Behind his portly frame and seemingly unsophisticated exterior, Binyamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer, Minister of Infrastructure and Ehud Barak’s closest political ally, possesses one of Israel’s most cunning political minds. Fuad has been a diehard opponent of new elections: As of now, Labor looks like shedding a quarter of its seats in the Knesset, and if that happens the Labor party will hand Barak his head. Yesterday Fuad told a meeting of the Labor Party faithful, “make no mistake—we’re heading for elections.”
If even Fuad believes it’s elections, then it’s elections. Time to look beyond Olmert, beyond Kadima. I cannot do so without a strong sense of disappointment at lost opportunities. It’s not just Olmert who’s wasted two years of Israel’s time but ourselves as well, the author of this blog and all who share concern for a Jewish Israel. Israel is going to the polls, but with no real choices other than the discounted ones of yesteryear.
Something happened in the summer of 2006: The Israeli public lost its faith in the political shibboleths it has followed since Yitzhak Rabin was elected in 1992. People want peace but no longer believe in it. They oppose territorial withdrawals and think they’re bad news, with or without a piece of paper saying “treaty” on it. They have lost faith in all their public institutions: Government, politicians, courts, army, even the media, whom they despise even as they consume them compulsively. Deep beneath the surface is rising concern about the fate of the Jewish state.
The governing culture, whose various representatives are the chief candidates in the forthcoming elections, is losing its self-confidence. It is still strong, still able to defend its position, but it is in decline.
At the same time, the public declares that it feels more Jewish and more “right wing.” It is hard to determine exactly what these terms mean to those who use them. But as is often the case with social trends, the process is clearer than the particular point we have reached in it at the present or any other time.
This would be an opportune time for an alternative political leadership to present itself to the public with an alternative public agenda and, more important, an alternative cultural and ethical narrative to justify it. It’s no secret what these are:
We need to preserve the Jewish state, because it’s under mortal threat from enemies without and within.
To do that, we need first and foremost to be convinced of the justice of a Jewish state and of the policies needed to promote its welfare. That means we need to take traditional Jewish values seriously and make them the foundation of our public policy.
We need new policies in specific areas: A much more decisive foreign and military policy; large new incentives to encourage Palestinian emigration; new legal and media institutions; and a more open, competitive educational system which, without forcing anything on anyone, facilitates (=funds) access for all to the traditional Jewish values on which Israeli society must now be reconstructed.
An alternative political leadership broadcasting this message in a way accessible to the entire Israeli public would cast a giant shadow over Israeli society. It would set the agenda of this election campaign. It wouldn’t necessarily win this time, but it would set the terms of debate. And having once done so, its eventual victory, in the next elections or the ones after that, would be assured.
Unfortunately, it isn’t about to happen. We aren’t ready. We haven’t put forth the leaders and we haven’t put together the message. But we could, if we put our minds and our money to it. I think I know something of what we should be doing and, G-d willing, will write about more in the weeks ahead.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Why is Olmert different from Sharon?
It’s pretty well accepted in Israel’s political scene that Olmert is finished. By Israeli law civil servants, including elected ones, may not receive gifts. Taking bribes is a felony carrying a 7-year sentence and by past Israeli caselaw, one doesn’t need to prove that the target of bribery actually did something for his money. It’s enough to establish that the money was given and received.
The police and state prosecution have been devoting a lot of effort to Olmert’s case since November last year, when the State Comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, seized computer files from the Ministry of Trade, where Olmert served as minister in 2005. By law, material in the State Comptroller’s hands cannot be used as evidence in a trial, so the Comptroller returned the materials to the ministry and told the State Prosecutor, Moshe Lador, “go have a look.” Lador and the Attorney General, Menahem Mazuz authorized the police to take out a warrant for Olmert’s files from the Ministry. The rest is history.
The real question is, why is Olmert being treated differently from Ariel Sharon?
This question has aroused a lot of conspiracy theories. In Sharon’s case, the Israeli legal system simply couldn’t bring itself to stop the corrupt Messiah of disengagement. Why isn’t Olmert considered as holy? Surely there must be some deep reason why “they” want Olmert out and so have given “instructions” to topple him.
I think the conspiracy theory is subtly off the mark. A ruling elite cannot function without morale. At its height, this morale is expressed in the belief that what’s good for the elite is what’s good for society. Fifty years ago Communist parties used to believe this. Anything that increased their power was good for “the revolution,” and that justified everything.
Many years before Communism collapsed for good, doubt set in. Good Communists did not doubt the goal of Communism, but they began to doubt that the Communist Party actually served that goal. For many middle-level Communist bureaucrats (such as a young district Communist leader named Mikhail Gorbachev), it became important that the party actually act in accordance with principle, even when doing so led to the weakening of its own political position. Before long, it became evident that doing good implied the opposite of shoring up Communist rule. At that point Communist parties began to tear themselves apart, riven by conflict between those who were motivated by the good of the party and those motivated by the good of society. What took their place had nothing whatever to do with the Communism.
Something like that is starting to happen in Israel today. In Israel, the ruling ideology is not Communism but peace and post-Zionism. The elite hasn’t stopped believing in its core values, but its more sensitive members are beset by doubts. Disengagement has gone badly wrong, as its opponents predicted. The public no longer believes in peace. For that matter, it no longer believes in the elites, in Israeli political institutions, in the elite’s views of democracy and the rule of law, because the elites have betrayed those values in pursuit of the Messiah of peace. Increasingly, some members of the elite wonder if the public’s view of them isn’t justified.
The business of Olmert, Sharon and Attorney General Menahem Mazuz is a case in point. Mazuz was appointed to his job in 2004 to get Ariel Sharon off the hook. He delivered the goods, refusing to indict Sharon in two corruption cases that seemed open-and-shut (in one case, Sharon’s son was convicted and now doing time, based on evidence that should have put Sharon pere behind bars as well). In the last two years, other decisions of Mazuz—first to prepare a severe indictment against former President Katzav and then be forced to accept a plea-bargain with him, then to indict Haim Ramon, only to have a court declare there was no moral turpitude in Ramon’s kissing a young officer stationed in the Prime Minister’s office—have contributed to a precipitious decline in the legal system’s reputation. Today, Mazuz has no choice but to indict Olmert if the evidence warrants it. The entire legal system expects him to. If it fails to deliver on Olmert, it will have lost its raison d’etre in its own eyes.
