http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801277.htmlOlmert's Final Failure
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, December 29, 2008; Page A15
Israel's new battle with Hamas in Gaza means that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be remembered for fighting two bloody and wasteful mini-wars in less than three years in power. The first one, in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, punished but failed to defeat or even permanently injure Hezbollah, which is politically and militarily stronger today than it was before Olmert took office. This one will probably have about the same effect on Hamas, which almost certainly will still control Gaza, and retain the capacity to strike Israel, when Olmert leaves office in a few months.
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Olmert badly miscalculated in launching the 2006 offensive against Hezbollah -- and he's probably making the same mistake in Gaza, which will cost many lives and subject Israel to another round of international opprobrium while distracting attention from the more serious threat of Iran. Despite his bold intentions, Olmert proved unwilling or unable to stand up to the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank; his government failed to dismantle even those outposts it has repeatedly declared illegal.
But Olmert is not the only one to blame. President Bush hosted a Mideast peace meeting in Annapolis last year but never fully invested himself in Olmert's attempt to negotiate with Abbas. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to the region 16 times in 21 months but proved feckless as a broker. Arab states proclaimed their commitment to peace with Israel as part of a two-state settlement but were unwilling to take any tangible action to make it happen.
Worst of all, Abbas followed in a long tradition of previous Palestinian leaders by reacting to a far-reaching Israeli offer with an uncourageous demurral. Olmert has never publicly disclosed the terms he discussed with Abbas, but sources say he went well beyond what Israel agreed to at the Camp David talks of 2000, previously the closest approach to a deal. I'm told Olmert offered to support the groundbreaking concession of allowing thousands of Palestinian refugees to "return" to Israel over a period of years; he also agreed to divide Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine. Abbas, like Yasser Arafat at Camp David, refused to sign on to a compromise that the world would have hailed.
So Olmert, like Ehud Barak eight years ago, will end his term as prime minister by bombing rather than liberating Palestinians. He will be remembered for his wars -- but it may be many years before Israel again has a leader as willing to make peace.
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