In colloquial Israeli Hebrew, when someone discovers something that everybody else already knows, we say: “Good morning, Elijahu!”
Why Elijahu? I don’t know. Now one could say: “Good morning, Ehud!” That’s what I said to myself when I read the sensational interview that Ehud Olmert gave this week, on the eve of the Jewish New Year, to the newspaper “Yediot Aharonot”. At the end of his political career, he said some astounding things. Here is what he said:
• “We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the essence of which is that we shall actually withdraw from almost all the territories, if not from all the territories. We shall keep in our hands a percentage of these territories, but we shall be compelled to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.”
• “... including Jerusalem. With special solutions, that I can visualize, for the Temple Mount and the historical holy places ... Anyone who wants to keep all the territory of the city will have to put 270 thousand Arabs behind fences within sovereign Israel. ”
• “I was the first who wanted to impose Israeli sovereignty on all the city. I admit ... I was not ready to look into all the depths of reality.”
• “Concerning Syria, what we need first of all is a decision. I wonder if there is one single serious person in Israel who believes it is possible to make peace with Syria without giving up the Golan Heights in the end.”
• “The aim is to try and fix for the first time a precise border between us and the Palestinians, a border that all the world (will recognize).”
• “ We can perhaps take a historic step in our relations with the Palestinians, and a historic step in our relations with the Syrians. In both cases the decision we must make is the decision we have refused to face with open eyes for 40 years.”
• “Iran is a very great power ... The assumption that America and Russia and China and Britain and Germany do not know how to handle the Iranians, and we Israelis know and we shall do so, is an example of the loss of all sense of proportion.”
My first reaction, as I said, was: Good morning, Ehud. Olmert, who fought all his life against our views, is apparently adopting them now. But it should not be forgotten that in the period in which these ideas were crystallizing in Olmert’s mind, he was allowing the settlements to expand, especially in East Jerusalem. That gives rise to an unavoidable question: Does he really mean what he says? Isn’t he cheating, as is his wont? Isn’t this some sort of manipulation, as usual? This time I tend to believe him. One can say: The words sound truthful. Not only the words themselves are important, but also the music. The whole thing sounds like the political testament of a person who is resigned to the end of his political career. It has a philosophical ring — the confession of a person who has spent two and a half years in the highest decision-making office in the land, has absorbed the lessons and drawn conclusions.
One can ask: Why do such people reach their conclusions only on finishing their term of office, when they can no longer do much about the wise things they are proposing? The superficial answer lies in the character of political life. A prime minister rushes from problem to problem, from crisis to crisis. He has neither the time nor the detachment to draw conclusions. The two and a half years of Olmert’s term were full of crises, from the Second Lebanon War, for which he was responsible, to the corruption investigations which dogged him throughout. Only now has he got the time, and perhaps the philosophical composure, to draw conclusions.
That is the importance of this interview. One can, of course, point out the huge gaps in this summary. There is no criticism of Zionist policy over five generations. There is no empathy with the feelings, the aspirations and the traumas of the Palestinian people. There is no mention of the refugee problem. There is no admission of guilt for the disastrous enlargement of the settlements. And the list is long.
The primitive basis of his world view has not changed. That is made clear by the following amazing statement: “Every grain of the area from the Jordan to the sea that we will give up will burn our hearts ... When we dig in these areas, what do we find? Speeches by Arafat’s grandfather, or Arafat’s great great great grandfather? We find there the historical memories of the people of Israel!”
That is utter nonsense. All the same, it is an unequivocal and final divorce from “All of Eretz Israel” from a person who grew up in a home over which hovered the Irgun emblem: The map of Eretz Israel on both sides of the Jordan.
This time, his adherence to the principle of “Two States for Two Peoples” appears much more genuine, not lip service or sleight of hand. His demand for “fixing the final borders of the State of Israel” represents a revolution in Zionist thought.
Olmert has already said in the past that the State of Israel is “finished” if it does not agree to partition, because of the “demographic danger”. This time he does not invoke that demon. Now he speaks as an Israeli who is thinking about the future of Israel as a progressive, constructive, peaceful state. All this is put forward not as a vision for the remote future, but as a plan for the present. He demands that a decision be taken now. It almost sounds like: Let me continue for another few months, and I shall do it. The unstated assumption is that the Palestinians are ready for this historic turning point. And he has fixed an Israeli position from which there can be no going back in any future negotiations. This is the testament of the prime minister, and it is obviously intended for the next prime minister.
We don’t know whether Tzipi Livni is ready to implement such a plan, or what she thinks about this testament. True, she has lately voiced rather similar ideas, but she is now entering the cauldron of the prime minister’s office. One cannot know what she will do.
I wish her one thing above all: That at the end of her days as prime minister she will not have to sit down and give an interview, in which she, too, will apologize for missing the historic opportunity for making peace.