Which is the point. At this point, Israel’s ruling elite can only justify its existence by harming its ideological goals and its grip on power. As the elite continues to lose self-confidence, it will increasingly lose the ability to implement its policies no matter what the cost. It is in fact on skids. Its greatest good fortune is that there is not yet any effective, incisive faith-based alternative to challenge it for control of public opinion and public policy. And that’s our fault.
The police and state prosecution have been devoting a lot of effort to Olmert’s case since November last year, when the State Comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, seized computer files from the Ministry of Trade, where Olmert served as minister in 2005. By law, material in the State Comptroller’s hands cannot be used as evidence in a trial, so the Comptroller returned the materials to the ministry and told the State Prosecutor, Moshe Lador, “go have a look.” Lador and the Attorney General, Menahem Mazuz authorized the police to take out a warrant for Olmert’s files from the Ministry. The rest is history.
The real question is, why is Olmert being treated differently from Ariel Sharon?
This question has aroused a lot of conspiracy theories. In Sharon’s case, the Israeli legal system simply couldn’t bring itself to stop the corrupt Messiah of disengagement. Why isn’t Olmert considered as holy? Surely there must be some deep reason why “they” want Olmert out and so have given “instructions” to topple him.
I think the conspiracy theory is subtly off the mark. A ruling elite cannot function without morale. At its height, this morale is expressed in the belief that what’s good for the elite is what’s good for society. Fifty years ago Communist parties used to believe this. Anything that increased their power was good for “the revolution,” and that justified everything.
Many years before Communism collapsed for good, doubt set in. Good Communists did not doubt the goal of Communism, but they began to doubt that the Communist Party actually served that goal. For many middle-level Communist bureaucrats (such as a young district Communist leader named Mikhail Gorbachev), it became important that the party actually act in accordance with principle, even when doing so led to the weakening of its own political position. Before long, it became evident that doing good implied the opposite of shoring up Communist rule. At that point Communist parties began to tear themselves apart, riven by conflict between those who were motivated by the good of the party and those motivated by the good of society. What took their place had nothing whatever to do with the Communism.
Something like that is starting to happen in Israel today. In Israel, the ruling ideology is not Communism but peace and post-Zionism. The elite hasn’t stopped believing in its core values, but its more sensitive members are beset by doubts. Disengagement has gone badly wrong, as its opponents predicted. The public no longer believes in peace. For that matter, it no longer believes in the elites, in Israeli political institutions, in the elite’s views of democracy and the rule of law, because the elites have betrayed those values in pursuit of the Messiah of peace. Increasingly, some members of the elite wonder if the public’s view of them isn’t justified.
The business of Olmert, Sharon and Attorney General Menahem Mazuz is a case in point. Mazuz was appointed to his job in 2004 to get Ariel Sharon off the hook. He delivered the goods, refusing to indict Sharon in two corruption cases that seemed open-and-shut (in one case, Sharon’s son was convicted and now doing time, based on evidence that should have put Sharon pere behind bars as well). In the last two years, other decisions of Mazuz—first to prepare a severe indictment against former President Katzav and then be forced to accept a plea-bargain with him, then to indict Haim Ramon, only to have a court declare there was no moral turpitude in Ramon’s kissing a young officer stationed in the Prime Minister’s office—have contributed to a precipitious decline in the legal system’s reputation. Today, Mazuz has no choice but to indict Olmert if the evidence warrants it. The entire legal system expects him to. If it fails to deliver on Olmert, it will have lost its raison d’etre in its own eyes.
Which is the point. At this point, Israel’s ruling elite can only justify its existence by harming its ideological goals and its grip on power. As the elite continues to lose self-confidence, it will increasingly lose the ability to implement its policies no matter what the cost. It is in fact on skids. Its greatest good fortune is that there is not yet any effective, incisive faith-based alternative to challenge it for control of public opinion and public policy. And that’s our fault.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
A Dumb Idea
One of the striking things about Olmert’s new negotiations with Syria is that very few people are coming out and saying that the talks are a bad idea.
Ehud Barak, who probably has been kept a little bit more in the know by Olmert than most of us (and, in the last month, than Tzipi Livni) spoke about how he’s always favored negotiation. We just have to be careful about Syria and understand that nothing can be accomplished (assuming any treaty will be an accomplishment) quickly.
That seems to be the pattern. MK Michael Eitan of the Likud says on A7 today that “negotiating with Syria is like negotiating with Iran”—which one presumes means it’s a futile or dangerous idea—but says he’s in favor of negotiations. Netanyahu is in no position to say he’s against negotiations, he negotiated when he was prime minister. Various other people in different parts of the political spectrum have said similar things.
For the record (just scroll down a bit), I think the negotiations a re a dumb idea. Since it appears impossible to conclude them successfully, they tend to increase the likelihood of war. But even I haven’t said we can just decide to back out once we’ve begun, because that implies the relations between Israel and Syria are fast deteriorating toward war, and war is to be feared. Winding down these negotiations without damage will take time, patience and finesse to ensure that missiles don’t start raining down on Tel Aviv soon after they end. If they do start raining down on Tel Aviv we’ll have to go after the people firing ‘em, and that will be no fun at all.
The difference between Syria on the one hand and Hamas and the Arabs in Judaea and Samaria on the other hand is that the latter two are already doing us all the damage they can muster. No matter what we do in a military way, things won’t get substantially worse. Syria and Hizbullah could in principle do us a lot more damage than they’re doing now, and people are afraid of that.
Even politicians on the right are not saying outright that the negotiations are a mistake, though they may believe it, because you cannot tell the Israeli public that the prospect of peace with Syria is a mistake. Few people have confidence in Assad but equally few are willing to admit that a peace treaty is simply not among the options that the real world offers. That’s a regrettable weakness but politicians spend their lives accommodating their constituents’ regrettable weaknesses.
In fact, I think that both Syria and Israel were better off before the news of negotiations broke, before they were both committed to succeeding or failing at peacemaking. Not negotiating also means not forcing a confrontation once negotiations break down, as they almost inevitably will. If you can’t solve a conflict, the next best policy is benign neglect.
For Syria as well as Israel, open war would be an unmitigated disaster. They say Assad has been under enormous pressure from the Americans, because they boycott hum and because they press the international enquirey into the murder of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri; that he wants negotiations, not peace but simply negotiations, to get American pressure of him. If so he’s not a lot more farsighted than Olmert. The ante in this poker game is liable to be a lot higher than he anticipated.
