Cloudy Daze

It's pouring here in Jerusalem, a day of fierce rain and winds, a big temperature drop from previous days, when it was downright balmy. There's talk of snow tomorrow, too.

Perhaps it's fitting, these clouds hanging over the city. They give everyone a sense of what it's like to be Prime Minister Ehud Olmert these days. He, and his Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, have huge clouds hanging over them in the form of something called the Winograd Committee, a panel appointed by Olmert to look into the conduct of last year's Lebanon War and to assign responsibility for any failings. Olmert's office successfully blocked an attempt by the state Comptroller to release the initial findings of a report his office is working on, but they're far less likely to slow the Committee's plan, announced yesterday, to deliver their interim findings--and name names--in mid-April. According to local daily Ma'ariv, the Committee "has decided to publish the partial report after the Passover festival, in order to avoid spoiling the holiday atmosphere for the heads of the political and military echelon, and for the public."

That would seem to hint that the controversy will not pass over Olmert and Peretz, or the former head of the Israel Defense Force, Lt. Gen Dan Halutz. Halutz has already resigned, though. Speculation has it that Olmert and Peretz might also have to give up their posts if they're personally assigned responsibility for shortcomings in the war effort.

It's not unusual to hear outside observers wonder what all the fuss is about, since Israel clearly came out on top, at least by the numbers, in the fight against Hezbollah last summer. But that misses the point. It's been a season of political scandal in Israel, one that's embroiled Olmert himself, the President and several other top officials, and reached the point where an official will have to come undone in some truly spectacular way to distinguish himself. More pertinently, though, politicians in Israel can be forgiven for quite a lot--the public seems to assume a measure of corruption in its leaders--but failing to protect the home front, and by extension the people, and the Jewish State of Israel, cannot be forgiven. And, in essence, that is what Olmert and Peretz stand accused of.

Regardless of the Committee's findings, something in Olmert's and Peretz' relationship to the Israeli people has been broken (in different ways, since they are very different men, political rivals in their own right, who reportedly had a shouting match in a cabinet meeting last week). Peretz' colleagues in the Labor Party are casting about for ways to unseat him, possibly for former Prime Minister Ehud Barak or Knesset Member Ami Ayalon, and Olmert's Kadima Party mates seem to be sneaking favorable glances at Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as a possible successor at the head of the outfit founded less than two years ago by Ariel Sharon. Furthermore, another former Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is looking for ways to maneuver himself into Olmert's chair, and had himself some very high level meetings in Washington this past weekend during a conference sponsored by the highly influential American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).

Olmert, for his part, seems to be looking for anything that might provide him some support, including nudging open--or allowing to be nudged by Condoleeza Rice--the long-closed door to talks with favored Palestinians (i.e. Mahmoud Abbas) and consideration of the Saudi-authored Arab Peace Initiative. It's hard to think he would sincerely embrace such a thing now after disregarding it for his first 10 months in office, and hard to imagine that he could lead his people through any kind of agreement in such a weakened state, since that process would be painful under the best of circumstances, but he's talking about it, maybe thinking it's a way to disperse the clouds overhead. Perhaps he can hire Alberto Gonzales, if the U.S. Attorney General winds up resigning, and get advice on how to fire lawyers he doesn't like, or advice on how to pretend to take responsibility without really taking responsibility at all. One would hope he is not so shameless, but either way, the forecast does not look good.
--Phil Zabriskie/Jerusalem