Olmert’s in trouble with the law, again. So what?

If you ask any Israeli whether they think their Prime Minister is a crook, they will nod in agreement. In fact, some may even boast that ‘he is pretty good at it.’ Having weathered four police investigations into possible corruption, cronyism, bribery, and a series of other white collar offenses, and survived a long, albeit erratic probe into the Second Lebanon War, Ehud Olmert also developed a reputation for being a political Houdini. Indeed, after two years in power, since his 2006 election victory, it seemed that he had managed to beat the odds. And then, WHAM! Headlines Friday read that he had been urgently summoned by police for what appeared to be yet another probe into alleged bribery charges.

No one really knows what is going on. Actually, that is not exactly true: police and Justice officials know, as does Olmert – but there is a gag order, which is part and parcel of a rather silly, anachronistic legal philosophy that seems to pervade the Israeli legal system. Israel being a small country, it is only a matter of time before its unruly media will crack and leak details of the case – without attribution, off course. (See, the piece on the Fourth Estate in Israel). The common practice of secret sources means that the Israeli public will be bombarded with leaks from the police, prosecution, various politicians and the Prime Minister and his cronies for at least a couple of weeks before the gag order is lifted, at which point we will all have made up our minds about the case, rather than be given a serious opportunity to form an opinion based on a more or less objective method. Good thing there is no 'jury of your peers' system in Israel. It would be hard to find anyone who has not formed an opinion on your case, not to mention anyone admitting to be your peer.

What we think we know is that a wealthy foreign Jewish businessman allegedly paid Olmert large sums before he was Prime Minister – possibly when he served as Vice Premier and Minister of Industry and Trade in the government of Ariel Sharon, and maybe even earlier, when he was Jerusalem Mayor. The rush for an interview stemmed from two main reasons: it turns out that the businessman had been interviewed by police while on a visit to Israel recently, and probably cooperated with the investigators; and the investigators feared that as soon as Olmert and others involved in the case learned of this, an effort to scuttle the probe would be under way, first and foremost by coordinating their versions of the story.

Now the police say they have solid evidence against Olmert. If nothing stuck to the man until now, they seem to be confident that they have something that will. Reactions are mixed: the Israeli public is fed up but traditionally fickle; politicians are cautious but getting ready to pounce; the press is sharpening its pen knives; and Olmert is hoping the next 72 hours pass quickly. He was hoping to bask in the glory of the next week’s 60th Independence Day celebrations, with a line of foreign dignitaries arriving to pay tribute to Israel’s success story. Instead, everyone is on edge.

Pundits have already began writing about a ‘critical mass’ (as if Olmert was some nuclear experiment) of pressure that the Prime Minister will not be able to bear this time. One scenario has the details of the story leaking and the politicians and the press pounding on Olmert for the fifth time in less than two years. Everyone seems to be betting that no one in Israel can be that lucky - to survive five police investigations. They say that Labor Chairman and coalition partner, Ehud Barak will falter and threaten to quit the coalition unless Olmert steps down. That can be risky because infighting in Olmert’s Kadima party may result in a coalition implosion and new elections sooner than next year. No one in the coalition wants elections they know they cannot win. Barak already faces stern opposition in his own party. Only last week it was leaked out that there was more than shouting and shoving at a closed party meeting. Benjamin Netanyahu is lurking in the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity only he can possibly miss. And the Israeli public: with the price of rice rising, they just want to be left alone. Indeed, during the past year or so, the Israeli public appears to be a little tired of all the excitement – they have gotten used to the drone of low intensity warfare in the Gaza Strip, stable prices, low unemployment, even a government that is led by a crook, but whom they recognize to be their own. They don't want any surprises.

So what now? If this investigation gets serious – and the police and prosecution have something to hold onto, it would not be at all surprising if we saw progress in one of the following arenas:

a. a deal with Hamas for the release of the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit. It is almost a done deal anyway: both sides know the price: about 1,300 to 1, give or take a few hundred. Hamas will get its prisoners released and Olmert will be a hero with Shalit coming home. Added to that, some sort of cease-fire will be signed and a new deal on how the crossings into the Gaza Strip would be run, will be ironed out.

b. direct talks with the Syrians, possibly with the tacit blessing of G.W. Bush, who is a big fan of Olmert and is on his way to the Holy Land next week. Bush is on his way out anyway, so Olmert, stuck between a rock (police probe) and a hard place (the waning Bush era) may decide the latter is worth annoying if it means popularity at home.

c. some sort of major military operation. This is not likely at this stage unless Hamas (or a smaller Gaza based militia) or Hezbollah do something particularly silly, and give Olmert and Barak an opportunity to take up an option they both saved for a particularly rainy day – in Israeli politics.

