Out of Sharon's shadow
Veteran pol Ehud Olmert seems poised for bold moves
JERUSALEM--The old Ehud Olmert no doubt would have denounced it as an act of national suicide; the new one rubber-stamped it, calmly choosing the lesser of two evils. In his first week as acting Israeli prime minister, with Ariel Sharon lying incapacitated by a massive brain hemorrhage, Olmert decided to let Palestinians in Jerusalem vote in the upcoming Palestinian election. While balking at the inclusion of the Islamic terrorist group Hamas on the ballot--a bone of contention with the Palestinians that could still derail the election--Olmert knew that if he played hardball and banned voting in the capital unconditionally, the Palestinians would summarily call off the election and blame Israel.
It was the practical move, illustrating the political metamorphosis undergone by Israel's interim prime minister. In the spotlight, Sharon went from being a lifelong hard-liner to a born-again pragmatist. In the background, though, the political change that came over his successor--now the early, heavy favorite to win a full term as prime minister in the spring election--may have been even more emphatic and far-reaching.
A nation rallies. After nearly five years of Sharon's rule, Israel is now being run by a savvy backroom pol not particularly well liked by many Israelis--yet his leadership has gained widespread acceptance. Predictions that Sharon's recently formed centrist party, Kadima (Forward), would collapse under Olmert proved wrong, with polls showing the public flocking to it.
Israel has not discovered an affection for Olmert exactly, but he was Sharon's vice premier and closest ally, so the nation has rallied around him as the legitimate political heir. "I had enough of him as mayor," said Jerusalem school secretary Osnat Traibish, 46, referring to Olmert's post from 1993 to 2003. "But I'm definitely voting Kadima. I agreed with Sharon's direction, and I think Olmert will keep going the same way. It's what the country wants."Olmert, 60, who was first elected to the Knesset at age 28, is expected for now to simply act prime ministerial and mind the status quo. "The trick for Kadima is to avoid mistakes," says veteran political handicapper Hanan Kristal. "If it does, it's got the election won."
The big question, then, is where would Olmert try to lead Israel in its unfinished conflict with the Palestinians? By his own words, he would indeed continue along Sharon's way, only further than Sharon dared. For more than two years, Olmert has been calling for large-scale evacuation of West Bank settlements. He has also advocated relinquishing Israeli sovereignty over outlying Arab neighborhoods and villages of Jerusalem, a departure from the national commitment to the city as Israel's "eternally indivisible capital."
In a December 2003 interview in Yediot Aharonot, which prepared public opinion for Sharon's subsequent announcement of the "disengagement plan,"Olmert explained that his views began to change only after the Palestinian intifada broke out in late 2000 and he gradually came to see that the world would not tolerate the Israeli presence in Gaza and parts of the West Bank much longer. He also realized that if Israel clung to those territories, the fast-growing Palestinian population there would soon change Israel from a Jewish state into a binational one. "We didn't fight here for 100 years, we didn't spill our blood," Olmert said, "to lose the Jewish state."
By contrast, the Zionism that Olmert grew up on held not only that Israel should keep the West Bank and Gaza forever but that it should even aspire to conquer Jordan. This was the vision of "Greater Israel" that inspired Israel's pre-state "Revisionists," including Olmert's father, Mordechai, a Knesset member in the 1950s. In his own political career, Olmert, an attorney, became known as a well-tailored, cigar-smoking associate of countless wealthy political donors in Israel and abroad.
As mayor of Jerusalem, he became the champion of radical right-wing settlers who violated the city's fragile Jewish-Arab modus vivendi by establishing fortified Jewish enclaves in Arab neighborhoods. Yet, when the intifada's suicide bombings began, he was a steadying, encouraging presence in a terrorized city.
Family. That's when Olmert's politics began to change. "I think his wife, with her left-wing views, finally straightened him out," said Ora Binur, 60, a Jerusalem music critic, echoing a popular notion. Aliza Olmert, an accomplished artist, took part in many Peace Now demonstrations with one or more of their five children. Olmert joked that no matter what political post he won, at home he was always outvoted.
He's having a much easier time against his current political rivals. Not only is Kadima bathed in Sharon's aura, but the alternatives aren't too compelling. Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, leading Likud, is seen by many Israelis as hawkish and unsteady. Labor's Amir Peretz, a former union leader, is viewed as out of his depth on security matters.
If he's elected prime minister, one thing Olmert would not be expected to do is stand still. He is an intensely ambitious man who, like Sharon, has broken cleanly with his political past. In June he told a Jewish audience in New York: "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies. We want ... to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies."
This story appears in the January 23, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.