And now, survival - Haaretz

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Sun., January 13, 2008 Shvat 6, 5768

Israel Time: 02:03 (EST+7)

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And now, survival

By Yoel Marcus

Tags: Ehud Olmert, Winograd

That George W. Bush chose to kick off his tour of the Islamic world with a visit to Israel is heartwarming. Just a few days ago, the media displayed maps showing how, in the blink of an eye, the launching of one Grad missile has brought another 120,000 Israelis within range of daily rocket fire from Gaza. If the efforts of the Palestinian terror organizations to build missile bases in West Bank succeed, warns Benjamin Netanyahu, the inhabitants of Tel Aviv and Haifa will also become sitting ducks.

When the Bush visit comes to a successful end today, Ehud Olmert can check it off in his diary. But that doesn't mean he can settle into his armchair with a cognac and a Cuban cigar: The real battle still lies ahead. The final report of the Winograd Committee will be released at 5 P.M. on January 30. Olmert has three weeks to prepare for what may be a bloody fight for political survival. The committee's interim report was not kind to him. The gap between his arrogance in going to war and the war's outcome triggered a wave of public fury.

In any case, Olmert, brimming with self-confidence, is not the kind of politician that people love to love. Who ever imagined that half the country would find itself under a daily barrage of rockets that wreaked havoc on Israeli cities from Nahariya to Haifa and Hadera? Who would have believed that the INS Hanit, one of the Israeli navy's flagship vessels, would escape by a miracle from being blown to bits?

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This war, which did not fall on us from the sky but was initiated by Israel, ignored two of the ironclad principles set down by David Ben-Gurion: moving the battle to enemy territory and aiming for a quick victory.

Olmert has been a civilian politician all his life. He was a backbench Knesset member for the most part, and the government ministries he headed were civilian ministries. Ariel Sharon plucked him from 28th place on the Likud list and brought him into Kadima as deputy prime minister and minister of industry, trade and labor. As a new member of Sharon's inner circle, Olmert became the arm that supported and the mouth that showered praise on Sharon's plan to evacuate the Gush Katif settlements. When Sharon, the legendary soldier and hero of the settlers said it was okay, Olmert backed him up and stood by him all the way.

After Sharon's stroke, Olmert was prepared to go even farther: He began to speak of "convergence" rather than "disengagement," and proposed a return to the 1967 borders based on territorial exchange. He created the impression that Sharon's vision of getting people to wake up from the dream of a Greater Israel was also his vision. The only thing he failed to realize was that despite his loyalty to Sharon's path, he was not Sharon.

After the fiasco of the Second Lebanon War, many people called for his head, some because he dragged the country into a botched war, and others, mainly from the far right, because he intended to continue the momentum of evacuating settlements.

Now the public wants to punish Olmert for letting the army walk over him. He is guilty for believing the army, for believing its commanders, for believing the general staff and above all, Dan Halutz. Sharon, in his place, would have chosen a quick wallop, if he chose to respond at all, in keeping with his policy that restraint is also power.

As a military man, Sharon could shrug off the generals. Olmert, as a civilian, blindly trusted the heads of the army, never bothering to consult with the National Security Council. He had no idea that the army was not prepared, or that its equipment was rusty and outdated after years of neglect and preoccupation with bullying the Palestinians around.

But to lop off a leader's head for naively trusting the advice of his army and his chief of staff is not right. Yitzhak Rabin, on an official visit to the United States, postponed his return to Israel for several days so he could play tennis with some friends. He didn't grasp that the "rioting" in the territories was the start of the intifada. When he got back, he thought that he could wrap it all up with his order to "break their arms and legs." The second intifada erupted just after Ehud Barak returned, smug and complacent, from a premature meeting at Camp David. With the exception of a prime minister who is a crook or a serial bumbler, you don't behead a leader for one bad move - especially after he has quickly repaired the damage and conducted himself wisely since then.

Now that Olmert has promised Bush to dismantle the unauthorized outposts and discuss the core issues of the conflict, I wouldn't be surprised if the final report of the Winograd Committee, instead of serving justice, propels Netanyahu and the right-wing extremists into power.

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