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| Ehud Olmert: His approval ratings have jumped six percent after a rough spell. Dan Balilty/AP |
Once hawkish, Olmert pushes peace
Israel's prime minister is pressing for an agreement with Palestinians ahead of a US-hosted summit.
from the November 7, 2007 edition
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Olmert's pitch for peace – and his conception of a two-state solution – differs from that of the leading Israeli peacemakers of the 1990s, says Mr. Indyk. "Notice in Olmert's speech that he talks about a Jewish state for the Jewish nation and a Palestinian state for a Palestinian nation," Indyk says. "From the Israeli government's view, if a Palestinian state is going to be established, they want it to lead to a recognition as the Jewish nature of Israel."
Olmert will most likely pursue the possibility of territorial swaps with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which would also mean a concomitant – and highly controversial – transfer of population from within Israel proper to PA control.
The most frequently mentioned scenario would be to take a large Arab town near the 1967 boundary or Green Line, such as Umm el-Fahm in the north or a Bedouin Arab locale in the south, and to transfer these to the PA in exchange for Israel annexing large settlement blocs in the West Bank. In so doing, Israel would not just be trying to put the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict to rest, but to solve Israel's demographic struggle with its Arab population, much of which identifies itself as Palestinian.
This formula has been espoused by Olmert's far-right Minister of Strategic Affairs and Planning, Avigdor Lieberman, and has raised a sense of alarm among Israeli-Arabs, who make up close to 20 percent of the population of Israel.
But according to a poll by the Dahaf polling organization, Olmert's approval ratings jumped to 41 percent – up six points from the month before – after he announced last week that he'd been diagnosed with cancer, which he plans to treat after the Annapolis meeting. His disclosure was roundly viewed as a brave break with past behaviors of Israeli leaders vis-à-vis their private lives.
All this seems like a reversal of fortunes for Olmert. Having started as a "young prince" in the Likud Party, he followed Ariel Sharon into the newly fashioned Kadima Party in late 2005; Olmert found himself in control of it when Sharon slipped into a coma in January 2006. A lawyer by training, he has been dogged by police inquiries into problematic real estate deals in Jerusalem and questions from the public about what he actually stands for.
When the Winograd Commission in May launched the first stage of its report on Israel's behavior in the 2006 war in Lebanon, the critique of Olmert was so scathing that his own foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, asked him to resign.
"Until now, his associations are with personal corruption and security incompetence," says Mr. Hazan. "What we see is a political attempt to revive his party and what it stands for, and a personal attempt to show he can lead."
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