Look Who's Talking

SOMETIMES, SOMETHING is said about you, and you are not quite sure whether totake it as a compliment or an insult.

Two prominent journalists, whom I respect very much, mentioned me in connectionwith the Prime Minister. Akiva Eldar of Haaretz asked last month about EhudOlmert: "How to treat a son of the Fighting Family (a nickname of the Irgun,one of whose leaders was Olmert's father) who sounds like Uri Avnery?" Andthis week Gideon Levy wrote in the same newspaper that Olmert "speaks likeUri Avnery, even if 40 years later."

They refer, I assume, to the public demand I addressed 40 years ago to the thenPrime Minister to enable the Palestinians to establish a Palestinian State inthe West Bank and the Gaza Strip, both of which had just been occupied byIsraeli troops.

I was then alone among the 120 Members of the Knesset, and my weekly newsmagazine, Haolam Hazeh, was alone among the media in publishing the plan.

Now Olmert says that the State of Israel will be lost if a Palestinian state isnot set up in the framework of the Two-State Solution.

SHOULD I feel satisfaction? If the Prime Minister of Israel accepts the thingsyou were saying 40 years (and also 60 years) ago, what could be better?

After all, when you propose a political plan, you want it to be realized. Theonly person who can implement it in practice is the prime minister. When theprime minister expropriates your plan, you should be happy and hop around,singing: "Told you so!"

In a book published in 1970 by the official publishing house of the PLO inBeirut, the Two-State Solution was called "the Avnery Plan". Theauthor, Kamil Mansur, condemned it in no uncertain terms. But only three yearslater, at the end of 1973, Yasser Arafat adopted it. Now it is supported both bythe leader of the PLO and the Prime Minister of Israel. Hallelujah.

Of course, Olmert does not make these statements because my friends and I haveconvinced him. I have known him for 40 years, since his first steps in thepublic arena, and for most of that time we have been enemies. At the beginninghe was the yeoman of Shmuel Tamir, who in 1967 coined the slogan "liberatedterritory will not be returned". Later, as mayor of Jerusalem, he builtsettlements all over the place and deliberately provoked bloody clashes, likethe infamous tunnel incident.

But if he now feels the need to support a plan that is the opposite ofeverything he has advocated all his life, this testifies to the popularity ofthe idea. Our direct part in this may have been limited, but our indirectcontribution was, perhaps, considerable. We have prepared public opinion. And inany case, the historic processes have developed the way we foresaw, and theyhave pushed the leadership of both sides in this direction.

This proves again that even if on the surface monstrous things are happening,underneath, in the depths of the national consciousness, rational and positivetrends are gaining ground. It is a long and painful process, but in the endthese ideas will prevail.

BUT DOUBT is gnawing. Perhaps Olmert's words are only illusion? Deception?Trickery?

Has Olmert really seen the light, like Saul on the road to Damascus, or is thisonly a political exercise?

Some people believe that the talk about the "core issues" and the"shelf-agreement before the end of 2008" are nothing but thesophisticated tactics of a shrewd politician who is in trouble. In two weekstime, the Winograd Commission will publish its final report on Lebanon War II,and Olmert may find himself in an impossible position. Demonstrators in thestreet will demand his dismissal. The Labor Party leader, Ehud Barak, will facethe demand to resign, as he has promised, on the day the report is issued, andthus bring down the government.

In such a situation, a politician can do only one of two things: start a war orrun towards peace. Since the necessary conditions for a war seem not to bepresent at the moment, the only option left is a peace process. So Olmertbecomes a man of peace, speaks the language of peace and makes peace moves.

Skeptics ask: assuming that this will help Olmert to survive the crisis andremain prime minister with a stable coalition - will he then continue to movetowards peace? Will he not use the first available pretext to put an end to it?Isn't this indicated by his present behavior - not honoring the commitment toremove settlement outposts, intensifying building activity in East Jerusalem andthe West Bank, continuing the blockade and the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip andrefusing the Hamas offer for a cease-fire?

In brief, one should not fall prey to hope. On the contrary, one should exposethe real face of the Prime Minister who is exploiting our plan as a means ofdeception.

