Why Israelis are cynical about their elected officials

Yes to outrage

You know what's really distressing about Sunday's indictment of former prime minister Ehud Olmert on graft charges? It's that the news was anti-climatic. That Israeli society has reached the point where one mass-circulation tabloid devoted more front page coverage to Madonna's visit to the Western Wall than to the historic indictment of an ex-premier.

Israelis were not shaken. We did not feel betrayed. And therein lies the heartbreak.

Part of the blasé reaction can be explained by the fact that Olmert has been under investigation for so long. In September 1996, while in the Likud, he was indicted for illicit fund raising and for signing false statements. He was ultimately acquitted.

In the last three years, Olmert stood accused of influence-peddling at the Finance Ministry to ensure that the privatization tender of Bank Leumi was won by Australian businessman Frank Lowy. That case was dropped. As Industry, Trade and Labor minister, he was accused of handing out patronage jobs to a company associated with his former law partner. That case is still pending.

Back on March 2, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that then-acting prime minister Olmert had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the sale of his home on Rehov Kaf Tet B'November in Jerusalem. Further on in that story, though, we reported that Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz was looking into charges that Olmert's purchase of another Jerusalem home on Cremieux Street was shady. No wrongdoing was ever proven in connection with Olmert's real estate dealings on Cremieux St, or in Nahalot, or in Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv.

Still, when Olmert was ultimately driven from office it was not for his inept handling of the Second Lebanon War, but because he became too unpopular to lead Kadima at the polls.

THE attorney-general has now filed a 61-page, three-count indictment charging Olmert with tax evasion, falsifying financial statements and failing to report income. The charges relate to the period Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and a minister. None allege wrongdoing initiated during his premiership. Olmert is not charged with taking bribes, though that is implicit.

# Charge One: Rishon Tours. Olmert is accused of double, sometimes triple billing the government and not-for-profit organizations for reimbursement of 17 trips abroad between 2002-2006, and of directing that surplus funds, roughly $90,000, be held on account at the travel agency for personal use by him and members of his family.

# Charge Two: Morris Talansky affair. Olmert is accused of receiving $600,000 from the American businessman, some of it in cash-stuffed envelopes, between 1997 and 2005.

# Charge Three: Investment Center. As Minister of Industry and Trade, Olmert is charged with a conflict of interest in intervening on behalf of the clients of his law partner Uri Messer to obtain government grants.

No prime minister or ex-premier has ever before been indicted on criminal charges in Israel's history.

This is the place to say that we have not been impressed with the deportment of Olmert's lawyers, particularly their efforts to delay the handing down of this indictment and impugning the motivation of the prosecution. To insinuate that the indictment was driven by ulterior motives is to undermine trust in the legal system.

Olmert is innocent until proven guilty. He is expected to go on trial in Jerusalem District Court before a three judge panel probably after the High Holy Days. The trial is expected to be a drawn out affair, barring a plea bargain.

WE ARE left feeling that hubris more than ethical standards guide the behavior of too many of our politicians. Sixty years after the establishment of the state, the sense that certain things are just not done remains undeveloped.

Former president Moshe Katsav and now Olmert have been indicted. Former finance minister Avraham Hirschson and former Shas MK Shlomo Benizri both start their prison sentences today. Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak both escaped indictment - just. Police have recommended indicting Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The charges, circumstances, and personalities may vary but the lingering impression is that those who ought to be paragons of probity too often treat the law with contempt. Their greatest offense is making the rest of us cynical about our country.

Are Europe & America starting to wake up?

Iran without the bomb

The battle raging among Sunni Muslims - between belligerent Islamists carrying the mantle of al-Qaida and comparatively more moderate adherents - is sufficiently disturbing without throwing the destabilizing impact of Iranian Shi'ite imperialism into the mix.

Over the weekend, for instance, came news that the son of the Saudi interior minister - who happens to be his father's deputy at the ministry - had been the target of a failed al-Qaida assassination attempt. Elsewhere, hundreds of Sunni Muslims have been killed this summer by fellow Sunnis in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In Afghanistan/Pakistan, the slaughter is mostly Sunni on Sunni. Only in Iraq has much of the recent intra-Arab killing been carried out by Sunnis against Shi'ites.

On top of what the Sunnis are doing to each other, Iran does its bit to promote the bloodletting, in Afghanistan and Iraq, naturally, but also in Yemen, where the latest uptick in violence is facilitated by Iranian support of anti-government Shi'ite rebels. Iran also stokes upheaval by supporting seditious Sunni groups in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania and among the Palestinians. In Lebanon, Teheran operates openly through its Hizbullah proxy. Its agents in South America and Africa pursue their malevolent goals more surreptitiously.