If they had bookies in Israel at every street corner, as they do in ‘civilized’ places like Britain or Cyprus, it is a fair chance that we would know the odds on Olmert’s political future by tomorrow. Those guys are not known for making many mistakes. But Olmert has proven to be a difficult politician to write off, and it seems like we have been down this path already – remember Sharon, the investigations against him, and the Gaza evacuation? Maybe one of Olmert's closest advisers, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, will be able to cook up another coup on the Arab-Israeli front. Anything to keep Bibi Netanyahu and Udi Barak at bay.

Michalis Firillas

4 May, 2008

Understanding the Holocaust

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel.

I did not always understand the enormity of the crime. It has been a gradual understanding, over the three decades of connection with the Jewish people, paralleling my development from childhood to adulthood. The things a child sees are different from what an adult chooses to notice – they are less political.

I had heard of the Holocaust for the first time when I was seven. At that time I heard adults talking of a very curious, terrifying phenomenon: soap made of humans. I was too scared to ask for details, but I heard the word Jews, and Hitler was mentioned too, both alien words to me.

But I still had not made the connection between Jews and the Holocaust. I had heard the word used to describe terrible results of battle, of scorched corpses of national heroes. For a young Greek child the word was one of horror, of absolute catastrophe and brilliant, destructive fires. Then in early 1978 I read in a magazine of an attack on a bus in which many Jews were killed in a huge blaze. It was described in the article as a ‘holocaust.’ I was beginning to put together a picture of Jews as victims of fire.

Our first home in Israel was in the northern town of Nahariya. On the road to town stood a large building, a museum, where I was told ‘human soap’ was housed. For years, every time I passed by that building, I tried not to think about it. And when they talked about the Holocaust in school, I tried not to make the connection to that building. Instead I tried to focus on the name of the kibbutz where the museum was kept – and we were encouraged to think of its meaning: Lohamei HaGetaot (Ghetto Fighters). Somehow it made the horrors I imagined – because I still did not really know – seem acceptable. I rationalized it had been a battle, a war, full of glory and the death of heroes.

Over the years the narrative of heroism, victimhood, suffering and liberation, were not readily distinguishable to me. The order and proximity in which three days of commemoration fall, create a sense of historical order: Holocaust memorial is followed a week later by the memorial for the fallen soldiers of Israel, and immediately after by Independence Day celebrations. It is hard to miss the progression: we were persecuted for being Jews; we shed much blood to gain our independence; now we have a Jewish state. At a much later date, I also came to see an ominous warning in the progression: our lesson is that we will never again allow another Holocaust on our people – be warned.

The real change for me, when I began to put it all together - the horror, the enormity, the narratives, the inhumanity and the perseverance - happened when I went to the neighborhood store one day. The owner, a nice little old man who looked a bit like Yoda - Mr. Katz was his name - normally had long sleeved shirts on. One summer day even he succumbed to the heat wave. A barely discernible smudge on his arm, somewhere in the wrinkled old skin, stood out as he reached out to give me change. Mesmerized I stared and realized it was a number.

To me, the number came to symbolize the uniqueness of the Holocaust. It was no longer just genocide; it was something else, something for which I am still short of words. In retrospect I think that the number on the arm of Mr. Katz shocked me because it made him definitively unheroic. It stripped him of his identity, of his individualism as a human being. It encapsulated everything that organized extermination was about. The sort of killing that targets people without pathos, without feeling and afterthought: a mechanical, calculated massacre, with the kind of distance between victim and perpetrator that makes it seem almost banal.

Over the years I have had much criticism for the State of Israel. But, as time passed and I came to understand the Holocaust better, the more I realized that there are many out there who still do not fathom its horror, its uniqueness and its significance. This only strengthened my conviction in the need for a Jewish State. Indeed, I was not always a Zionist. But vitriol, hatred and ignorance of the sort uttered regularly by the likes of Iran’s President, Hezbollah’s leader and Hamas, have made me one. Their raw anti-Semitism, and its echoes around the world have led me to draw a red line: I can no longer imagine continued Jewish existence without the State of Israel.

