| April
17 , 2006
"The Trees Went Forth ...
"
Olmert the Fox
By URI AVNERY
Today,
Ehud Olmert has become the Prime minister of Israel.
No
longer just a "Deputy Prime Minister", but now a real
one. One hundred days after Ariel Sharon sank into a coma, the job
and the title were taken away from him, as the law demands.
Olmert
is now the acting prime minister of the transitional government,
and in a few weeks hence, with the establishment of the new coalition,
he will become the head of a regular government.
All
this is happening without any real debate about Olmert.
The
man, who has been a public figure all his life, is really unknown
to most citizens. For the public, it suffices that he is the "Heir
of Sharon".
Yet
it is difficult to imagine a bigger difference between two people
than that between Sharon and Olmert. It's the difference between
a lion and a fox, between the king of the animals and the most cunning
(according to the fables).
Sharon
is an extraordinary person, an adventurer, a leader of armies, a
man of war, the originator of grandiose designs (generally with
weak foundations), a creative, strong, dangerous and charismatic
leader. Olmert is a politician is a politician is a politician.THE
PERFECT description of a politician was written more than two thousand
years ago, about a person who lived (according to legend) almost
a thousand years before that: Abimelech king of Shechem (today's
Nablus).
As
described in the Book of Judges (Chapter 9), Abimelech was the son
of a great leader. After the death of his father, he killed his
70 brothers "upon one stone" and became dictator.
Only
Jotham, the youngest brother, escaped the massacre.
He
came and stood on the top of mount Gerizim, which overlooks the
city, and recited to the men of Shechem in beautiful Hebrew an immortal
fable, that starts with the words: "The trees went forth to
anoint a king over them…"
They
approached their fellow trees, one after another, and offered them
the crown. When they came to the olive tree, it refused the offer
with contempt: "Shall I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they
honor God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?" The
proud fig tree, too, declined: "Should I forsake my sweetness,
and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?"
And
so, each in its turn, the trees preferred to do useful things rather
than going into politics. Only the bramble, which has no fruit,
no fragrance and no shadow, agreed to rule, on one condition: "If
in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust
in my shadow - and if not, let fire come out of the bramble and
devour the cedars of Lebanon."
The
biblical story-teller meant that the ordinary politician is a useless
fellow, and everyone who has a creative talent should stay away
from this profession. That is now a widespread view in Israel and
the world at large. But that suggests a simple question: If so,
who will do the job? Because politics is a necessary profession
- somebody has to attain wide agreement for fulfilling tasks, enact
laws and administer society. And if the olive and the fig trees
do not deign to volunteer for the job, it is left to the bramble.
That's to say, one whose most outstanding trait is the hunger for
power. AS IS known from his biography, Olmert suffered in his childhood
from much deprivation. A group of old-time Revisionists (members
of the most right-wing Zionist movement, the antecedent of the Herut
party), built themselves a neighborhood on the edge of Binyamina,
south of Haifa, whose veteran inhabitants treated them with contempt.
This may be what instilled in the boy Ehud the urge to stand out,
to attain public recognition and also to get rich.
I
met him first in the 60s, when I was a Member of the Knesset. The
young Olmert was the apprentice and servant (literally) of another
Member: Shmuel Tamir.
One
could learn a lot from Tamir. He was a talented egomaniac, who believed
that providence had marked him from birth to be Prime Minister.
He had a gift for attracting people, turning them into his devoted
slaves, using them as much as possible and then throwing them away
like squeezed lemons. He had much personal charm and was a genius
in public relations. There was always a bunch of journalists ready
to serve him. Almost all of them later became his enemies. His political
life was a crazy zigzag between various parties, splits and unions,
dovish and hawkish positions, until he reached the post of Minister
of Justice and got no further.
On
the way he also succeeded in getting rich.
That
was the example that Olmert had before his eyes when he started
his political career. His path looks like a river that snakes its
way left and right, and sometimes back, but does not rest for a
moment in its quest to reach the sea - supreme power. It may have
taken decades, but now he has arrived.
Tamir, a former member of the Irgun, started his political career
in the Herut party, left it, joined it again, tried to unseat Menachem
Begin, failed, and was compelled to leave. So he set up a small
party called the "Free Center". Olmert, a Revisionist
from birth, believed that Tamir, who was much younger than Begin,
was more promising, and joined his unsuccessful rebellion. He found
himself a junior functionary in a small party.