Iran makes all this mischief armed with only conventional weapons. Place an atom bomb in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the world becomes exponentially more dangerous - especially now that his regime is becoming more despotic.

As Iran's June elections demonstrated, power is now concentrated among an ever-shrinking elite which feels no need to pursue consensus policies at home. Former leading revolutionaries have been subject to Stalin-like show trials, coerced into making transparently false confessions. The revolution is consuming its own, becoming more fanatical and turning crooked. The Economist reports this week that the Revolutionary Guards control most state-owned companies and may even have a stranglehold over the black market in alcohol, tobacco, and heaven knows what else.

The appointment as defense minister of Ahmad Vahidi - the man most likely responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed and 200 wounded - supplies yet further proof that the ruling clique has become more shameless, arrogant and unpredictable.

ON FRIDAY, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei issued another one of his Kafkaesque reports, in advance of a September 7 meeting of the agency's 35-member policymaking body in Vienna. He has perfected the art of airbrushing any sense of urgency out of these reports. "There remain a number of outstanding issues," ElBaradei droned, "which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program…."

He makes no judgment about the military aspects of Iran's nuclear program; takes no position on reports that a renegade Russian scientist provided weaponization knowhow to Iran; and offers no view about reports of Iranian scientists carrying out computer modeling of above-ground nuclear detonations.

Here is ElBaradei taking off the gloves: The IAEA does "not consider that Iran has adequately addressed the substance of the issues…." To his credit, he doesn't sweep under the rug the fact that Iran has not suspended its enrichment of uranium or halted work on heavy water, as demanded by the Security Council.

The generally well-informed Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post predicts that after much haggling, Iran will agree to stop short of building a bomb, but will insist on retaining its capability to do so. That would leave Iranian imperialism unchecked and perpetuate for generations the threat of an Iranian bomb.

On Wednesday, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in Frankfurt. Berlin and Paris have announced that stiffer economic penalties are in the offing if Iran does not end its quest for the bomb. Meanwhile, a new poll tells us that 81 percent of Americans feel Iran poses a serious threat to the United States; a survey last month found 66% feeling that President Barack Obama is not tough enough on Iran.

Iran without the bomb is a certified menace. Perhaps the nightmarish consequences for Europe and America of a nuclear-armed Iran are, belatedly, starting to register.

How Ted Kennedy's death is seen in Jerusalem

Liberals and Israel


The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, a quintessential liberal, reminds us that there was a time when liberalism and pro-Israelism were synonymous.

Kennedy-style liberalism was rooted in optimism about human nature, trust in the good that government can do, and faith in the power of negotiations to resolve seemingly intractable problems.

Kennedy made his first trip to Israel in 1962 as a prelude to his senatorial campaign. Though it was billed as a "private visit," Kennedy gave a "fervent Zionist address" before 2,000 Hebrew University students. A handful of local communists protested the appearance. In those days, liberals and communists were bitter enemies.

As a freshman senator, Kennedy became chair of the subcommittee on international refugees. When he came to suspect that UNRWA money - largely contributed by US taxpayers - was being diverted to Ahmed Shukeiry, Yasser Arafat's predecessor, and his gunmen, he protested.

After visiting Arab refugee camps in Lebanon and the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, Kennedy advocated rehabilitation and training programs to help those displaced by the 1948 war start new lives. Israeli leaders supported his efforts. But the Arabs insisted that the only just solution for the refugees was their return to their original homes and the dismantling of Israel.

KENNEDY was by no means a knee-jerk supporter of this country.

He opposed Israeli retaliatory raids against Arab fedayeen and called for third-party mediation.

In 1966, he introduced his own plan for Middle East peace which advocated respect for the territorial integrity of all states in the region. The Arabs would have none of it.

After the 1967 Six Day War, Kennedy remained a steadfast friend of Israel and said that on a personal basis, he did not object to Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty.

During the Nixon administration, he urged the sale of Phantom fighter planes to Israel, clashing with J.W. Fulbright, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

By the early 1970s, he had became a key champion of the Soviet Jewry movement. In 1974, he irritated the Kremlin by meeting with Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.

Throughout the Nixon and Ford years, Kennedy steadfastly championed military aid to Israel.

When Jimmy Carter pushed a major arms package for Saudi Arabia, Kennedy voted against - though he honored a White House request not to lead the opposition to the deal. He also opposed Carter's occasional flirtations with the then-quarantined PLO.

