Is he another of the Goldas?

[Englander]

By Doron Rosenblum

It would not be Israeli civilization as we know it if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had done the obvious and met with Mahmoud Abbas right after his government was approved by the Knesset. But since the self-evident is precisely what occurs to nobody on our side, Olmert did not depart an inch from the paths of his predecessors: Upon taking office, he leaped into action and immediately flew to Bush, Blair, Chirac, Mubarak and Abdullah. In short, to every leader in the world except the Palestinian president - in order to explain to them why conditions are not ripe right now for talking with the Palestinians without preconditions. Only with evident unwillingness did Olmert manage not to avoid a semi-meeting with Abbas this week, and that only out of respect for King Abdullah - and besides, it was "a meeting for etiquette's sake," as sources on our side made sure to explain.

If that sounds familiar, it is because the Israeli planet is revolving on the same rusty axis as always, as if there has been no election - as is usual after every election. At least at the beginning of his term, every new prime minister immediately reverts to the failed default behavior of his predecessor, and regards it as "perfect behavior." Like them, the new premier will always start by flexing a military muscle; after all, the war option is always the most readily available default. The only easier default is sending money to the settlements.

Thus elections or not, the assassinations and the regrettable misses are resumed in all their glory, with all the usual self-righteousness and self-congratulation about our "purity of arms" and demands for exclusivity in the feeling of being the victim, while the inertia of "settlement" continues to plug along in secret like an uncontrollable tic.

As for Olmert, within two months, he has managed to fill the entire quota of cliches that his predecessors needed full terms to produce. He has managed to declare that "the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army in the world," without checking or confirming, just saying it, as one of the habits of a prime minister. He has already demanded that "all the Jews immigrate to Israel" (to where? Sderot?) All that is missing is for him to say that Sderot residents "aren't nice," or that "we will never forgive the Arabs for making us kill them," and we would immediately be able to identify the syndrome that has attacked every new Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir: It is the horrific "Golda Syndrome."

Of course, it is premature to judge Olmert as a prime minister, but it is never too early to warn him of the horrors of this syndrome, whose symptoms are clear and unequivocal. The most outstanding of them are: arrogance toward and patronization of the Middle Eastern environment; an uncontrollable urge to be didactic; a blind spot that makes a Palestinian political presence completely invisible; and primarily endless self-righteousness, which sees everything in black and white - we are always right, the evil is entirely our enemy's, and everything is a justification for maintaining the status quo.

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