unfortunately did not have his "haste" as prime minister, when he opened the Western Wall tunnel, examined by any committee; and of Ehud Barak, whose defective control of the IDF only led to the acceleration and expansion of the second intifada. After all, the activity of the IDF at the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada was more an outburst of fury and frustration at the failures of the first intifada and the events of the Western Wall tunnel than the following of orders handed down from the Palestinian political leadership.

There is nothing new under the sun. The instances when the IDF has dictated the nature of the campaign are too numerous to count: The Sinai Campaign was actually conducted without the supervision of the political leadership, and thus officer Ariel Sharon was able to turn an order to patrol the Mitla Pass into an unnecessary battle in which dozens of soldiers were killed; it was the disproportionate response of the IDF in the Samua operation in November 1966, and not the orders of the political leadership, that pushed King Hussein into a military alliance with Egypt, and it was the IDF that decided on the boundaries of the occupation in 1967.

And who knows? Maybe it will be Shimon Peres who benefits from the vacuum if Olmert is forced to resign. In the Russian roulette by which Israel establishes commissions of inquiry, such a committee was not established in the wake of the Grapes of Wrath campaign in Lebanon, which Peres initiated as acting prime minister in 1996. The campaign ended with more than 100 Lebanese citizens killed in an IDF bombing.

There is no doubt about Olmert's failure as a prime minister who embarked carelessly on a war of choice. But did Peres, Netanyahu and Barak excel in the "decision-making process," in their judgment, and in their willingness to operate in defiance of an erroneous mindset? All of Olmert's possible replacements, who presumably are supposed to understand strategic issues, supported the U.S. war in Iraq, from which today's "New Middle East" has emerged: conservative regimes under attack by fundamentalism; rising terror; and the strengthening of an Iran with nuclear potential, which threatens the very existence of the Jewish state.

It is clear all three failed to demonstrate a profound understanding of strategic processes and lacked the foresight expected of leaders. The shaky status of Bush and of Prime Minister Tony Blair testifies to the fact that in the U.S. and in Great Britain, this is clearly understood. In Israel, however, those who were involved in the misconceptions about Iraq are considered worthy candidates to replace the prime minister, one reason being that they are "experienced," although in fact, they were only smart enough to walk between the raindrops of investigative committees. The Russian roulette simply passed them by.

Of course, we need not conclude that in order to repair systems we must refrain from investigating events and failures. But a healthy democracy must be capable of deciding the fate of its leaders by dint of the democratic process itself. The parliament, the media and the sovereign nation, through elections or through public pressure, are supposed to decide the fate of the elected officials. Thus in Great Britain there was no need for a commission of inquiry in order to bring about the early resignation of Blair, as the main person responsible for the failure in Iraq.

The Agranat Commission marked a watershed regarding the question of the political leadership's responsibility. The commission adhered to the proper democratic ethos, according to which the fate of elected officials is supposed to be decided by the public and not by a professional committee, and therefore it showed them mercy. But the public protest that greeted the commission's report, and finally led to the resignation of Golda Meir's government, became a directive that obliged investigative committees to "deal with" the political leadership as well. Since then, the committees have effectively been operating as a jury, with public expectations regarding those responsible for failures serving as a built-in component in their decision. Usually, the committees provide the public with what it already knows and expects.

Marches of folly

Israeli leaders are no worse or less worthy than their Western colleagues. The history of the Western democracies is full of marches of folly, unsuccessful deployments and disastrous surprises, such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the unsuccessful invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, and the attacks of September 11. But only rarely have such matters led to commissions of inquiry, and certainly not in the format common in Israel. Here the purist demands made of leaders and the expectations that they meet impossible standards turn the premiership into a job whose holder, if he really wants to leave his mark, will fall on his sword sooner or later.

The Winograd Committee still has a chance to point out the correct solution to the Israeli problem, if in its final report it determines that in spite of its failures, the war ended with a diplomatic achievement: In the absence of a military decision, the international community ruled, by means of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and the deployment of an international force, on the validity of the international border between Israel and Lebanon.

The real lesson of the Second Lebanon War is not related to the fate of Olmert or of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, but to the fact that an invisible wall of international legitimacy has been built between us and our enemies in the north. Israeli peace diplomacy, which will try to prevent the next war, must aspire to similar legitimacy in the Palestinian and Syrian arenas as well, as a crucial element of the security doctrine.

The common denominator of most of the investigative committees in Israel is their preoccupation with matters of security and the Israeli-Arab fault line. Therefore, as long as we don't find the courage and the initiative to bring about an overall diplomatic decision, the battlefield will continue to demand a quota of unavoidable mistakes from our leaders, whether they are "experienced" or "inexperienced." In light of the slim possibility of the governmental culture in Israel adopting Western norms and equipping itself with tolerance for leaders' mistakes, we will continue to hear the call for the establishment of investigative committees, which will continue to tell us whose head to demand.

Professor Shlomo Ben-Ami was an MK and a cabinet minister.