In a farewell interview he gave to the Yediot Aharonot newspaper on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dropped a bombshell. What I m telling you now, he said to his interviewers, no Israeli leader ever said before me: We have to pull out from almost all the territories [in the West Bank], including in East Jerusalem, including in the Golan Heights. But for those of us who have been advocating these actions for years, his words were not really a bombshell; they simply reveal a coming to grips with reality. In order for Israel to survive as a Jewish and democratic state, the government should not rule millions of Palestinians. It is in Israel s best interests that a viable Palestinian state emerge, a state whose citizens, though forced to give up their dreams of returning to their homes in Jaffa and Haifa, will nevertheless feel that, given the historical circumstances, this was a deal they could live with. But what was remarkable about this cold, realistic assessment is that it came from the mouth of Ehud Olmert himself. Thirty years ago, when the Knesset convened to ratify the Camp David accords that were signed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt under the auspices of President Jimmy Carter, there was a heated debate. Hard-liners accused Begin of betraying his Greater Israel credo by giving Sinai back to the Egyptians. When the issue came to a vote, 84 Knesset members supported the measure, 19 opposed and 17 abstained. Despite the overwhelming feeling that relinquishing control of Sinai was a tough sacrifice to make, the majority felt that this opportunity to reach peace with Israel s major enemy was not to be missed. Even Yitzhak Shamir, one of the staunchest opponents to any concessions, decided that, rather than saying nay, he should abstain. Among those who voted against the accords was a young Knesset member by the name of Ehud Olmert. In the recent interview in Yediot Aharonot, Olmert came full circle, praising the courage and leadership that Begin had shown 30 years before. It seems that Olmert started to change from a right-wing ideologue in the mid-1990s, when he became the mayor of Jerusalem and began to realize that life in this complex region calls for flexibility. I remember accompanying the late Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin on a visit to the city. We were standing at an observation point facing eastward, to the Judean Desert, when Olmert started explaining to Rabin that Jerusalem needed a ring-road on its east, to ease traffic jams. Rabin dismissed his argument with a smile. We all knew what Olmert had in mind: to physically lock Jerusalem from its eastern side, so that any future partition of the city would be impossible. But in his farewell words to Rabin at City Hall, Olmert surprised us. These were the days of the Oslo peace process, when Rabin was attacked by Olmert s right-wing colleagues. Yet Rabin and I looked at each other in puzzlement during Mayor Olmert address as he praised Rabin for the courage and leadership the prime minister had shown by giving peace with the Palestinians a chance. In hindsight, I see that Olmert had already started his transformation. It s a pity that Israeli leaders can express themselves candidly about the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only when they are out of office. Maybe Olmert s likely successor, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is known for her courage, could prove to be the exception. Instead of trying to form an unstable government, which will be easily paralyzed by its own members, she should call for new elections. Her campaign should be based on Olmert s parting words. Anyone who wants Israel to be a democracy, predominantly Jewish, should vote for her, realizing that this will mean giving away most of the West Bank and compromising in Jerusalem. On the other hand, those who vote for the Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, should bear in mind that, by not compromising with the Palestinians, they will bring about the creation of one, binational state. Then the Arabs, with their higher birth rate, will sooner or later become a majority, thus putting Israel on the horns of the dilemma: Either it loses its Jewish identity in order to remain a democracy, or it remains Jewish, but becomes an apartheid state. Livni, like Olmert, comes from a hard-line, right-wing family (her father was the operations officer of the underground Irgun movement that fought to establish Israel). If she embraces this path to peace she will win the trust of her countrymen, who like their leaders to be basically tough. If she speaks the truth to the Israeli public, she can win at the polls and go on to lead us in the right direction. Uri Dromi was the spokesman of the Rabin and Peres governments from 1992 to 1996. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) with permission from The International Herald Tribune.