BUT, EVEN if this analysis looks reasonable, doesn't it suffer fromover-simplification?

The most important political event of last week was the resignation of AvigdorLieberman from the government. His official reason was that he cannot remain ina government that is conducting negotiations about the "core issues" -borders, refugees, Jerusalem and settlements. This may be only a pretext.Lieberman performs convoluted political calculations that a reasonable personcannot follow. But fact is fact. Olmert's new admirers, including Meretz leaderYossi Beilin, assert that the resignation proves that Olmert is serious.

Lieberman is gone, but Shas remains - respond the skeptics. Lieberman's way ofthinking may be labyrinthine, but the considerations of Shas are quite plain tosee. Shas is now in the situation that every politician dreams about. AfterLieberman's secession, the government coalition has only 67 votes in the120-member Knesset. If the 11 members of Shas secede, too, then Olmert has nogovernment.

Shas is a rightist-nationalist party, and needs a pretext for staying at thegovernmental trough. They declare that they will leave the moment the governmentstarts talking with the Palestinians about Jerusalem. But in seriousnegotiations it will be impossible not to do so. The core issues are notseparate - a concession on one issue must be answered with a matching concessionon another issue. The continued presence of Shas in the government suggests asecret commitment by Olmert not to touch the core issues at all.

Olmert's assistants do their best to put the rightists at ease: there is nothingto worry about. All in all, Olmert intends only to reach a"shelf-agreement" within a year. "Shelf-agreement" is a newpolitical term that means a document which summarizes all the principles of apeace agreement. Its actual implementation will then be postponed until bothsides fulfill the basic demands: the "liquidation of the terrorinfrastructure" on one side and the "evacuation of settlementoutposts" on the other. "That will never happen," Olmert's peopletell the rightists with a wink.

Either way - when weighting the possibilities, one must also remember that thedeclarations of a prime minister have a life of their own, whatever theirintention. They cannot be returned to the mouth that uttered them. The words areengraved in the collective memory, they change the national consciousness. WhenOlmert says that the state of Israel is "lost" if a Palestinian stateis not established next to it, this is a meaningful milestone.

LIKE THE people on "reality" TV, Olmert's first priority is tosurvive.

This must be taken into account in trying to guess whether he is serious when hetalks our language, or if these are just empty words. Is this a "New Olmert",has Saul indeed turned into Paul, or is this only the old Olmert in afashionable new disguise? Is it possible that on top of all the tacticalconsiderations, Olmert really wants to imprint his name on history with a greatdeed?

In the meantime, the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip gets worse and worse.The number of Palestinians killed every day has doubled. The Chief of Staffboasts about it. The Palestinian organizations, on their part, have doubled thenumber of Qassam rockets launched at Israel, and this time Hamas, too, isofficially assuming responsibility. As usual, each side claims that it is onlyresponding to the acts of the other side.

Among the Palestinians killed was Hussam al-Zahar, the son of the former ForeignMinister of the Hamas government. The Shabak security service claims that thefather is now the most extreme Hamas leader. If true, this is significant. 16years ago, al-Zahar demonstrated together with Israeli peace activists againstthe expulsion of Islamic figures by Yitzhak Rabin. When the exiles returned, heorganized the big assembly in Gaza, in which I was invited to speak (in Hebrew)before hundreds of Sheiks, wearing the two-flag emblem - the flag of Israel andthe flag of Palestine.

If such a person has become the most extreme leader, this is undoubtedly thefruit of the occupation. It proves again - if proof is needed - that theoppression, which is supposed to destroy Hamas, achieves the exact opposite: itpushes the Palestinian organization into more and more extreme positions. Thisweek, after al-Zahar lost his second son (the oldest was already killed sometime ago) he became the most popular leader in the Arab world. Heads of stateshastened to call him and extend condolences.

Are these the actions of an Israeli prime minister who wants to achieve peacebecause he believes that Israel is lost without it?

BACK TO the beginning: should I be happy or furious when "Olmert soundslike Uri Avnery?"

I remember the words of Rudyard Kipling: "If you can bear to hear the truthyou've spoken / Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools…" Imitation issaid to be the sincerest form of flattery, but it will take implementation toremove the lingering doubt.