I will continue criticizing Israel where I think it deserves it. And I will continue challenging the victorious, linear narratives of Jewish fanatics. The Holocaust does not make Jews or Israel infallible. Nor did the Holocaust alone make Israel – that is post-colonial gibberish of hateful extremists. But so long as there are those out there dreaming of another Holocaust, I know whose side I am on.
Michalis Firillas
30 April, 2008

Frustration in the Middle East (part one): Israel

To say that the Middle East is a frustrating place would be an understatement. But last week, we may have witnessed a new low in the pathetic way the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict are being managed, which signaled that perhaps neither side really wants the conflict to end. Either everyone seems to think that time is on their side or they are too busy worrying about staying in power to do anything to change the situation.

It all began with a visit to the region by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, which stirred up so much angst in Israel’s leadership that one would think that the Nobel Peace Laureate was what the security services in Israel euphemistically refer to as a ‘ticking bomb’ – an imminent terrorist attack. Not only was Carter shunned by anyone in Israel's political leadership that counts – first and foremost Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – but he was also ridiculed, insulted and treated in a way that should embarrass every Israeli. Carter’s latest crime against Israel: he wants to talk to Hamas.

It is no secret that many Israelis and friends of Israel abroad consider Carter to be, at best, antagonistic to Israel; some would even go as far as to call him anti-Semitic. Most think he is a do-gooder Israel does not need; a straight shooter who shoots mostly at Israel; a fanatic for peace and dialogue that is willing even to talk to Satan himself, if he thought it would bring peace. His book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, sealed Carter’s fate in the minds of many Israelis and supporters abroad. Anytime you put the words ‘Palestine’ and ‘Apartheid’ within several miles of each other, Israel’s air defenses go on high alert looking for Carter, slicing through the ether in his cape of peace.

Whether Carter is a crackpot or not, he deserves the respect a former U.S. President who has done a great deal to bring peace to the Middle East, warrants. This means that Olmert, whose behavior toward Carter was unbecoming a Prime Minister, should have received him, nodded politely, and if he wished, forget what he had been told as soon as his octogenarian visitor stepped out. Carter is the perfect interlocutor with organizations like Hamas, and regimes like that of Iran. He is a former U.S. President, which means he has both no official role, but nonetheless his former status and Secret Service detail means he is no lightweight. In other words, he serves everyone’s purpose, without strings attached. Which makes the arguments of some of Olmert’s aides, who argued that meeting with Carter would ‘legitimize’ the idea of talks with Hamas, ludicrous.

Every single day Israeli generals, former generals, generals who want to be politicians, and politicians who want to be generals, get on the air and remind us that the only solution to the situation in the Gaza Strip is a ‘deep,’ ‘thorough,’ ‘crushing’ blow against Hamas. This would, of course, require a massive ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, which every one knows is something the Israeli leadership will agree to do only if domestic pressure becomes impossible to bear (i.e. the kind of pressure that threatens the prime minister’s hold on his post). The irony of this is that those same advocates of the kind of ‘offensive’ that persons like Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz called for on Israel Radio this morning, know that not only will the cost in Israeli lives be terrible, but that it will return Israel to the same Gaza Strip it left in 2005 – in other words, to reoccupying at least 1.5 million Palestinian civilians and assuming direct responsibility for their welfare.

It is an unfortunate fact that the current Israeli government, and probably subsequent governments, will not be able to offer a solution to the Gaza Strip conundrum. This is so for two reasons: Hamas is perceived by Israel to be both a regional and a domestic problem; and Israel is unwilling to achieve real progress with the Palestinian Authority, for domestic reasons, but also because it recognizes that without Hamas there can be no real two state solution.

If it is impossible to move forward and offer a practical solution to the Gaza Strip, either because Israel and the current U.S. administration are unwilling to talk with Hamas (in great part with the blessing of PA’s Mahmoud Abbas), or because Israel is unwilling to reoccupy the territory, then it is high time to listen to those who have called for a long-term cease-fire with Hamas. This would entail a prisoner exchange and a series of other agreements that would regulate and supervise the use of the crossing points on the borders of the Gaza Strip with Egypt and with Israel. Possibly it would also require the deployment of an international force, although Israel is reluctant. In any case, the cease fire would serve to buy time for genuine progress in Israel-PA and PA-Hamas talks. Hopefully this will also allow sufficient time to bolster PA security, economic and political organs that would allow a properly working state mechanism to take root.

