Israeli leadership’s slow implode continues

Israel’s national command authorities continue the sustained and serious process of implosion that was sparked by the many failures of strategy and intelligence (in both senses of the word) revealed during the 33-day war against Hizbullah. (See my Sept. 5 post on JWN on this topic, here. August 23, here and here.)
The latest Haaretz-Dialog opinion poll reveals that

Olmert’s approval rating this week plummeted to 22 percent, compared to 48 percent six weeks ago. Defense Minister Amir Peretz fared even worse, with only a 14 percent approval rating, down from 37 percent six weeks ago…
By comparison, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni enjoys a broad support base: She had a 51 percent approval rating, while only 33 percent think that her performance is inadequate. Still, even Livni lost 10 points compared to her approval rating six weeks ago.

The Kadima-led government was of course– like “Kadima” itself– formed almost solely on the basis of its promise to pursue a unilateral withdrawal of the IDF from some parts of the West Bank. (Oh, and let’s not forget the promise Olmert made in his campaign that he sought to make Israel a “fun” place to live. They haven’t done too well on that one, either… )
But the indecisive– indeed, from Olmert’s viewpoint, quite disastrous– war against Hizbullah showed once and for all, along with the continuation of some low-level anti-Israel rocketing from Gaza, that a completely un-negotiated withdrawal cannot assure Israelis of the security they crave, no matter how high the walls are with which they seek to separate themselves from their neighbors. To get security, you need peace agreements with neighbors. As between Israel and Egypt, or between Israel and Jordan. And to get a peace agreement you either need to be able to crush the enemy and ram a surrender down his throat, as Sharon tried but notably failed to do with Lebanon in 1982– Or, you need to negotiate.
Welcome to the world of the interdependence of nations.
So anyway, the fateful decision that Olmert made on July 12 to fight against the entire country and people of Lebanon backfired on him miserably. In late August he told the Israeli people that the promised partial withdrawal from the West Bank would now be “indefinitely postponed”. Since then Kadima and its government have had, really, no continuing raison d’etre. The country’s leadership has been dangerously adrift; and a whole cascade of scandals concerning sexual and monetary malfeasance has meanwhile been showering down on many of its top people, from President Moshe Katsav on down.
It is my understanding– perhaps faulty?– that in the Israeli system, as in the British system, the head of state plays mainly a ceremonial role, but can also play a crucial political role in two particular ways: (a) by choosing which party head to invite in and have first crack at forming a government– a role that is particuarly sensitive in a strongly coalition-based system such as Israel’s, less so in basically two-party Britain; and (b) by providing quiet and non-partisan counsel to the serving prime minister at sensitive times.
Evidently, President Moshe Katsav, who is fending off serious charges of sexual aggression, is not in a great position to play any of these roles. But of course, it is not just, Olmert, and Peretz who are in trouble. The IDF’s chief of staff Dan Halutz is also, at this exact same time, trying to deal with increasingly insistent calls for his resignation. Indeed, almost the entirety of the “centrist” portion of the country’s political elite is in an extremely deep funk.
So where is Israeli public opinion headed? Sadly, it seems that so far it’s headed toward the right. That same Haaretz report, which is by Yossi Verter, tells us that

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is still benefiting from his support for the government during the war, with a 58 percent approval rating, compared to 29 percent who disapprove.
Indeed, if elections were held now, Likud would receive 24 seats in the Knesset, while Kadima would only win 16 seats, a loss of 13 seats. Labor, which seemed to have hit bottom during the previous election, with 19 seats, would now win only 15.
Another major winner would be Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, which would capture 18 Knesset seats if elections were held now.
Survey participants were also asked to express their confidence in four leadership duos, each comprising a civilian and a military personality. The four were: Ehud Barak and Avraham Burg; Ami Ayalon and Avishay Braverman; Benjamin Netanyahu and Moshe Ya’alon; Tzipi Livni and Shaul Mofaz.
The results were clear: Netanyahu and the former chief of staff received 30 percent support, followed by Livni-Mofaz with 19 percent, Ayalon-Braverman with 15 percent and Barak-Burg with 10 percent.

And what about the Israeli left?
Amongst Jewish-Israeli leftists, the story has for the most part remained a sad, sad tale. They seem to be saying almost nothing. By Googling around for the well-known names and organizations, I did find this account of a conference call that Meretz head Yossi Beilin had on August 20 with people in the excellent, US-based Brit Tzedek v’Shalom organization. In it, the most that Beilin could do was call for a repeat, 15 years later, of the landmark, all-party Madrid Peace Conference, that had been convened by the first Bush administration on October 31, 1991.
According to the transcript, he said this:

My idea is that we should push for something like this so that Syria, Lebanon, Palestinians, Israelis, and of course America or the Quartet, will participate in such a conference, will launch bi-lateral talks between Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinians, and try to suggest that in a few months it could be possible to have peace treaties with our neighbors.
I must admit that right now it might seem quite detached from reality. The reality seems very gloomy when you think about Israel, when you think of these thirty days of nightmare in which it was almost a courageous step to go from Tel Aviv to Haifa. And people do think that this mighty army of ours could not overcome the small militia of Hezbollah in a short while. So the question right now is whether the embarrassment, the confusion, the gloomy feelings and the weakness of the leaders, might lead us, at the appropriate time, to go toward something which will attract the attention of the peoples in the region, of the peoples in the world, away from this sadness, or darkness, into a hope and into light. This is the question.

