Home  Opinion Empty-handed Olmert |
|
Empty-handed Olmert |
|
|
Written by Aluf Benn - Haaretz
|
Fight for survival / Empty-handed Olmert
Last Saturday night, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke on the telephone
with President George Bush. Olmert thanked Bush for the American's assistance in pushing through the Security Council resolution that brought an end to the fighting in Lebanon. Bush commended Olmert as "a courageous partner in the war against terror," and then threw out a surprising question on the convergence plan.
"What about the plan you presented to me?" Bush asked.
Olmert was pleased to hear that someone like Bush is still considering the idea seriously, even though he knew that the convergence plan was off the agenda and the West Bank settlements would be staying put. The convergence plan died the day the IDF returned to the Gaza Strip, following the abduction of Corporal Gilad Shalit on 25 June.
At that point, it became clear that the legitimacy of the recognized
international border offers Israel no protection against terrorism. Olmert continued to believe in the convergence plan as a solution to the demographic threat facing the Jewish character of the State of Israel.
But the war in Lebanon convinced him that it is impossible to sell the public another unilateral withdrawal. After all, the territories evacuated by Israel in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon became bases for terrorist Islamic organizations that are intent on launching rocket attacks against the Jewish state.
It would be hard to convince Israelis to accept a similar situation in the West Bank - and Olmert understands this. His problem is that in giving up the unilateral withdrawal he is left without a political direction or a diplomatic agenda.
"Reconstructing the North," which he proposed earlier this week, as the
replacement for convergence, and even the war against terror and the Iranian threat, are important goals. But Olmert was elected in order to leave the territories and transform Israel into a country that "it is fun to live in."
Benjamin Netanyahu, who proposed confronting Iran, lost to him in the
elections. Olmert's aides remind him that his predecessors were also elected for a specific political platform and went on to carry out precisely the opposite. Ariel Sharon promised not to leave the territories and pulled out of the Gaza Strip; Yitzhak Rabin said he would not talk with the PLO and recognized Yasser Arafat; Netanyahu wanted to block the Oslo process and singed the Wye Plantation and Hebron agreements.
These are important historical examples, but it is not certain that they will repeat themselves. Olmert and his Kadima party emerged to carry on the Sharon legacy of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Now they are faced with crisis, which stems in part from the criminal charges brought against senior members of his party, most notably Haim Ramon, Kadima's ideologue and a close adviser to Olmert.
The idea of a unilateral pullout is not Olmert's, nor that of Ehud Barak, who left southern Lebanon in May 2000. The rights for the invention belong to Yossi Beilin, who set up the "movement for pulling out of Lebanon" nine years ago. However hard he may be trying to distance himself through his vociferous attacks against the policy of unilateralism, demanding negotiations with the Palestinians and Syrians, he is the person who said that "anyone who conditions our departure from Lebanon on agreements and official understandings perpetuates our stay in the Lebanese quagmire and the high price we are paying for it."
Barak, Sharon and Olmert also adopted the unilateral approach. The first two carried it out, the third is stuck. What will he do now? What will Olmert tell Bush, Tony Blair and Hosni Mubarak?
By Aluf Benn
|
|
|
Madness takes over Lebanon.
Militants are fighting in the streets of Beirut. Military guns are on both sides. What is the prospect of such a situation. Aren't the Lebanese fed-up with wars?
23 November 2007
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud left the Baabda presidential palace without handing over the power to a new president. This is the first time since independence in 1943. |
advertisements
|
