Too many fingers, not enough pies

We are seeing clips of a self-satisfied Netanyahu ridiculing Ehud Olmert from the podium of the Knesset in 2006 for wasting taxpayer money with a government inflated with useless ministerial appointments. Now, having appointed a government some 30 percent larger than Olmert's, Netanyahu is saying it's the price the public must pay for having voted the way it did in the recent election.
 
Not necessarily.
 
If Netanyahu had brought Kadima and Labor into his government with the Likud, he would not have had to invent appointments to satisfy claimants in his own party, after passing out so many goodies to all the other smaller parties he needed for a Knesset majority.

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May you live in interesting times

Our weekend began with a reminder of Jewish history.
 
There was a small gathering at the cemetery to remember Like Roos, a distant relative of Varda. She was a good friend, curious and willing to argue, but reluctant to get too close. The others who gathered at her grave, and then for coffee afterward, may have been able to give and receive more than we due to shared experiences of a European childhood at a bad time. Two of them, like Like, found refuge with Christian families in Holland. One spoke of a friend who was passed from family to family 18 times. Another was orphaned in Poland at the age of one, did not say how she spent the war, but told of being adopted in Philadelphia. Yet another was sent by the kinder transport to Wales.

The grass isn't greener on Hamas's side of the fence

Marathon efforts to free captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit have failed. According to Israel, Hamas hardened its conditions and withdrew concessions they had accepted earlier.

Perhaps the campaign mounted by the Schalit family backfired. The indications of wide support among Israelis for freeing prisoners "with blood on their hands" may have led Hamas to refuse compromise, or even to increase their demands. Hamas denies those charges however,  and blames Israel for the failure of negotiations.

Gilad's father Noam Schalit blames Olmert.

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Tzipi Livni is in trouble

Tzipi Livni won a primary contest and is the nominal leader of the governing party, but the still sitting prime minister seems to be doing everything in his power to assure that she cannot win the national election.
 
Nominal Prime Minister Olmert continues to meet with the nominal President of Palestine, and has told the still sitting President of the United States that an agreement between Israel and Palestine is possible before the end of their terms.
 
While he was in Washington, Olmert's one-time close ally the finance minister outlined a program to deal with part of the economic crisis that has begun to threaten Israel with increasing unemployment. The problems look pretty much like what are affecting numerous other countries, and the Finance Ministry's proposals are as complicated and controversial as those offered elsewhere.

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No quick visits or neat solutions

The three regimes important to this little place are deep in uncertainty. Israel and the United States are facing elections and political change. More than ever, it is difficult to know if we should define Palestine as tragedy or farce. Its nominal president may or may not continue in office, with or without an election at the end of his term in January, with or without popular legitimacy in Gaza or the West Bank.
 
Tzipi Livni, Israel's prime minister designate, has decided that she cannot, or will not form a government, and has advised the calling of a national elections. Excluding the possibility of an indictment, Ehud Olmert will remain as a care-taker, virtually powerless prime minister until the voting sometime in January or February, plus another month or so while the new prime minister designate tries to create a coalition.

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In search of a motive

We often know what politicians are saying, and sometimes what they are doing. It is far more rare to know why. It is easy to ascribe motives, but usually impossible to be certain of them.
 
I thought of this classic problem when reading the headline in Yedioth Aharonot on the eve of the New Year. In what was described as a farewell interview, Ehud Olmert spoke of withdrawing from almost all of the West Bank, from the Golan Heights, and Jerusalem. The headline did not say so, but as I looked for the entire interview I presumed that he meant withdrawal from only part of Jerusalem.

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Loyalty in politics

A prime minister must view his colleagues as potential competitors, and keep them in line. The country as a whole faces tough antagonists on the international front, who are looking after their own interests. There are also intense enemies intent on doing great harm to Israel.

The imminent scandal

There is a great scandal brewing here, but at least some of the implications are not as frightening as they seem.
 
The scandal concerns police investigations and potential criminal charges against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for deception, dereliction of duty, violation of trust, money laundering, tax evasion, and perhaps bribery. We are some way from a formal indictment, but serious reports, as well as leaks and speculation suggest that this is the most serious investigation of the five or six that have been waged against him in recent years. Political rivals within and outside his party are circling like vultures who scent rotting meat, and positioning themselves to do battle both with the prime minister and with one another.

Olmert in trouble, again

We have been roiled  for more than a week in diminishing silence. There has been an intense investigation of the prime minister and those close to him, but the police and the court imposed a news blackout on all details. Some bits came out in foreign media available via the internet, but the police insisted on their posture until the end of Independence Day 60th anniversary celebrations.
 
Now we are told that an American fundraiser passed large sums, some of it in cash, to Ehud Olmert over the course of several years. The prime minister went public as soon as he could (the blackout also applied to him), and explained that the money was for campaigning expenses, and that he relied on his attorney to assure that it was all legal.