Indeed.
So we still need to go back and understand what happened to the Israeli peace movement during the war. Luckily, my dear friend (and former deputy speaker of the Knesset) Naomi Chazan had held a conference call with Brit Tzedek v’Shalom on August 6– that is, while the war was still underway. So it’s good to go back and see what she was saying then:

where is the peace movement in all of this? Frankly, the Israeli peace movement has been very seriously divided during the course of the war and is seriously divided today. Every Saturday night there have been demonstrations in Tel Aviv. I would say that 90 percent of the demonstrators the first few weeks were Arab Israelis, Palestinian Israelis. These were demonstrations that were organized by the radical peace movement in Israel and essentially populated by members of Hadash and Balad [far left Israeli political parties]. It was very difficult for Israeli Jews to participate in these demonstrations. I admit, I’ve been to every single one of them, and I did so because I felt from the word ‘go’ that military action would escalate and perhaps get out of control and I felt it might be possible to do some kind of public action to stop it. I should probably know better at my age, but nevertheless I think one has to voice these things publicly as well.
The demonstration that was held last night was different because at least significant portions of Meretz, which is also very heavily divided, joined last night’s demonstration and I spoke, Yael Dayan spoke as well. So there’s the beginning of a movement. This morning A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and David Grossman, Israel’s most noted literati, published a big ad in Haaretz saying that even though they justified the war they think it’s enough; they think its time for a ceasefire. So we’re beginning to get a more tactical approach from the moderate segments of the peace movement in Israel. But I would say that this war has split the peace ranks even more than the second intifada.
The one ray of light here is actually the women’s peace movements, which have been very consistent in opposing the war from the outset and have made their voices heard through organizations like Bat Shalom, and Women’s Coalition for a Just Peace, or through the newly formed coalition, Women Against War, or through the International Women’s Commission which actually brings together Palestinians and Israelis and internationals. So the consistency of the women’s peace movement here is notable.

(In this regard, check this out.)
Naomi is one of the sharpest analysts, as well as the most compassionate people, whom I know. The whole of her presentation there with BTV is worth reading.
Including this– expressed on August 6, remember…

I think the key victim of this war is unilateralism. Unilateralism for now on will be a non-starter, both because of the Israeli public mood but also because it is not a viable strategy for achieving lasting accord. But what we have learned from this war as well is that there is a clear benefit to withdrawal to an internationally recognized boundary. But that is not enough because in the case of Lebanon, where Israel withdrew to an internationally recognized boundary, and therefore enjoys a certain amount of support in the global arena, this was not accompanied by an agreement and without an agreed withdrawal to an internationally recognized boundary. Israel’s security, and I think the security of the entire Middle East will be in peril.
But moving from there, the question is, how can one take advantage of what is occurring now and avert disaster, to create the conditions so that this type of situation does not recur. And it seems to me that ironically, but also in a promising way, a ceasefire may open some serious opportunities here. The silver lining is that there are real possibilities for opening negotiations with the Palestinians if the Israeli government will have the courage to pursue these opportunities.
And more significantly, this may be the chance to begin to explore seriously the Arab League initiative, what’s known as the Saudi initiative, which talks about the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as part of a comprehensive agreement that will include Lebanon and Syria. So on the diplomatic front I am more optimistic if all efforts are made now to channel some of the lessons of what is taking place into constructive avenues. What is needed now though is a ceasefire agreement. Everyday that passes not only are more civilians being killed on both sides, but the mood is becoming so terrible that it’s making any thought of talking much more difficult. So there is an opportunity here and I don’t think one should lose sight of this opportunity.

There’s an amazing congruence there with what I was writing for the CSM that very day– it appeared in my August 10 column. And I regret to admit I hadn’t been in touch with Naomi at all during the war (or, indeed, for some months now.)
So there are a few teeny pinpricks of light from Jewish Israel: individuals of conscience and integrity like Chazan, Beilin, or Ury Avneri and the rest of the great, principled Gush Shalom crowd. Another potential point of light: the militarists and advocates of more toughly “strong-arm” policies really don’t have either a workable plan for resolving Israel’s problems or a record of unimpugned credibility within Israel or abroad. Hard, I think, for any western government professing a support for democratic principles to give unabashed support to a government in which, for example, Avigdor Leiberman might be Defense Minister (as is currently being discussed.)
As I’ve said on a number of occasions in the past six weeks, the present moment is a time of great uncertainty, great vulnerability, and also– potentially– great opportunity within the Israeli political system. If only the other powers in the world on whom Israel is still, despite all its disavowals, so very deeply dependent could get together and express their strong support for a robust, comprehensive, 242-based final peace agreement between Israel and all its neighbors, then now could be a very good time to push forward on winning such a peace.
But in the US, significant parts of the political elite don’t actually these days want to push forward toward a 242-based peace agreement. Why not? That is the issue that, I think, we peace activists inside the US and worldwide need to be pressing hard on.