And when the Carter administration supported an Arab-inspired UN Security Council resolution calling for the removal of all Jewish settlements beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, Kennedy called the US vote "shameful." He wanted to see the parties negotiate the issues - including settlements.

He unsuccessfully challenged Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, while receiving strong support from Rabbi Alexander Schindler of the Reform movement and other liberal Jews. (Carter ultimately lost his bid for a second term to Ronald Reagan.)

When Reagan sought to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia in 1981, he too ran into opposition from Kennedy. And in the face of unbridled Reagan administration outrage over the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility later that same year, Kennedy lambasted the administration as "profoundly wrong."

THE PRO-ISRAEL liberalism embodied by Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits seems archaic nowadays.

Their generation knew first-hand that the Arabs' rejection of Israel's existence was at the root of the conflict.

Today, calls for throwing the Jews into the sea have been replaced by reasonable-sounding Arab initiatives for a two-state solution. Only the fine print - pertaining to recognition, borders, militarization and refugees - suggests something else.

Once there were no settlements, and still the Arabs sought Israel's destruction. Yet yesterday, a CNN primer of the conflict pointed to settlements as the stumbling block to peace.

Maybe the old Kennedy liberals were really centrists, and today's progressives are really leftists. Or maybe, 60 years on, liberals have just grown uncomfortable and impatient - after Lebanon wars, intifadas, checkpoints, barriers and Gaza blockades.

The liberal catechism is 1. All conflicts are soluble; 2. Israel is the stronger party; 3. And so it must take the greater risks for peace.

Liberals are exasperated by Israel's failure to embrace these principles categorically. Yet we survive in this region because we don't.

Edward Kennedy understood all this and more. Israel feels his loss acutely.
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Shabbat shalom to all

MERKEL & NETANYAHU MEET TODAY IN BERLIN

The PM in Europe


Were it not for fresh revelations about the cause of Michael Jackson's demise and embarrassing questions about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's involvement in setting the Lockerbie bomber free, the media in England might have devoted itself to more thoroughly bashing Israel on the occasion of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to London this week.

Alas, the Guardian on Tuesday relegated its two anti-Zionist pieces to page 16. The Times carried a Ramallah-datelined interview with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad on the inside pages. The Telegraph reported (incorrectly) that Netanyahu was about to concede on the settlement freeze issue, but worried that "his nationalist foreign minister" had "inflamed the situation by dismissing the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough." The Independent tried to uncover the real reason Israel has lifted checkpoints in the West Bank including around Nablus, the "town once synonymous with the Palestinian resistance." According to one local, it was a temporary charade put on for the Americans and Europe.

That was the context for yesterday's meeting between Netanyahu and his "good friend" Brown at No. 10 Downing Street. Britain indeed counts itself as a "true friend" of Israel deeply concerned over a Jewish presence beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. Yet despite incessant pressure from pro-Palestinian advocates for a boycott, Israel-UK trade remains strong. Netanyahu also thanked Brown for his support on the Iranian issue. Britain does not promote trade with Iran, though the extent of commerce between the two countries is hard to gauge since much of it takes place surreptitiously via the United Arab Emirates.

ON THURSDAY, Netanyahu is to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The last embers of hope that economic penalties could sway Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not to proceed with his bomb may well rest with her. Unfortunately, Germany has the distinction of being Iran's second biggest trading partner after China.

Germany is deeply involved in trying to influence events in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. It has lent its good offices to help free Israeli captives; it provides important military support to Israel. After Netanyahu's path breaking Bar-Ilan speech in June, Merkel telephoned with words of encouragement. Germany is also heavily involved in aiding the Palestinians - spending $50 million on West Bank sewage treatment plants.

Popular attitudes in Germany toward Israel are little different than elsewhere in Europe. The Economist recently described Germany as "a place built on consensus - in the workplace, in society and in politics."

It must exasperate Germans that Israelis and Palestinians have still not buried the hatchet. But they place the onus squarely on Israel because of the "occupation." It does not occur to them that unremitting Palestinian rejectionism is the main obstacle to peace. That explains why President Horst Kohler was tone deaf to Israeli outrage over awarding the Federal Cross of Merit to the anti-Zionist campaigner Felicia Langer.

During Operation Cast Lead, polls showed that Germans found Israel "aggressive" (49 percent) and "ruthless" (59%). Seventy percent of young Germans rejected the idea of a special relationship with Israel because of the Shoah. In fact, 13% opposed the existence of a Jewish state altogether.