In the mean time, it is worthwhile to comprehend that people like Jimmy Carter are not the problem. Track II talks have been around for a while and they have been important in some breakthroughs in the conflict in the Middle East (Oslo comes to mind), but have also contributed to open dialogue and encouraged the development of civil society in the region. Whether or not Carter’s drive and conviction annoys many friends of Israel, he is no anti-Semite, and he is also no fool. He knows precisely who the dictators he so often meets with are (something commentators have recently slammed him on) and he is no pacifist. As for the bit about apartheid, here is a recent statement made by Ehud Olmert, in an interview to Haaretz the day after the Annapolis summit (Nov. 2007): "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished." Maybe apartheid is an overly loaded term – but if Olmert can see what is on the horizon, many others for whom Israel is dear can too.
Michalis Firillas
21 April, 2008

The Source of the Problem – the Fourth Estate and its role

It was a hard week. But now it is better. The lull is over, “senior IDF sources” informed us – much to their relief. Nearly 30 Qassam rockets are plain obvious proof of that. For Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, the killing of five militants in the West Bank is also considered proof that the lull is over. There is nothing harder than waiting for the enemy to make a move. It’s like in the black and white movies, when the veteran Foreign Legion officer keeps telling his inexperienced troops to ‘wait… wait… wait…’ only to let loose in a massive fusillade, felling the charging natives at close range.

But last week was troubling for another reason. For nearly eight days, even before the lull became apparent – we cannot say that it ‘went into effect’ since we are told that there was no agreement behind the break in the rocket attacks – the media reported that negotiations were taking place. These were ‘indirect’ negotiations between Israel and Hamas, with Egyptian officials playing the role of mediators, moderators and brokers, all at once. The media insisted that negotiations were taking place, but senior government officials in Israel, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, were steadfast in their own assurances that there was no such diplomatic effort.

It is not uncommon for the media to report something only for government to deny it the next day. However, it is uncommon that such tit for tat would go on for nearly a week. The consistency of the reports, claiming that negotiations were taking place, and the equally stubborn insistence from government that there was nothing happening, was striking. It is the kind of consistency that one is not used to in this part of the world, where the situation can change two-three, sometimes more times, in a single 24 hour period.

Whether negotiations were or were not taking place is not the point here. Clearly different sides use the term ‘negotiations’ differently: the Palestinian Authority, the government, the IDF, the Hamas, the Egyptians, the journalists and others, all had their own agendas for interpreting certain behavior as ‘negotiations.’ In fact, that special sign language that Israel believes it shares with Arabs over the years, Palestinians and others, a combination of force, restraint, gestures of good will, punishment, etc., is also a form of ‘negotiations’ in this part of the world.

The point here is about sources, the integrity of the media, and its role in society. If for an entire week media outfits insist something is happening, citing unnamed sources, while the government is denying it, we have a problem. If the denials last 24 hours or even 48 hours, that is borderline normal. Usually, the story will change due to the pressure on those denying it, more information will be released or uncovered. But if they hold out for six-seven days, they have chosen to challenge the media’s claims. They are not just hiding. They are challenging the professionalism and the integrity of the reporters, as well as their ability to interpret the situation in their beat. At this point the media have two options: they must either go on the attack, proving the government officials are not telling the truth, or they must recall their story and acknowledge that they were wrong. Neither happened in this case, and this reflects poorly on the media and on our society.

The root of the problem is with a culture in which sources are overly protected. This creates a cycle of feeding/leaking information, a chafing of what is the most potent tool in a journalist’s kit – skepticism, and a failure to carry out to its maximum effect the role of the Fourth Estate in society. Obviously there are ethical and security restrictions. The famed Watergate scandal source, Deep Throat, remained anonymous for decades. There are censorship issues, particularly in security related stories, as well as gag orders protecting the identities of suspects. Neither are consistently applied and leaks with attached agendas are rampant.

But there is also a point in which either the sources need to be tested by their willingness to ‘come out’ or they need to be dropped. Cultivating sources is fundamental in journalism and competition can be fierce. But what is also basic is that attribution of sources is the norm, and protecting them is secondary and requires serious evaluation by the reporter and the editor. More often than not, the same story appearing in the Israeli press, quoting “sources” or “highly placed sources,” also appears in the international news agencies, except that in those stories the source is named, often because the information was provided at a public press conference. If the media in Israel is going to fulfill its duty with professionalism and unblemished integrity, it must begin to refer to its sources by name, at the risk of losing them. This will make this country more transparent and this society less corrupt.
Michalis Firillas
March 14, 2008