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Olmert’s anniversary
Here is Ehud Olmert speaking in June 2005 about the then projected Gaza pull-out.
We will lead it [the disengagement] because it’s good for us. And we will lead it because it may do good to the Palestinians. And we believe that if it will be good for us and will be good for the Palestinians, then it will be good. It will bring more security, greater safety, much more prosperity, and a lot of joy for all the people that live in the Middle East. Everything depends on the success of this disengagement. [LA notes: These words make Olmert’s three years of non-response to Hamas’s attacks from Gaza understandable. Since “everything depends on the success of this disengagement,” the disengagement cannot be allowed to fail. If Israel had re-entered Gaza at any time after Fall 2005 to stop Hamas rockets, that would have been an acknowledgement that the disengagement had failed. This is what liberals do. They base the success of their country on the good will of their country’s enemy. So if the enemy does not show good will, that fact must be covered up.]Olmert when he spoke those words was deputy prime minister under Ariel Sharon. He assumed the powers of the prime ministership as a result of Sharon’s stroke on January 4, 2006, three years ago today, and is still exercising the power of prime minister at this moment, leading the military campaign against Hamas to which Sharon and Olmert yielded Gaza in Fall 2005 and which Olmert allowed to bombard Israel without reprisals for the next three years. And Israel has a parliamentary system. The normal course of events under a parliamentary system is that when a government’s policies spectacularly fail, it loses its support in the parliament and leaves office. Under a parliamentary system, you do not expect to see the schmegegy who brought on a disaster remain in office to fix the disaster. And that’s not to mention the 2006 war with Hezbollah. Would anyone have dreamed that after Olmert’s incompetent and irresponsible leadership of that war in summer 2006, he would still be prime minister in January 2009, leading yet another war, with both wars the result of his own policy of unilateral appeasement and withdrawal? For comparison, Ehud Barak became prime minister in July 1999, and, after offering Arafat the sun, the moon, and the stars at Camp David in July 2000, which Arafat rejected and then launched the terror Intifada in October 2000, was voted out of office in March 2001, after a term of one year and eight months. That’s the way a parliamentary system is supposed to work. But now Israel is so far gone that the pathetic Olmert remains prime minister, and, though he will be leaving office after the election five weeks from now, the reason he is departing is not that he lost the support of parliament due to his failed policies, but that he resigned as a result of corruption charges. Not only that, but Israel’s “vibrant democracy” is now so creaky that though Olmert announced in July 2008 that he would resign in September 2008 after Kadima party leadership elections, and though he did resign in September 2008 after Tzipi Livni was elected party leader, he still remains interim prime minister today and will remain so until after the February 10 national election. He thus will have continued in office for seven months after he announced his resignation! And six months after he announced his resignation, he is leading a war! In a parliamentary system. Since the Israelis have in effect shielded their prime minister from the political accountability that characterizes a parliamentary system, why not go all the way and adopt a presidential system with an executive who has a set term in office independent of the make-up of the parliament? As it is now, the Israelis have the worst of both worlds: the instability of a multi-party parliament, and the rigidity of a presidency.
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