Ehud Barak, who probably has been kept a little bit more in the know by Olmert than most of us (and, in the last month, than Tzipi Livni) spoke about how he’s always favored negotiation. We just have to be careful about Syria and understand that nothing can be accomplished (assuming any treaty will be an accomplishment) quickly.
That seems to be the pattern. MK Michael Eitan of the Likud says on A7 today that “negotiating with Syria is like negotiating with Iran”—which one presumes means it’s a futile or dangerous idea—but says he’s in favor of negotiations. Netanyahu is in no position to say he’s against negotiations, he negotiated when he was prime minister. Various other people in different parts of the political spectrum have said similar things.
For the record (just scroll down a bit), I think the negotiations a re a dumb idea. Since it appears impossible to conclude them successfully, they tend to increase the likelihood of war. But even I haven’t said we can just decide to back out once we’ve begun, because that implies the relations between Israel and Syria are fast deteriorating toward war, and war is to be feared. Winding down these negotiations without damage will take time, patience and finesse to ensure that missiles don’t start raining down on Tel Aviv soon after they end. If they do start raining down on Tel Aviv we’ll have to go after the people firing ‘em, and that will be no fun at all.
The difference between Syria on the one hand and Hamas and the Arabs in Judaea and Samaria on the other hand is that the latter two are already doing us all the damage they can muster. No matter what we do in a military way, things won’t get substantially worse. Syria and Hizbullah could in principle do us a lot more damage than they’re doing now, and people are afraid of that.
Even politicians on the right are not saying outright that the negotiations are a mistake, though they may believe it, because you cannot tell the Israeli public that the prospect of peace with Syria is a mistake. Few people have confidence in Assad but equally few are willing to admit that a peace treaty is simply not among the options that the real world offers. That’s a regrettable weakness but politicians spend their lives accommodating their constituents’ regrettable weaknesses.
In fact, I think that both Syria and Israel were better off before the news of negotiations broke, before they were both committed to succeeding or failing at peacemaking. Not negotiating also means not forcing a confrontation once negotiations break down, as they almost inevitably will. If you can’t solve a conflict, the next best policy is benign neglect.
For Syria as well as Israel, open war would be an unmitigated disaster. They say Assad has been under enormous pressure from the Americans, because they boycott hum and because they press the international enquirey into the murder of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri; that he wants negotiations, not peace but simply negotiations, to get American pressure of him. If so he’s not a lot more farsighted than Olmert. The ante in this poker game is liable to be a lot higher than he anticipated.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Olmert's Worst Act
Ehud Olmert has just done immense damage to the State of Israel—damage that dwarfs anything he might have done at Annapolis, indeed anything he has done in his checkered public career. In the wild hope of saving himself from an indictment that now seems almost certain, he has involved Israel in a negotiation process, all of whose outcomes can only be bad for the country.
Syria’s foreign minister has announced that Olmert committed Israel to retreat to the line of June 4, 1967 as a precondition of talks, while not insisting on any Syrian precommitments, such as leaving the Iranian orbit and abandoning terror (Olmert’s office has issued a denial). These are the kind of terms usually offered by a country that has suffered a grave military defeat. Though Israel’s performance in the Lebanon War was disappointing, it certainly did not suffer a defeat that could justify such capitulation, nor could Syria inflict that kind of defeat now. The terms are entirely a product of Olmert’s personal situation and personal desperation.
It is not Olmert who will have to pay the price for them, though. He faces a couple of years in jail at most. The price may be paid, G-d forbid, by young men. And their families. And Israel’s civilians, huddled under bombardment in inadequate shelters. If Israel accepts the terms, war will come closer. The entire history of diplomacy suggests that if Israel rejects the terms and the negotiations fail, war is the most likely consequence.
Most Israelis and most Israeli politicians appear to appreciate how reckless Olmert’s move is. Even MK Shelli Yehimovich, from the left wing of the Labor party, said that Olmert is simply playing upon the cupidity of peace activists in hopes of staying out of jail. One junior Kadima minister has also come out against the move. Significantly, Israel radio at 2 pm Israel time reported “a senior government official” as saying that in a meeting attended by Bush, Condi Rice and Tzipi Livni last week, Bush said he thought it most unlikely Bashar Assad could bring about the changes in Syrian foreign policy he would have to make in order to conclude a genuine peace. No points for guessing the identity of the “senior government official,” hiding behind anonymity, as is her wont, rather than taking responsibility for her positions.
Oh yes, and Eli Yishai of Shas—someone else who never puts his vote where his mouth is—also came out against.
In starting negotiations under these conditions, Olmert has brought war nearer. He won’t save himself, but neither will the negotiations simply go away when he does. As Shahar Ilan writes in Ha’aretz today, “an MK who opposes a peace treaty with Syria before it is signed won’t necessarily oppose it after it is signed. . . . And when one recalls that Netanyahu also negotiated over the Golan, it is far from clear that Ehud Olmert has to be prime minister for the negotiations to be concluded. Another prime minister from Kadima can give back the Golan. Even Netanyahu.”
Ironically, in his attempt to save himself from prosecution, Olmert may have handed his hated arch-rival within Kadima, Tzipi Livni, the key to keeping her own government in business when she replaces him at the helm.
I fear that calculus of negotiation may come to have nothing to do with the prospects of real peace or a “new middle east.” Rather, it may come down to what I mentioned above—all choices are bad, but the Israeli public may feel that by agreeing to sacrifice the Golan it can buy a better chance for a longer period of shadowy no-war-no-peace. The term for that attitude is appeasement.
The next government, assuming it’s around the corner, will have to deal with the fact of negotiations. It can’t simply send the Syrians a card saying “we thought better of it, sorry.” If the negotiations are to be abandoned, it will have to be over real issues.
Two such issues are practical, foreign policy ones. First of all, the public must be made to consider what it would be like to fight a war without any of the Golan—neither a warning station on the Hermon, nor a viable defense line anywhere on the heights. Second, it must appreciate that it costs Syria nothing to get back the Golan in exchange for a piece of paper it can tear up whenever it’s ready for war. Israel must insist Syria go the whole route before a peace treaty of any sort can be signed: Kick out Palestinian terrorists, stop acting as a conduit for Iranian weapons to Hizbullah and Iranian-trained terrorists to Iraq, let Lebanon become a democracy, open its economy and society to Western, especially American, influence. Unless Syria changes its identity, a peace treaty with Syria will be meaningless. I agree with Bush, I don’t think Assad can or wants to do it.