In this context, it is notable that Merkel feels quite differently. During a March 2007 visit to Israel she insisted that Germany did have a "historic responsibility" to the Jewish state. "It means for me, as a German chancellor, Israel's security is non-negotiable." She has a reputation for being "a strong backer of Israel" and "instinctively pro-American" in venues where these are not necessarily meant as compliments.

Netanyahu arrives in Berlin a month before parliamentary elections that may see Merkel's Christian Democratic Union in a position to jettison its "grand coalition" with Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's Social Democratic Party. Arguably, one reason German policy has been less demonstrably pro-Israel than Merkel's rhetoric is Steinmeier's influence.

Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democratic Party, a likely Merkel coalition partner, is in the running for the foreign minister job. When Westerwelle's homosexuality was exposed, he was "smeared" with the - unproven - allegation of being "excessively pro-Israel."

After the September 27 elections, Israelis are hopeful that Merkel will find a way to bring her sentiments and her government's polices - especially on Iran - into greater harmony

What Obama can learn from LBJ

How to lose a war


Earlier this summer, The New York Times reported, Barack Obama gathered a group of historians for dinner at the White House. The president expressed concern that Afghanistan could hijack his presidency just as Vietnam overtook the stewardship of Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ pursued a grand domestic agenda - civil rights and the Great Society - yet failure in Vietnam defined his presidency.

Military analyst Harry G. Summers, who died several years ago, identified two reasons why the US abandoned the fight in Vietnam in his book On Strategy: 1. There was no society-wide commitment to victory. American leaders had not psychologically mobilized the home front behind the war, refusing to ask Congress for a declaration of war; 2. The US failed to go after North Vietnam for most of the war, focusing instead on its Viet Cong proxies.

These fundamental errors are being repeated in the struggle against Islamist extremism.

People in Europe and America do not grasp why their troops are fighting in Afghanistan. On Iran, Western leaders have not only avoided a head-on confrontation with the mullahs, but are even seeking to appease their Hizbullah and Hamas proxies.

In fairness, Obama has tried to explain that Afghanistan is not a war of choice, but of necessity. "Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaida would plot to kill more Americans."

In fact, the situation in Afghanistan is muddled. The surviving Arab terrorists responsible for 9/11 - including Ayman Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden - have found refuge inside Pakistan. The Taliban are actually a loose confederation of religious fanatics (whose leader, Mullah Omar, also survives), Pashtun xenophobes, drug lords and tribal chiefs. The war is being waged on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and Pakistan has its own Taliban. In this context, Afghan election results - due today - are unlikely to herald a new dawn.

The war is not going well. So America has revised its strategy. The focus is not on killing the enemy, but on avoiding civilian casualties while creating conditions necessary for society-building. Unfortunately, there are insufficient troops on the ground to accomplish this goal. Most of the country is too unsafe for aid agency personnel to operate.

Washington has invested $30 billion in Afghanistan since 9/11 and now has 57,000 military personnel on the ground. Britain has committed to 9,000. In theory, there are 42 nations in the anti-Taliban coalition, but whereas the US has suffered 796 combat deaths and Britain 206, the combined loses of Germany, France and Spain amount to 87. No wonder support for the war in Britain is stagnating at 46 percent, while fully 65% of Americans expect the US will eventually have to withdraw without achieving its goals.

BRITAIN'S unconscionable release on humanitarian grounds of terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the December 21, 1988, Lockerbie bombing, could pave the way for billions of dollars in oil contracts between Tripoli and London. But what message does the Brown government's decision to play footsie with Muammar Gaddafi - while hiding behind the Scottish justice secretary - send to Britons already feeling cynical about staying the course in Afghanistan?

This sordid episode, moreover, does nothing to illuminate who really blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky.

In 2000, a man named Ahmad Behbahani, claiming to be a defecting Iranian intelligence operative, told CBS's 60 Minutes that Iran was behind Lockerbie; and that the motive for the attack was retaliation for the accidental downing in July 1988 of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers. Behbahani spoke of an operation involving the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and a group of Libyans trained and funded by Iran.

If patience is running thin on Afghanistan, and there is no stomach to stop Iran, the reasons are obvious. From Lockerbie to Afghanistan, Western decision-makers have compartmentalized Islamist violence - rather than defined it as a strategic menace to the Western values of tolerance and liberty.

The lesson of Vietnam is that wars become unwinnable when leaders fail to identify their true enemies, leaving their societies unmobilized, confused and lacking in motivation.