Ole - Ole, Ole, Ole

WHAT EXCITED the Israelis this week? What glued them to the TV and radio sets? What made them rush to buy newspapers at the kiosks?
 
The drama in the Knesset, when it seemed for a moment that the Members would act against the laws of nature and vote to dismiss themselves? The violations of the Tahdiyeh around the Gaza Strip, after the execution of Jihad militants in Nablus? The peace negotiations with Syria? The discussion about the exchange of prisoners with Hizbullah in the north and Hamas in the South?

Don't be ridiculous.

The subject arousing tumultuous outbursts of emotion was the European football championship, Germany against Turkey, Spain against Russia.

What games! What goals! Wowww!

COMPARED WITH these, the games played in the political arena were a mere sideshow.

For example: Ehud Olmert's game of survival.

Since it was established beyond doubt that he is corrupt, his government has lost the most important asset of any government in a democratic society: trust.

Nobody any longer believes what this government says. All its decisions are a priori suspect - that they were not taken on their merits, but only to serve as means to gain another month, another week, another day of life. This is a government that cannot govern.

It reminds me of a scene in an old movie based on Jules Verne's novel "Around the World in Eighty Days". In order to win a bet, the hero has to cross the American continent by train at maximum speed. When the locomotive runs out of coal, he dismantles the wagons, one by one, and throws their wooden walls and seats into the fire. After that, he starts to dismantle the locomotive itself, until all that is left is the engine, the boiler and the wheels.

The government of Israel is like this train. To survive, it is sacrificing all its assets.

Ehud Barak delivered an ultimatum: if Olmert is not replaced, he, Barak, will dismantle the coalition. But when the time approached, he understood that Olmert would drag him down with him into the terrible abyss called elections. According to all the polls, elections would bring the Likud to power. The two Ehuds frantically looked for a way out. Now they stand like two exhausted boxers, clasping each other to avoid falling over.

Olmert survives for the moment. The primaries of the Kadima party will take place only in September - a fictitious party, whose situation resembles that of its founder, Ariel Sharon, kept alive by artificial respiration and unable to move.

Until when? September? May 2009? November 2010? Nobody knows. But one thing is certain: this is a government unable to do anything at all.

EXAMPLE NO. 1: The tahdiyeh.

The army wanted the ceasefire, because it has no ready means to stop the launching of missiles from the Gaza Strip, and the last thing it wants is to re-occupy it - an expensive, dangerous and unpromising operation.

It wanted and did not want the ceasefire. Wanted logically, did not want emotionally.

Last week I wrote here that it would be easy to put an end to the ceasefire: "The army will kill half a dozen Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank. In response, the organization will fire a salvo of Qassams at Sderot. The army will announce that this is a violation of the agreement and answer with an incursion into the Gaza Strip…" But even I did not expect this to happen so soon. But this is what has indeed happened: the army executed two Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank, Islamic Jihad responded by launching Qassams, the army has renewed the blockade…

Did anyone decide on this provocation? Olmert? Barak? The Chief of Staff? The division commander? Nobody is saying. Only one thing is certain: there is no government to speak of.

EXAMPLE NO. 2: The prisoner exchange.

The German intermediary has at long last hammered out an agreement for the exchange of our two prisoners who are in the hands of Hizbullah for some Lebanese prisoners. The present assumption is that the two were fatally wounded during their capture and died long ago. But there is no confirmation: Hizbullah does not say.

In the Jewish religion, the "Redemption of Prisoners" is a sacred obligation. In the Middle Ages, when a Jew from London was captured by Turkish pirates, the Jews of Istanbul were obliged by their religion to pay his ransom. In the Israeli army, the Redemption of Prisoners has been elevated to the highest standing: much as one does not leave a wounded soldier in the field, one does not leave a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. More than once, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners have been exchanged for a single Israeli.

The Second Lebanon War was started (at least officially) with the aim of releasing these two prisoners without an exchange. For this aim, the lives of 150 Israeli soldiers and civilians and more than a thousand Lebanese fighters and civilians were sacrificed. Without success. If so, how can anyone object to the release of five Lebanese prisoners for their return?