The most important issue, however, is the most difficult to sell to the public, and it’s precisely because this is true that it’s the most important issue: Appeasement is a sign of moral collapse. The likelihood of war is determined only secondarily by borders, deployments, and ancillary conditions. Fundamentally, nothing makes war more likely than the perception of a tyrant that his opponent’s moral will to resist has crumbled. Unlike Olmert, Israel cannot afford to be tired of winning, because the alternative is defeat.
Syria’s foreign minister has announced that Olmert committed Israel to retreat to the line of June 4, 1967 as a precondition of talks, while not insisting on any Syrian precommitments, such as leaving the Iranian orbit and abandoning terror (Olmert’s office has issued a denial). These are the kind of terms usually offered by a country that has suffered a grave military defeat. Though Israel’s performance in the Lebanon War was disappointing, it certainly did not suffer a defeat that could justify such capitulation, nor could Syria inflict that kind of defeat now. The terms are entirely a product of Olmert’s personal situation and personal desperation.
It is not Olmert who will have to pay the price for them, though. He faces a couple of years in jail at most. The price may be paid, G-d forbid, by young men. And their families. And Israel’s civilians, huddled under bombardment in inadequate shelters. If Israel accepts the terms, war will come closer. The entire history of diplomacy suggests that if Israel rejects the terms and the negotiations fail, war is the most likely consequence.
Most Israelis and most Israeli politicians appear to appreciate how reckless Olmert’s move is. Even MK Shelli Yehimovich, from the left wing of the Labor party, said that Olmert is simply playing upon the cupidity of peace activists in hopes of staying out of jail. One junior Kadima minister has also come out against the move. Significantly, Israel radio at 2 pm Israel time reported “a senior government official” as saying that in a meeting attended by Bush, Condi Rice and Tzipi Livni last week, Bush said he thought it most unlikely Bashar Assad could bring about the changes in Syrian foreign policy he would have to make in order to conclude a genuine peace. No points for guessing the identity of the “senior government official,” hiding behind anonymity, as is her wont, rather than taking responsibility for her positions.
Oh yes, and Eli Yishai of Shas—someone else who never puts his vote where his mouth is—also came out against.
In starting negotiations under these conditions, Olmert has brought war nearer. He won’t save himself, but neither will the negotiations simply go away when he does. As Shahar Ilan writes in Ha’aretz today, “an MK who opposes a peace treaty with Syria before it is signed won’t necessarily oppose it after it is signed. . . . And when one recalls that Netanyahu also negotiated over the Golan, it is far from clear that Ehud Olmert has to be prime minister for the negotiations to be concluded. Another prime minister from Kadima can give back the Golan. Even Netanyahu.”
Ironically, in his attempt to save himself from prosecution, Olmert may have handed his hated arch-rival within Kadima, Tzipi Livni, the key to keeping her own government in business when she replaces him at the helm.
I fear that calculus of negotiation may come to have nothing to do with the prospects of real peace or a “new middle east.” Rather, it may come down to what I mentioned above—all choices are bad, but the Israeli public may feel that by agreeing to sacrifice the Golan it can buy a better chance for a longer period of shadowy no-war-no-peace. The term for that attitude is appeasement.
The next government, assuming it’s around the corner, will have to deal with the fact of negotiations. It can’t simply send the Syrians a card saying “we thought better of it, sorry.” If the negotiations are to be abandoned, it will have to be over real issues.
Two such issues are practical, foreign policy ones. First of all, the public must be made to consider what it would be like to fight a war without any of the Golan—neither a warning station on the Hermon, nor a viable defense line anywhere on the heights. Second, it must appreciate that it costs Syria nothing to get back the Golan in exchange for a piece of paper it can tear up whenever it’s ready for war. Israel must insist Syria go the whole route before a peace treaty of any sort can be signed: Kick out Palestinian terrorists, stop acting as a conduit for Iranian weapons to Hizbullah and Iranian-trained terrorists to Iraq, let Lebanon become a democracy, open its economy and society to Western, especially American, influence. Unless Syria changes its identity, a peace treaty with Syria will be meaningless. I agree with Bush, I don’t think Assad can or wants to do it.
The most important issue, however, is the most difficult to sell to the public, and it’s precisely because this is true that it’s the most important issue: Appeasement is a sign of moral collapse. The likelihood of war is determined only secondarily by borders, deployments, and ancillary conditions. Fundamentally, nothing makes war more likely than the perception of a tyrant that his opponent’s moral will to resist has crumbled. Unlike Olmert, Israel cannot afford to be tired of winning, because the alternative is defeat.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Gaidamak Phenomenon
Arkady Gaidamak, a very wealthy Russian Jew, now domiciled in Israel, wanted in France for illicit arms trafficking to Africa, has been doing a lot to put his name before the public. He’s been on TV, advertised cellphones (I think), and in general made a spectacle of himself. I haven’t seen much of him because I don’t own a TV. But I think he bears watching now, because he just bought himself an Israeli political party. He promised three unmemorable members of the Pensioners Party to fund their next political campaign if they break away from their mother party and become his party, possibly sending him to sit as their representative in Olmert’s government (or Tzipi Livni’s, or whatever. Stay tuned for our take on Tzipi). The Knesset’s legal adviser has determined that the agreement between Gaidamak and the pensioners—they provide the party, he provides the cash to get ‘em elected—is illegal. It will take a few days until Gaidamak finds a competent lawyer to write up the patently illegal deal in legally acceptable language.
Gaidamak has made a name for himself in Israel not just by making a spectacle of himself on TV but by engaging in large-scale acts of charity. He’s provided aid to refugees from Gush Katif. He provided vacations and outings to hundreds of Sderot families. He bought Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem, which caters to the impoverished Haredi population of the city, covered its deficit and put it back in business. In part, he did so precisely to increase his name recognition and popularity in Israel. So what could be bad?
He’s done other things as well. He bought Israel’s premier soccer team, Betar. And he bought a radio station, all the licensed television stations already being owned. This resembles a pattern, and the pattern set off alarms in my head. You see, that’s what Russian oligarchs do. They always buy a leading sports club and a TV station (there are more available in Russia) to round out their immense holdings, because owning a sports club makes them popular, popularity helps draw listeners to their media outlets, and their media outlets serve to defame their enemies and manipulate public opinion in favor of their business and political interests.
