I do not want to write about former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his newly published autobiography, but it seems that of all the horses in media mogul Arnon Mozes' stables, Olmert is the best cared for. Through Yedioth Ahronoth, his daily paper, Mozes coerces the media to repeatedly deal with a man who was effectively forced to announce his early resignation after little more than two years as prime minister. All told, Olmert's term as prime minister spanned three years (he stayed on for several months after resigning) between 2006 and 2009, but his memoirs stretch about 200 pages longer than former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's recently published biography (written by historian Tom Segev).
It takes some degree of skill to be a former prime minister. In a televised interview on Saturday, Olmert leveled a series of accusations in a manner that demonstrated very well why he was unfit to be prime minister. His most ridiculous accusation was that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his successor in the prime minister's office, masterminded a conspiracy to oust him with criminal investigations. He even accused Sheldon Adelson of founding the Israel Hayom newspaper exclusively to topple him. He believes that he was the target of a political assassination, comparable to the actual assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
How disconnected from reality can he be? But remember, this is Olmert. He clearly hasn't changed. He is right about one thing, though: There is an "evil that characterizes our public sector," as he describes in his book.
In any case, some good things happened because of him. Some have described him as the fastest idea man in the Middle East. Indeed, some of his decisions were good and he deserves credit for them, like the decision to go to war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. This decision was a reflex from the gut, made without much consideration and also without the realization that we were about to enter a war. That's what made it so powerful, earning Israel major deterrence points.
In the same war, the decision to launch a last-ditch operation during the final two days of the war and deploy tanks up to the Litani River, despite the heavy losses, was the right decision. Olmert deserves respect for it. This may be a minority opinion, but Olmert is also right that it was absolutely scandalous for former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon to accuse Olmert of launching that final mission to serve his own corrupt political interests. It was thanks to this final effort, for which Israel paid dearly, that Israel was ultimately offered a cease-fire that sounded more like submission and succeeded in somehow extricating itself from the war crisis.
During the war, while Hezbollah insisted on unconditional cessation of hostilities, Israel successfully conditioned a cease-fire agreement on clearing Hezbollah fighters south of the Litani River. Although Hezbollah has violated this cease-fire, it has largely resulted in more than a decade of relative calm along Israel's northern border.
In his book, Olmert accuses Netanyahu of planning and funding anti-government demonstrations by reservists and bereaved parents after the war. These demonstrations were not massive, and generally speaking, it is not possible to generate demonstrations only with money. Not yet a political player at the time, Education Minister Naftali Bennett is also accused by Olmert as a partner in orchestrating these demonstrations. Back then, Bennett was merely a reservist officer who had returned home from the war, in pain and fearful for the future of the state.
The truth is that Olmert did not really register what was going on in the streets. He misread what the public felt. Some two or three weeks into the war, I saw it for myself when he debriefed journalists. Safe inside his office bubble, he was certain that victory had been achieved. That the accomplishment was great. Outside, however, the general sense was that we had been trampled, and as the days passed this feeling turned into despair.
An even bigger target of mudslinging in Olmert's book is Ehud Barak, who served as defense minister under Olmert for part of his term. Barak is described in the book as "disloyal" and as having "often acted with repugnant trickery."
Apparently journalist Ayala Hasson's words resonated with Olmert, because he repeats her description of Barak as a "liar, trickster and crooked."
Indeed, the damage that Barak is causing the State of Israel with his articles in the American press is nearly unprecedented, and yet, here is an Israeli conundrum: Barak is currently the most influential Israeli personality outside the political system, and Olmert himself, with the help of Yedioth Ahronoth, has assumed the role of the county's highest moral adjudicator.
From the book excerpts Olmert released, a figure of a man with superficial self-confidence emerges, who lacks the ability that Netanyahu, for example, has to understand the stirrings of the public at any given moment, to be connected. Instead, Olmert is our man, he's our bro. But he is also impulsive and not always in control.
This is best understood by anecdote: Olmert's military secretary, Maj. Gen. (res.) Gadi Shamni, once gave him a note in the middle of a meeting with the parents of captured soldier Gilad Schalit. This was weeks after Schalit had been snatched by Hamas and taken into captivity in Gaza. The note informed Olmert of a Hezbollah ambush, in which "two soldiers were killed and possibly kidnapped." That was July 12, 2006, the day Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were abducted and killed. "And then I did something unexpected," Olmert wrote. "I gave the note to [Gilad Schalit's father] Noam Schalit." What is that??