Tamir
promoted the youngster. Too late did he understand that his pupil
was more talented than he had bargained for: he did unto Tamir what
Tamir had done unto Begin. He caused a split between Tamir and his
partner, the veteran right-wing politician Eliezer Shostak, left
the party and founded another one with Shostak. Then he overthrew
Shostak and took over the leadership of the splinter group himself.
The affair caused some smiles when Olmert (literally) ran away with
the party's rubber stamp in order to take it over.
In
1973, Ariel Sharon united the right-wing in a new bloc called Likud
("Unification"). Apart from the Herut and Liberal parties,
which were already united in a joint faction, he added two tiny
groups: Tamir's Free Center and the State List, a remnant of Ben-Gurion's
devotees. (When I asked him, at the time, what was the use of these
two, which had no votes to speak of, he told me: "It's important
to create the impression that the entire Right is uniting. So I
could not leave anyone out.")
In
the elections that took place on the last day of 1973, the Likud,
led by Menachem Begin, appeared as a united bloc. Sharon was No.
6 on the list, Olmert No. 36. Since then he worked tirelessly, with
innumerable ploys, to edge closer to the leadership. He rose to
No. 26 (1981), No. 24 (1984), No. 22 (1988), No. 13 (1991) and No.
10 (1995). Then he decided on a shortcut: he became the Likud candidate
for mayor of Jerusalem and defeated the old Teddy Kollek.
As
mayor, he worked on two fronts: oppressing the Arab population and
pampering the Orthodox. The annexed Arab quarters were systematically
neglected. He pushed Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu into opening
a tunnel near the Muslim shrines, causing riots that resulted in
dozens killed. He encouraged American Jewish right-wing millionaires
to build Jewish settlements in the middle of Arab neighborhoods,
and campaigned for turning the beautiful Abu-Ghneim hill into the
fortified Jewish settlement Har-Homa. In the end, he pushed for
the building of the Separation Wall that cuts up the Arab neighborhoods.
With
the Orthodox, on the other side, he maintained an alliance that
kept him in power, and in the end handed them the keys of the city.
The secular Jewish population escaped from the city in droves.
All
this did not help him. When he decided to enter the Knesset again,
the 3000 members of the willful Likud Central Committee bounced
him back almost to square one: No. 32 on the election list. But
Sharon, now leader of the party, decided that is was worthwhile
to acquire the loyalty of this frustrated, ambitious politician.
When he set up his government, he tried to hand him the powerful
Finance Ministry. This proved impossible, because Netanyahu, No.
2 on the list, could not be pushed away.
The
solution was to give Olmert a second-rank ministry, Industry and
Trade, coupled with a consolation prize: the prestigious but empty
title of "Deputy Prime Minister". The sole prerogative
of the holder of this title was to preside over cabinet meetings
when the Prime Minister was abroad. Sharon did not travel much.
And
then two things happened: Sharon, spurred on by Olmert, split the
Likud, and then sank into a coma. The "Deputy" became
quite naturally his temporary heir, and the temporary heir became
his permanent successor. After forty years of snaking around, the
river had reached the sea.HOW WILL Olmert develop as Prime Minister?
Will the fox turn into a lion, the mere-politician into a statesman?
The
first steps do not bode well. Though Olmert made no serious mistakes,
the election results were dismal: instead of the 45 seats promised
Sharon by the polls, he won only 29 at the ballot. Since then he
has been playing the arrogant leader, especially vis-à-vis
the Labor Party, his indispensable coalition partner. He is trying
to include in his cabinet the racist party of Avigdor Lieberman,
treats Mahmoud Abbas with open contempt, boycotts the elected Palestinian
leadership ("the "Hamas Government") and allows Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz free rein to shell and starve the Palestinians.
In
order to demonstrate his independence, he has given a new name ("Convergence")
to Sharon's old separation plan. He speaks about it in vague terms,
without maps and time-tables. It might serve the annexation of large
areas ("without Arabs"), or turn out to be a hallucinatory
plan that will never be implemented. Clearly, his wish for a wide
and comfortable coalition is more important to him than the realization
of a plan that demands a narrow, resolute and tightly focused cabinet.
It
is too early to foresee where he will go. History has known small
politicians who stepped out of the shadow of great leaders and surprised
the world. Such a one was Harry Truman, who succeeded Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and made his own mark as president. Another was Anwar
Sadat, the successor of the charismatic Gamal Abd-al-Nasser. But
it is also true that counter-examples are legion.
It
has been said that a politician thinks about the next elections,
a statesman about the next generation.
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