Gaidamak has formed a political party, “social justice.” It sounds good and goes well with Betar and with Bikur Holim, both of which cater to Israel’s poorer population. At first he declared that he was confining himself, for the time being, to local politics, i.e. running candidates in elections in Israeli municipalities, which are scheduled for November. It’s widely believed that he bought Bikur Holim to curry favor with Haredi politicians, so that they will agree to back him for mayor of Jerusalem. He was going to leave the Knesset for later. But a good businessman has a nose for opportunity, and when the option of buying a minority stake in the Pensioners’ Party, came on the market, Gaidamak exercised it.
Gaidamak’s political career is still very raw. When he first got here and bought Betar, he said he was going to use the club as a platform for promoting Jewish-Arab coexistence. That’s probably the last thing in the world Betar fans are interested in (Betar recently was penalized heavily because some of its fans cursed vocally during a pregame minute of silence in memory of Yitzhak Rabin). He still has to master Israel’s social and political cleavages, but he’s learning fast. Buying Bikur Holim and sucking up to the Haredi population generally is a shrewd move from his perspective. Gaidamak has done some good deeds and has a lot of fans. But I can’t help being suspicious of him. He exhibits a close familiarity with the culture of money and power that made a farce of democracy in Russia and little of the genuine commitment to democracy that characterizes, say, a politician like Binyamin Netanyahu (who should be given such credit as he’s due). When Gaidamak has a soccer club, a radio station, a political party, and in addition learns the prejudices of the Israeli public well enough to pander to them, he’ll be all set to make his bid to become Israel’s Boris Yeltsin. Or perhaps its Vladimir Putin.
As I mentioned, the Knesset’s legal adviser nixed, for the time being, the deal between Gaidamak and the three MKs currently on the market. But the law alone is not going to be enough—is never enough—to defend liberty. Only the public’s love of liberty, and its willingness to see through and resist the temptations offered by demagogues, will suffice. Do Israelis love liberty enough? The precedents of Sharon and Olmert are not encouraging.
Gaidamak has made a name for himself in Israel not just by making a spectacle of himself on TV but by engaging in large-scale acts of charity. He’s provided aid to refugees from Gush Katif. He provided vacations and outings to hundreds of Sderot families. He bought Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem, which caters to the impoverished Haredi population of the city, covered its deficit and put it back in business. In part, he did so precisely to increase his name recognition and popularity in Israel. So what could be bad?
He’s done other things as well. He bought Israel’s premier soccer team, Betar. And he bought a radio station, all the licensed television stations already being owned. This resembles a pattern, and the pattern set off alarms in my head. You see, that’s what Russian oligarchs do. They always buy a leading sports club and a TV station (there are more available in Russia) to round out their immense holdings, because owning a sports club makes them popular, popularity helps draw listeners to their media outlets, and their media outlets serve to defame their enemies and manipulate public opinion in favor of their business and political interests.
Gaidamak has formed a political party, “social justice.” It sounds good and goes well with Betar and with Bikur Holim, both of which cater to Israel’s poorer population. At first he declared that he was confining himself, for the time being, to local politics, i.e. running candidates in elections in Israeli municipalities, which are scheduled for November. It’s widely believed that he bought Bikur Holim to curry favor with Haredi politicians, so that they will agree to back him for mayor of Jerusalem. He was going to leave the Knesset for later. But a good businessman has a nose for opportunity, and when the option of buying a minority stake in the Pensioners’ Party, came on the market, Gaidamak exercised it.
Gaidamak’s political career is still very raw. When he first got here and bought Betar, he said he was going to use the club as a platform for promoting Jewish-Arab coexistence. That’s probably the last thing in the world Betar fans are interested in (Betar recently was penalized heavily because some of its fans cursed vocally during a pregame minute of silence in memory of Yitzhak Rabin). He still has to master Israel’s social and political cleavages, but he’s learning fast. Buying Bikur Holim and sucking up to the Haredi population generally is a shrewd move from his perspective. Gaidamak has done some good deeds and has a lot of fans. But I can’t help being suspicious of him. He exhibits a close familiarity with the culture of money and power that made a farce of democracy in Russia and little of the genuine commitment to democracy that characterizes, say, a politician like Binyamin Netanyahu (who should be given such credit as he’s due). When Gaidamak has a soccer club, a radio station, a political party, and in addition learns the prejudices of the Israeli public well enough to pander to them, he’ll be all set to make his bid to become Israel’s Boris Yeltsin. Or perhaps its Vladimir Putin.
As I mentioned, the Knesset’s legal adviser nixed, for the time being, the deal between Gaidamak and the three MKs currently on the market. But the law alone is not going to be enough—is never enough—to defend liberty. Only the public’s love of liberty, and its willingness to see through and resist the temptations offered by demagogues, will suffice. Do Israelis love liberty enough? The precedents of Sharon and Olmert are not encouraging.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Olmert in the Shadows
Olmert in the Shadows
Ehud Olmert and the shady figures surrounding him are creatures of spin. They seem to believe, apparently with good reason, that they can get away with anything as long as they control the way it’s portrayed through the media. So far nobody has proved them wrong, but this may change in the next few weeks as the Talansky-Olmert probe bites deeper into the vitals of the government.
Olmert and people like him exhibit a diseased attitude to reality. To them, the world is a kind of amateur talent show writ large. As long as you can keep the crowd entertained, you can stay on the stage. People will call you Prime Minister, and the GSS will guard you and your family 24 hours a day. You will possess immense powers and perks that the public cannot see, in consequence of which rich and powerful men will seek your acquaintance and slip you envelopes full of money. All you have to do is make sure that the show goes on.
In the perception of the public there is another side of the job, one that has to do with running the country: Making hard budgetary choices, preparing the army and the country for war, taking the decision to nip the Hamas terror state in the bud so as to neutralize its influence when the really big war to the north and east starts. One gets the sense that for Olmert and his colleagues this is the shadowy part of the job, the one that doesn’t seems real and with which they never need, and never do, come to grips. Every politician of course has to manage his relationship with his public, in order to stay in power and in order to marshal resources and commit people to the things he really wants to accomplish. But for Olmert and his ilk, PR is the job. It’s not about accomplishing anything in particular, but about staying onstage.
