Olmert and Jonah

Casting Olmert into the sea would not solve establishment's deterioration

Last Wednesday marked six years to the day since Ariel Sharon took up the prime minister's post. It wasn't exactly an historic day, but nonetheless a day to ponder the life expectancy of Israel's cabinets. Ehud Barak, Sharon's predecessor, lasted one year and eight months. The goal in Sharon's office was to exceed the term Barak remained in office, even by a single day. With a problematic Knesset faction comprising just 19 members, the chances were not high.

 

No one could have foreseen that Sharon would last for five years, that he would turn into the nation's darling, and would not end his career at the ballot box, but rather, at Hadassah Hospital's emergency ward.

 

In retrospect, it seems that Sharon's long career prepared him well for this test. He was an experienced political tactician with sharp senses and powerful survival instincts. He was blessed with ideological and moral flexibility frightening in its cynicism and in its ability to ally with those beyond the party's dividing lines.

 

Yet, nonetheless, it is doubtful whether he would have become prime minister had the wave of Palestinian terror not taken precedence. The distress on Israel's streets was unbearable and Sharon was perceived as the right man to deal with it.

 

As soon as the threat of terror subsided, the old questions resurfaced: The political deadlock, the social gaps, the criminal investigations and his sons' conduct. Sharon knew that he would not be able to provide answers that would satisfy everyone. So instead he chose to flood the agenda with an initiative of his own: The disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

 

Many people ask themselves how Sharon would have responded had he been prime minister on the morning of July 12th, 2006, when Hizbullah embarked on a kidnapping campaign on the Lebanese border. This question has no qualified answer.

 

Although the IDF had a plan ready for broad action in Lebanon in response to a possible abduction, it is doubtful whether Sharon would have been in a hurry to execute it. He had no inclination to return to the arena he was disgracefully expelled from 25 years ago. Beyond that, he was well aware of the IDF's limitations and the discrepancies between what was pumped at the cabinet meetings and what actually took place on the ground.

 

Will Olmert outlast Barak?

The calculations of political demise that filled the corridors of Sharon's aides in March 2001, are currently filling the corridors of Olmert's aides. Six years have elapsed and the question has resurfaced: Will he be able to survive beyond Ehud Barak's 20 months in office?

 

Olmert has been in office for 14 months, 10 of them as an elected prime minister. The battle of the Winograd Commission is still awaiting him; his position at the polls has hit rock bottom. The common assumption is that the competition over the shortest term in office will be determined by a photo-finish.

 

The peoples' faith in their government and in the entire establishment has suffered a heavy blow in recent months. Olmert is not a sacrificial chicken slaughtered for the sins of others: He symbolizes the crisis and is part of it. Yet the focus on him, and on him alone, misses the point: There is a political culture here that calls for a thorough change. There is a public mechanism here that is slowly dwindling while the problems are becoming greater. Replacing Olmert with Benjamin Netanyahu would only exacerbate matters.

 

The Bible tells the story of Jonah the prophet who tried to escape God's rage. He boarded a ship in Jaffa destined for the ancient Phoenician city of Tarshish. While at sea "the lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken." The sailors launched an investigation that led to a single conclusion: Jonah was responsible for the storm. They asked what they should do to stop it; Jonah responded that they should cast him into the sea.

 

This adventure had a happy ending. Jonah was given the chance for another career in the whale's belly and he was given a third opportunity when he was choked out onto the shore. There are some prophets who get a chance for a comeback.

 

Unfortunately, the storm the Israeli establishment is currently embroiled in is much more complex. The sea may hold back its rage for a moment when a prime minister is hurled into it, but the ship will continue to break.