Is Bush trying to save Olmert?
Zionist.com blogs a Jerusalem Post story that has the Labor party upset with President Bush because it views his proposed 'conference' as being designed to save Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert from the inevitable demise of his government. The thinking is that Labor leader Ehud Barak would have a difficult time bolting Olmert's government if there is a 'diplomatic horizon.'I think they're reading a whole lot into this that just isn't there. Although American interference in Israeli domestic politics would not be unusual (recall that Bush's father openly supported Yitzchak Rabin over Yitzchak Shamir in 1992, and that Bill Clinton sent his political advisers to run Ehud Barak's campaign aginst Bibi Netanyahu in 1999), I don't believe that President Bush is personally enamored with Olmert, especially after his failure in last summer's war, and I believe that there are a lot of more subtle ways for Bush to push Israel into making concessions to the 'Palestinians.' For example:Despite mounting Israeli opposition to any further surrender of land, Olmert is the one viable national leader still dedicated to conducting significant withdrawals, which, of course, are essential to Bush’s desire to play midwife to “Palestine.”
If elections are held in the coming months and Netanyahu becomes prime minister, the White House can forget about the uprooting of any more Jewish settlements any time soon, and certainly not before the end of Bush’s tenure as president.
Even if Netanyahu loses the election to Ehud Barak, the Labor Party leader would definitely remember that he was crushed in the 2001 prime ministerial election precisely because he had offered so much to Yasser Arafat, an offer that most Israelis see as having encouraged the Palestinians to launch their “intifada.”
And so, Bush needs Olmert to get the Jews out of Judea and Samaria if he is to have any chance of fulfilling his self-appointed task of bringing peace to the Holy Land.
1. If
2. I don't believe that Barak is going to bring down Olmert's government, because I don't think the Labor party is ready to face another election, which it fears Netanyahu would win. That will keep Olmert in power more than any 'peace conference' (unless the final Winograd report, which may now be delayed until sometime in 2008, wakes up the masses).
3. The assertion that Barak "would definitely remember that he was crushed in the 2001 prime ministerial election precisely because he had offered so much to Yasser Arafat, an offer that most Israelis see as having encouraged the Palestinians to launch their intifada," and therefore not make any land concessions to the 'Palestinians' has no basis in fact. If Barak cannot see why his flight from Lebanon led to last summer's disaster (note that he has never addressed the issue), why should he see that his offer to Arafat led to the 'intifada'? If he was still willing to go to Taba after being rejected at Camp David, why wouldn't he be willing to participate in an international conference sponsored by the President of the United States? Especially since unlike 2001, you can't have elections for Prime Minister without throwing out the Knesset these days.
4. In fact, it wasn't Barak's offer to Arafat that led to his defeat in 2001 (at the time a significant percentage of Israelis thought we should make Arafat our best offer and many others figured that Barak could not be so stupid and was laying a trap) - it was the ineffective manner in which he 'fought' the intifada - or rather did not fight the intifada - that led to his defeat.
While Bush proposing the conference to save Olmert from resigning is an interesting theory, it doesn't hold up against the facts.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:06 AM
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