Oh yes, I know, dangerous negotiations with the Palestinians and the Syrians are going on all the time. A year ago Olmert turned the Palestinian business over to Tzipi Livni and she’s going at it with devotion of a true believer. In the aftermath of his failure in the Second Lebanon War Olmert turned the IDF over to Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. We don’t know if Ashkenazi’s a strategic planner, but he does appear to know how to train regiments and battalions, the building blocks of an army. When Olmert can find someone competent to do a piece of his work he turns it over to them and something gets done. When it comes to hard decisions, though—to go to war in Gaza, to make Israel’s educational system function, or to provide more resources for defense without busting the budget—Olmert simply isn’t there.
Olmert is actually pretty clever, but his thought processes are ill suited to evaluating complex problems and pursuing a strategy. His vaunted peace overture to Syria was handled in an amateurish fashion. He acted as if Assad were Morris Talansky or Eli Yishai: Offer him something he wants (the Golan) and he’ll come around. Olmert doesn’t appear to have considered that for Assad to accept such an offer, he would have to be convinced that all other avenues lead to a dead end and that the prospect of war with Israel was getting more, not less dangerous. But Assad has good reason not to think that and he snubbed Olmert, publicly and insultingly. With Lebanon knuckling under to Hizbullah and the clock running down on the American military presence in Iraq, Assad probably figures that he’ll pick up a lot more than just the Golan when Iran’s plans for Israel come to fruition.
From Olmert’s perspective, George Bush’s visit to Israel was a disaster. For months everyone in Israel anticipated, with horror or with glee, that Olmert would use the Bush visit to state just what he’s willing to give up, as the overture to new elections. But the Talansky business rendered anything Olmert would say non-credible and if there are new elections now Olmert won’t be a candidate. Even when Olmert decided to confine himself to soothing generalities about peace, Hamas ruined his show. It blew in the roof of an Ashkelon mall just as Bush and Olmert were having their celebrated press conference. The conference got no coverage, and Olmert was forced to spend the next 24 hours talking about war with the Hamas rather than peace. From Olmert’s perspective the whole visit turned out to be a PR disaster.
But this is only of importance to Olmert and his ilk, who think that PR successes or disasters are the only significant successes or disasters there are. There is indeed a whole other, real world beside the shadow world of spin and show. Eventually reality catches up with you. It’s catching up with Olmert right now. He thought you can manipulate public opinion and sell the perquisites of office forever, and it turns out that not even he can do it. Come to think of it, the main characteristic of the criminal mind is inadequate grasp of reality, the inability to imagine or take seriously the consequences of one’s actions. That’s Olmert in a nutshell.
The real question of course is how an entire people can make an Olmert, or a Sharon, their leader and not see through them. That’s a lot more serious than the criminal propensities of this or that politician. Olmert ignored the law and now it’s catching up with him. He led Israelis, however, in ignoring the mounting strategic threat from both north and south, and now that threat is catching up with Israel with giant strides.
Ehud Olmert and the shady figures surrounding him are creatures of spin. They seem to believe, apparently with good reason, that they can get away with anything as long as they control the way it’s portrayed through the media. So far nobody has proved them wrong, but this may change in the next few weeks as the Talansky-Olmert probe bites deeper into the vitals of the government.
Olmert and people like him exhibit a diseased attitude to reality. To them, the world is a kind of amateur talent show writ large. As long as you can keep the crowd entertained, you can stay on the stage. People will call you Prime Minister, and the GSS will guard you and your family 24 hours a day. You will possess immense powers and perks that the public cannot see, in consequence of which rich and powerful men will seek your acquaintance and slip you envelopes full of money. All you have to do is make sure that the show goes on.
In the perception of the public there is another side of the job, one that has to do with running the country: Making hard budgetary choices, preparing the army and the country for war, taking the decision to nip the Hamas terror state in the bud so as to neutralize its influence when the really big war to the north and east starts. One gets the sense that for Olmert and his colleagues this is the shadowy part of the job, the one that doesn’t seems real and with which they never need, and never do, come to grips. Every politician of course has to manage his relationship with his public, in order to stay in power and in order to marshal resources and commit people to the things he really wants to accomplish. But for Olmert and his ilk, PR is the job. It’s not about accomplishing anything in particular, but about staying onstage.
Oh yes, I know, dangerous negotiations with the Palestinians and the Syrians are going on all the time. A year ago Olmert turned the Palestinian business over to Tzipi Livni and she’s going at it with devotion of a true believer. In the aftermath of his failure in the Second Lebanon War Olmert turned the IDF over to Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. We don’t know if Ashkenazi’s a strategic planner, but he does appear to know how to train regiments and battalions, the building blocks of an army. When Olmert can find someone competent to do a piece of his work he turns it over to them and something gets done. When it comes to hard decisions, though—to go to war in Gaza, to make Israel’s educational system function, or to provide more resources for defense without busting the budget—Olmert simply isn’t there.
Olmert is actually pretty clever, but his thought processes are ill suited to evaluating complex problems and pursuing a strategy. His vaunted peace overture to Syria was handled in an amateurish fashion. He acted as if Assad were Morris Talansky or Eli Yishai: Offer him something he wants (the Golan) and he’ll come around. Olmert doesn’t appear to have considered that for Assad to accept such an offer, he would have to be convinced that all other avenues lead to a dead end and that the prospect of war with Israel was getting more, not less dangerous. But Assad has good reason not to think that and he snubbed Olmert, publicly and insultingly. With Lebanon knuckling under to Hizbullah and the clock running down on the American military presence in Iraq, Assad probably figures that he’ll pick up a lot more than just the Golan when Iran’s plans for Israel come to fruition.
From Olmert’s perspective, George Bush’s visit to Israel was a disaster. For months everyone in Israel anticipated, with horror or with glee, that Olmert would use the Bush visit to state just what he’s willing to give up, as the overture to new elections. But the Talansky business rendered anything Olmert would say non-credible and if there are new elections now Olmert won’t be a candidate. Even when Olmert decided to confine himself to soothing generalities about peace, Hamas ruined his show. It blew in the roof of an Ashkelon mall just as Bush and Olmert were having their celebrated press conference. The conference got no coverage, and Olmert was forced to spend the next 24 hours talking about war with the Hamas rather than peace. From Olmert’s perspective the whole visit turned out to be a PR disaster.
