Big bangs and little whimpers

Whatever else Olmert is risking with his last-minute deals, it's not his reputation.

By LIAT COLLINS
Olmert worried 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
Olmert worried 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
The phrase "playing God" has taken on a different connotation lately. Scientists from some 80 countries, including 30 Israelis, gathered near the Swiss-French border on September 10 to launch an experiment of truly cosmic proportions. If you are reading this, it's a safe bet that all the hype about creating a black hole that could swallow the planet has fizzled out like a forgotten fallen star. Popularly known as the Big Bang experiment, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator was launched after more than a decade of work by more than 6,500 scientists and an investment of $14 billion. The particle basher has itself been bashed in the world media - including by this writer - as a waste of money in proportion to its gargantuan size and scope. However in this world of instant gratification, there is, I suppose, something admirable about a project that took so many years to prepare and whose results - for better or for worse - will not be known for several more months or even years. One can't help but get the impression, however, that the physicists involved were partly attracted by the ability to test new boundaries and limits. There is no progress without risks. But one hopes the risks are calculated. The scientists searching for the elusive "God particle" have carefully weighed up costs and benefits and while seeking the answer to the secrets of the universe are themselves answerable to the citizens of the world and its Creator. Nonetheless, having the tendency to go right ahead and do your own thing because you can is not always desirable. Not in science and not in politics. (And definitely not where the two meet, a la Ahmadinejad's threats). This is particularly true in a political system lacking mechanisms of accountability. Whatever else Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is risking with his last-minute deals and diplomatic efforts, it is not his reputation. He never had the respect as a security expert or visionary that Kadima founder Ariel Sharon did. And he never earned it. Nor did Olmert ever manage to garner any real political support - not counting the enthusiastic backing of George W. Bush and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Although he spent years in politics - as corruption scandal after corruption scandal now serve as a reminder - he does not have either popular backing or a real party base. His main achievement was being in the right place at the right time, which resulted in him springing from the 33rd slot on the Likud list to becoming Sharon's No. 2 in Kadima. Olmert himself admitted he is not a popular prime minister - one of the few times the general public across the voting spectrum agreed he was telling the truth. His political legitimacy was challenged from the start (and - after the Second Lebanon War, talks with the Palestinians and contacts with Syria - mutterings about legitimacy of the non-political kind could be heard. But let's leave his mother, wife and kids out of this). As he tried to sell himself to the public, wags began to comment that he would sell anything for profit. One lay political observer I know predicted his Syria track as early as last Passover when Olmert took a vacation on the Golan Heights. "He's probably checking into buying property there so he can get compensation when he gives it back," she remarked, well before the indirect talks with Damascus were announced. WHEN KADIMA was born in 2005, the political realignment was described as the Big Bang. Olmert became the meteor. But while doctors (playing God?) keep the comatose Sharon alive, the party itself has never lived up to its name, Kadima, "forward." Even Olmert must realize there is no longer any point in fighting for his political survival and instead is engaged in a race against time to enter the history books with an honorable mention. Although nothing is impossible: We have a vice premier - Haim Ramon - who was found guilty of a sexual offense on the day war broke out; a defense minister - Ehud Barak - whose record includes the hugely damaging Lebanon pullout; and a former interior minister, Aryeh Deri, arguing that he is a good candidate for the position of mayor of Jerusalem because when he was released from prison on corruption charges, the law only required a five-year waiting period and not the seven years now demanded before returning to a public position. While Tzipi Livni, Meir Sheetrit, Shaul Mofaz and Avi Dichter all jockeyed ahead of this week's Kadima primary election, Olmert feels safe to do what he wants to do. Which suits the party philosophy, such as it is. Hailed at birth as centrist, it is still difficult to pinpoint what exactly Kadima stands for. Hence the very different approaches of the four candidates for party leadership. Three years down the line, it seems strange to recall that part of Kadima's early attraction - Sharon's many investigations notwithstanding - was as an antidote to the perceived corruption of the Likud's central committee system. Whatever charges are ultimately filed against Olmert - and no matter what a trial might reveal - he is never going to free himself of his shady image. No wonder Livni is running on a "clean" campaign; Mofaz as Mr. Security (although his term as chief of General Staff was not remarkable); Sheetrit is stressing experience; and Dichter, for whom Kadima was his first political venture, is placing the emphasis on both his defense background and clean past. Where they actually stand on the major issues of the day has yet to be seen, or as Post political reporter Gil Hoffman puts it: "Ideology has not been a factor in this race." Or indeed in Kadima at all. In fact, for anything approaching an ideology there are basically only two - vastly different - politicians around: One is Shimon Peres, currently ensconced in the President's Residence and apparently enjoying every minute of it; the other is Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who appears to be counting the days until Kadima's demise in a general election. No wonder he has turned down all attempts to get him to join a "national unity" government, in effect bringing him into the coalition with Olmert as Labor leader Ehud Barak did. Kadima was born with a bang but seems doomed to disappear with a whimper. No matter who wins the September 17 primary, the question uppermost in Israelis' minds is when the general elections will take place. Even if there is no political landslide this week there will definitely be tremors. If Kadima can survive that as a party, it will most likely have some time out of power in which it can finally think things through and formulate what it stands for. The particle pusher has been launched. The results have yet to be seen.