Instead of a shelf agreement, what Olmert is leaving is an interview in 'Yediot.'
By HERB KEINONOlmert loves life 224.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Anyone who thought Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would quietly leave office with his tail between his legs, does not know Olmert.
True, allegations of corruption forced Olmert to leave the office he battled 35 years to obtain. True, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is struggling to cobble together a coalition government in the 42 days allotted her. True, Olmert is currently in a largely caretaker role. But none of this prevented him from planning a trip next week to Russia, or giving a Rosh Hashana interview to Yediot Aharonot, in which he said that Israel will need to withdraw pretty much from everything.
"We are standing before the need to make a decision, but we are unable to say to ourselves, yes, this is what we need to do. We need to arrive at an agreement with the Palestinians, the significance of which is that we will withdraw from almost all of the territories, if not all of the territories. We will retain in our hands a percentage of those territories, but will need to give the Palestinians an equal percentage [inside the Green Line], because without that there will be no peace."
This, he said, included Jerusalem.
He was no less generous regarding the Golan Heights. "What is first and foremost required of us is to make a decision," he said. "I want to see if there is one serious person in Israel who believes that it is possible to make peace with Syria without at the end of the day giving up the Golan Heights."
That's heady stuff, and one can only assume that neither Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, nor Syrian President Bashar Assad, read the translation of the interview, banged their hands to their heads in surprise, and said, "Why didn't he just say so?"
One can only assume that in the numerous meetings Olmert has had with Abbas over the last year, his positions were made at least as clear to the Palestinians as they were to Nahum Barnea and Shimon Schiffer in Yediot. Ditto regarding Assad. Israel has been in contact with the Syrians since February, and Assad himself has said he knew what Olmert was willing to cede.
But still there are no direct negotiations with the Syrians, and no shelf-agreement on the immediate horizon with the Palestinians. Which can mean that what Olmert said he was willing to give was still not enough.
It is not enough because it is not only about territory, and what Israel is willing to cede. There are other issues as well that will necessitate the other side stepping up to the plate. For instance, Olmert is willing to cede the entire Golan. But will Syria begin a break from Iran, stop sustaining Hizbullah, cease supporting Hamas, and allow for all the technological bells and whistles and early warning systems and whatnot that Israel wants to have stationed there?
And vis-Ã -vis the Palestinians, Olmert has made clear he is willing to give everything back. But what of the Palestinian "right of return," what of the Temple Mount, what of the Palestinians recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, what of control of Hamas and Gaza?
Apparently on those issues there was no movement. Otherwise - given the concessions Olmert said he was willing to make - we all should now be on the cusp of the long-awaited shelf agreement.
BUT INSTEAD of a shelf agreement, what Olmert is leaving is an interview in Yediot, an interview it which he at times sounded more pundit than leader, waxing philosophic about how the lack of a defined eastern border has ramifications on other elements of life in Israel, as well - like his investigations. The problem is that he was in office for two and a half years and could have made those very decisions he says Israelis always shy away from making.
Which forces one to ask, why now? Why did Olmert feel the need to get all this off his chest on the eve of Rosh Hashana?
One reason seems to have to do with the legacy thing. Olmert does not only want to be remembered for the missed opportunities of the Second Lebanon War, or his numerous corruption investigations, but for something more. (Years from now, when the fog is lifted on what exactly the IAF attacked in Syria in the fall of 2007, he will also probably be remembered very positively for that attack as well.)
But with time now very much running out on his watch, and there clearly being no chance of sewing up a deal with the Palestinians or the Syrians, Olmert can now leave only his words.
"What I am saying to you now no Israeli leader has said before me," Olmert said in the interview, framing his words so that no one would miss their legacy-making significance. "The time has come to say these things. The time has come to put them on the table."
And if he, Ehud Olmert, says them and puts them on the table, then perhaps some will forget everything else. Moreover, it plays into another narrative that emerged in the interview - that some unnamed, nefarious folk were gunning for him even before he came into office.
Articulating a willingness to give up all the territories allows future historians, if they so wish, to frame Olmert's two and a half years in office in the following manner: "Olmert was willing to return all the territories, including the Golan Heights and Jerusalem, but this is not something the extreme Right could live with, so they hounded him out of office."
Another reason why Olmert might have chosen now to lay down his diplomatic philosophy is because of the belief that if he says these things while still in office, it will give Livni, or whoever may emerge as his successor, legitimacy to pick up on the theme in the future.
That argument would have more strength were Olmert leaving office as a widely respected elder statesman, someone whose door politicians would be banging on after he leaves office for counsel and advice. That is unlikely to be the case for the next few years, however, when Olmert will probably remain in the headlines not because of his pronouncements on the weighty issues of the day, but rather because of attempts to extricate himself from his legal troubles.
The elder statesman role may come later, as it did for Richard Nixon, but only after the book has been closed on all the alleged scandals. This will take time. In the meantime, or at least in the immediate future, it is difficult to imagine Livni looking for legitimacy for diplomatic moves from a man whom she helped maneuver out of office.
Olmert's Rosh Hashana interview has also not made Livni's attempts to form a coalition any easier, especially with a party like Shas, which has said it opposes any concessions in Jerusalem. But while the interview may lead to some discomfort for Livni, it will not likely lead to the scuttling of those negotiations altogether.
The interview led to an almost Pavlovian response among MKs: the Right damning; the Left praising, but asking what took him so long. But there is a difference between comments made on Israel Radio, where the MKs respond as expected, and around the negotiation table.
Livni can, and most likely will, say that she is in no way bound by Olmert's words. "So he said," will most likely be her response to those who will wave the interview in front of her as a reason why they can't join the coalition. The words are not binding.
The same will also be said to the Palestinians when they come to Olmert's successor asking for what Olmert deposited. The words are not binding, Livni will likely repeat. No more so then Olmert' previous promises about the unity of Jerusalem, or Ariel Sharon's promises about never leaving Gaza, or Yitzhak Rabin's famous line about whoever leaves the Golan endangers the security of the state of Israel.
A prime minister's words, indeed, matter much less than the decisions the prime minister makes when he is office, or the actions he takes. Olmert obviously realizes this, and is intent on leaving the Prime Minister's Office not only in a fanfare of words, but also on his feet, in action.
Olmert has no intention of leaving the Prime Minister's Office through the back door, but rather through a highly covered trip to Moscow.
The trip was first discussed with the Russians following the Georgian crisis last month and tensions over Israeli arms sales to Georgia, and reports that Moscow was going to sell state-of-the-art weaponry to Syria. It was cancelled when the police recommended an indictment of Olmert.
Olmert, according to diplomatic officials, was keen on its being rescheduled, and rescheduled it was - for Monday and Tuesday. It is hard, if not impossible, to believe that the Russians were that keen on Olmert's making the trip, since both Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin know that Olmert has one leg out of office, and it would make more sense to meet his successor.
There are indeed critical issues to discuss with the Russians, from the Georgian issue, to the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, to arms sales to Syria and Iran, to the Iranian nuclear threat and what can be done about it. Still, the timing of the trip, with Olmert in the fading twilight of his tenure, seems directed more toward Israeli public opinion than anything else.
With this trip, Olmert wants the final images of his tenure engraved in people's minds of his shaking hands with Medvedev, and in conversations with Putin: Olmert the doer; Olmert the statesmen; Olmert the responsible prime minister caring for Israel's needs until the very end.
The interview in Yediot and the trip to Russia provide the country with another picture of Olmert in his final days as the country's leader - Olmert the legacy-maker.
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