But this is only of importance to Olmert and his ilk, who think that PR successes or disasters are the only significant successes or disasters there are. There is indeed a whole other, real world beside the shadow world of spin and show. Eventually reality catches up with you. It’s catching up with Olmert right now. He thought you can manipulate public opinion and sell the perquisites of office forever, and it turns out that not even he can do it. Come to think of it, the main characteristic of the criminal mind is inadequate grasp of reality, the inability to imagine or take seriously the consequences of one’s actions. That’s Olmert in a nutshell.
The real question of course is how an entire people can make an Olmert, or a Sharon, their leader and not see through them. That’s a lot more serious than the criminal propensities of this or that politician. Olmert ignored the law and now it’s catching up with him. He led Israelis, however, in ignoring the mounting strategic threat from both north and south, and now that threat is catching up with Israel with giant strides.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Ceasefires and Escalations
During the war in Vietnam there used to be the following pattern. The North Vietnamese, through their Vietcong terrorist allies, would launch an offensive against South Vietnam. They’d make progress in some places, get stalled in others. The Americans would bomb the heck out of their field forces and supply lines and bring them to the point of collapse. When the Vietnamese wanted a break, they would call for a cease fire—to celebrate the Vietnamese New Year, or May Day, or whatever. International pressure would force the United States to agree, on condition that the North Vietnamese refrained from using the ceasefire to reinforce or resupply its forces. The Vietnamese would of course accept, and then use the ceasefire to reinforce and resupply, so that the fighting could go on from square one.
This may sound like ancient history but it’s not. The tactic was invented in Moscow (I think it was first used in the Korean War, actually). The Russians taught it to many peoples, including the Iranians. The Iranians taught it to Hizbullah and Hamas. For them it’s not ancient history, it’s just part of the textbook for fighting Western countries. Things that work stay in the textbook generation after generation.
Our Islamofascist enemy’s greatest ally is our own hesitation. Israel’s present leadership, of course, wants peace at almost any price (for all I know it’s peace at any price—they just haven’t been put to that test yet, so that neither we nor the enemy can be sure). If we look at what’s happened in the region since the 2nd Lebanon War, however, we can see that the enemy’s strategy, for the meantime, is to play for time. During the 12 months since the war the IDF trained intensively, and for that time the balance of power shifted our way. Since then Hamas and Hizbullah have gotten stronger and stronger. Four years ago American pressure forced Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, creating the possibility of sustaining a democratic, Western-oriented government in that country. The events in Lebanon over the past two weeks show that Lebanon has, in effect, fallen back into Syrian and Iranian hands. Syrian divisions are on the Lebanese border and some reports say they have already crossed back into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the IDF’s power has reached a plateau. It is retrained and reequipped, but it needs to get much bigger and more powerful it isn’t doing so.
Israel is between the jaws of a pincers in which the enemy has considerable advantages. To attack us it doesn’t need to invade us—just to shoot missiles. Its armies can dig in and wait for us to come to them in prepared defensive positions. As time passes, they get stronger. When they feel reasonably certain we no longer have the strength to go after them, they will attack.
Israel’s best strategy is the one most difficult for a democracy to take: Pick one enemy, attack and destroy it, while trying to deter the other from making a move. Israel’s attack against Syria’s reactor last year sent a double message: Not only would Israel prevent Syria from getting nuclear weapons, but the entire Syrian hinterland remains as vulnerable as Israel’s. What Israel ought to do now is conquer all of Gaza but the built-up urban areas (excepting two—Rafiah in the south an Beit Hanun in the north, which should be literally flattened, the civilian moved to tent cities under IDF control as provided for by the Fourth Geneva Convention). A ten-kilometer strip between Khan Younis and the Egyptian border should be occupied. The Syrians should be warned ahead of time that in response to attacks on Israel’s hinterland their entire energy, power, water and communications infrastructure will be eliminated, in a manner designed to cause as much civilian unrest as possible. If they do attack, Israel should carry out the threat to the letter.
It should have been done eighteen months ago. It ought to be done today.
This may sound like ancient history but it’s not. The tactic was invented in Moscow (I think it was first used in the Korean War, actually). The Russians taught it to many peoples, including the Iranians. The Iranians taught it to Hizbullah and Hamas. For them it’s not ancient history, it’s just part of the textbook for fighting Western countries. Things that work stay in the textbook generation after generation.
Our Islamofascist enemy’s greatest ally is our own hesitation. Israel’s present leadership, of course, wants peace at almost any price (for all I know it’s peace at any price—they just haven’t been put to that test yet, so that neither we nor the enemy can be sure). If we look at what’s happened in the region since the 2nd Lebanon War, however, we can see that the enemy’s strategy, for the meantime, is to play for time. During the 12 months since the war the IDF trained intensively, and for that time the balance of power shifted our way. Since then Hamas and Hizbullah have gotten stronger and stronger. Four years ago American pressure forced Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, creating the possibility of sustaining a democratic, Western-oriented government in that country. The events in Lebanon over the past two weeks show that Lebanon has, in effect, fallen back into Syrian and Iranian hands. Syrian divisions are on the Lebanese border and some reports say they have already crossed back into Lebanon. Meanwhile, the IDF’s power has reached a plateau. It is retrained and reequipped, but it needs to get much bigger and more powerful it isn’t doing so.
Israel is between the jaws of a pincers in which the enemy has considerable advantages. To attack us it doesn’t need to invade us—just to shoot missiles. Its armies can dig in and wait for us to come to them in prepared defensive positions. As time passes, they get stronger. When they feel reasonably certain we no longer have the strength to go after them, they will attack.
Israel’s best strategy is the one most difficult for a democracy to take: Pick one enemy, attack and destroy it, while trying to deter the other from making a move. Israel’s attack against Syria’s reactor last year sent a double message: Not only would Israel prevent Syria from getting nuclear weapons, but the entire Syrian hinterland remains as vulnerable as Israel’s. What Israel ought to do now is conquer all of Gaza but the built-up urban areas (excepting two—Rafiah in the south an Beit Hanun in the north, which should be literally flattened, the civilian moved to tent cities under IDF control as provided for by the Fourth Geneva Convention). A ten-kilometer strip between Khan Younis and the Egyptian border should be occupied. The Syrians should be warned ahead of time that in response to attacks on Israel’s hinterland their entire energy, power, water and communications infrastructure will be eliminated, in a manner designed to cause as much civilian unrest as possible. If they do attack, Israel should carry out the threat to the letter.
