Reply #7: Good analysis, oberliner. [View All]

[Shaktimaan]

In my humble opinion, at least.

The word from my significant other (who is Israeli but lives in New York with me) seems to be that the population of the knesset smells blood in the water and are trying their best to take advantage of the current situation while also covering their own asses. Key phrase being, "take advantage." Seems like this has been implemented by an unspoken understanding that Olmert's the easiest prey, especially considering the added bonus of his having actual culpability for what happened. So even if the politicians currently sharking for Olmert don't have the most honorable motives around there's precious few voices suggesting that their criticisms of Olmert are not well deserved.

We had an interesting talk earlier tonight about some of the key differences in American vs. Israeli handling of scandals like these. She drew a picture of the way this usually plays out in Israel by saying, "Israelis always need to know who is at fault. Since something went wrong, someone is to blame, thus someone needs to be held responsible and punished." I have to admit that my first reaction was one of respect, finding this concept of actually holding public figures responsible for their mistakes without undue concern for party politics to be refreshing and immensely preferable to the current state of affairs in America, (which I'm sure I don't need to bother reiterating for anyone here.) But I guess Israel's zeal for accountability has made them well-known for scapegoating, witchhunts and the rest of the political BS that anyplace has to deal with to a degree. The big difference is mostly that Israel seems to require restitution in political blood, even if that blood isn't always from the main perpetrator, or all of the main perpetrators. Menachim Begin stepping down as a result of Sharon's escapades in Lebanon seems like an apt example.

Yet the strong desire for accountability makes for far more, well... accountability. More than we seem to have anyway. I can't imagine that a leader who fumbled so many big crisis moments as Bush has would have remained in office long enough to commit most of them, were he politicking in Israel. Most tellingly for me was when Bush accepted responsibility for the Fed's piss poor reaction to Katrina. (And later on, also the failings in Iraq.) I wondered what that meant to him, that he "took responsibility." It would seem to mean that he was either going to do something to dramatically fix the blunders himself or that he was admitting limits to his capabilities and would be stepping down. Or something else that was significant. Anything, in fact, that would make his "taking responsibility" actually MEAN something.

I played devil's advocate a bit with Carmel and suggested that Olmet's decision to respond aggressively to Hezbollah was, at the time, supported by almost everyone and that the plans he enacted were not his own but the ones drawn up by the IDF, which he could reasonably be expected to have faith in. I liked her response, which was that while there were plenty of details one could criticize Olmert over in how he handled the war, (he kept changing his mind, he made tactically poor political decisions, etc.) none of that stuff was really important. The fact is that regardless of who actually drew up the plans or who endorsed them or who messed up whatever about whathaveyou, ultimately Olmert is the Prime Minister and thus is responsible for what happened. That's it. No one really cares how "understandable" the mistakes may have been. Not enough to let you stick around anyway. If you are prime minister, you're supposed to be smart enough or experienced enough or whatever the hell you are enough that enables you to assume as great a responsibility as the fate of your nation and not play it like amateur hour at the Learning Annex. And failing that, you should step aside, as Olmert eventually will.

Olmert appointed the Winogrand investigation himself and they tore him a new one. Can you imagine an investigation like that in America where politics didn't pervert the whole outcome?

Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, that Bush actually does accept responsibility for Iraq and Katrina in his own mind? How can someone really think that without then doing anything differently? Anyone, I mean. Even him. I don't know if one can. So then what do you think HE thinks "taking responsibility" means to US? I'm thinking, not much.

I hate it when people try and shoehorn their theories about America into Israel's mold. Once you start talking about imagined parallels like neo-con control of Israel or their plans to use fear manipulatively on a naive Israeli public, you've lost the plot. These two countries are very different from each other. Which is important to keep in mind when you're taking in all the craziness.