It should have been done eighteen months ago. It ought to be done today.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Skipping the Party
I'm not sorry I wasn't invited to Olmert's and Peres' party. I'm just sorry we can't do better.
An overcast, lugubrious day in Jerusalem. My business took me to the Knesset. The center of town is nearly abandoned. Jerusalemites know what to expect when the President of the United States comes to visit and the police bar them from entering their own downtown. Almost everyone stayed away. The city looks eerily like a museum piece or a movie set, the stage for somebody else’s illusions with ourselves as minor walk-on characters. Somewhere over our heads, about at the elevation of the police helicopter circling endlessly above, someone is staging a tawdry piece of theater. Ostensibly it’s about us, we’re certainly paying for it (in more ways than one), but it’s not actually meant for the real people down here on the ground.
The sense of detachment intensified as I passed security and entered the Knesset. The Knesset is festooned with flags—American and Israeli flags on alternate flagpoles. Once upon a time this sight, in this place, would have given me a thrill. Now I am aware mainly of a hole in the heart where the thrill would have been. I haven’t been able to summon a thrill at the sight of an Israeli flag since February 2005, when the Disengagement Law passed the Knesset. I am reminded of stories people told me back in the Old Country, people who couldn’t find it within themselves to be proud of the American flag as long as the Vietnam war was going on (From the time I could form a professional judgment I felt differently. To keep the Viet Cong away from South Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge away from the Cambodians was a cause worth fighting for, botched beyond retrieval by “experts” who had no comprehension of their job, the price paid by hapless and innocent millions).
George Bush is coming to visit a country with a fool (“history is meaningless!”) for president, a crook for prime minister, and a governing elite on the skids, unworthy guardians of the Jewish people and its inheritence. They have thrown themselves a party at public expense and invited the President of the United States to dress it up. The gaiety is forced—they have precious little to be gay about—but they’ll go through the motions all the same. My fellow citizens and I are invited to gawk, coo and be impressed. Considering the stars of the show, it’s not hard to decide to skip it.
It wouldn’t hurt so much if it these people hadn’t been chosen for their jobs by the people. They reflect on us, and to some extent the reflection is justified. They claim to represent the State of Israel but, detached from Jewish history and tradition and from common decency, they are capable of representing, of celebrating, nothing but themselves. Ordinary people know this and feel detached from their celebration. Because these are the people we chose to represent us, and because they do represent us, we find ourselves at a loss, unsure of what or whether to celebrate.
It shouldn’t be this way. The President of the United States ought to come to Jerusalem, the seat of David’s throne and the capital of the Jewish state, as a pilgrim and not as a celebrity. If his hosts knew what and whom they ought to represent, even the pilgrimage of the greatest potentate in the world would not seem like so much, but only homage—spiritual, not political—where homage is due.
What is one to do about it? Work. “The truly righteous,” wrote Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, “do not complain about the darkness but spread the light.” What did I do today in the Knesset? I worked on legislation to eliminate the Israeli equivalent of the Riot Act, under which most of the protesters against disengagement were arrested, and the law against “insulting a civil servant,” used by the State Prosecutor to criminalize speech and writing on public affairs. I think I contributed at least as much to a future Jewish state that one can be proud of as Olmert and Peres did in their day’s work.
An overcast, lugubrious day in Jerusalem. My business took me to the Knesset. The center of town is nearly abandoned. Jerusalemites know what to expect when the President of the United States comes to visit and the police bar them from entering their own downtown. Almost everyone stayed away. The city looks eerily like a museum piece or a movie set, the stage for somebody else’s illusions with ourselves as minor walk-on characters. Somewhere over our heads, about at the elevation of the police helicopter circling endlessly above, someone is staging a tawdry piece of theater. Ostensibly it’s about us, we’re certainly paying for it (in more ways than one), but it’s not actually meant for the real people down here on the ground.
The sense of detachment intensified as I passed security and entered the Knesset. The Knesset is festooned with flags—American and Israeli flags on alternate flagpoles. Once upon a time this sight, in this place, would have given me a thrill. Now I am aware mainly of a hole in the heart where the thrill would have been. I haven’t been able to summon a thrill at the sight of an Israeli flag since February 2005, when the Disengagement Law passed the Knesset. I am reminded of stories people told me back in the Old Country, people who couldn’t find it within themselves to be proud of the American flag as long as the Vietnam war was going on (From the time I could form a professional judgment I felt differently. To keep the Viet Cong away from South Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge away from the Cambodians was a cause worth fighting for, botched beyond retrieval by “experts” who had no comprehension of their job, the price paid by hapless and innocent millions).
George Bush is coming to visit a country with a fool (“history is meaningless!”) for president, a crook for prime minister, and a governing elite on the skids, unworthy guardians of the Jewish people and its inheritence. They have thrown themselves a party at public expense and invited the President of the United States to dress it up. The gaiety is forced—they have precious little to be gay about—but they’ll go through the motions all the same. My fellow citizens and I are invited to gawk, coo and be impressed. Considering the stars of the show, it’s not hard to decide to skip it.
It wouldn’t hurt so much if it these people hadn’t been chosen for their jobs by the people. They reflect on us, and to some extent the reflection is justified. They claim to represent the State of Israel but, detached from Jewish history and tradition and from common decency, they are capable of representing, of celebrating, nothing but themselves. Ordinary people know this and feel detached from their celebration. Because these are the people we chose to represent us, and because they do represent us, we find ourselves at a loss, unsure of what or whether to celebrate.
It shouldn’t be this way. The President of the United States ought to come to Jerusalem, the seat of David’s throne and the capital of the Jewish state, as a pilgrim and not as a celebrity. If his hosts knew what and whom they ought to represent, even the pilgrimage of the greatest potentate in the world would not seem like so much, but only homage—spiritual, not political—where homage is due.
What is one to do about it? Work. “The truly righteous,” wrote Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, “do not complain about the darkness but spread the light.” What did I do today in the Knesset? I worked on legislation to eliminate the Israeli equivalent of the Riot Act, under which most of the protesters against disengagement were arrested, and the law against “insulting a civil servant,” used by the State Prosecutor to criminalize speech and writing on public affairs. I think I contributed at least as much to a future Jewish state that one can be proud of as Olmert and Peres did in their day’s work.
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