ANALYSIS / Ehud Olmert failed in war and failed in peace

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With eyes glittering with tears and a soft voice, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared last night before the few reporters who attended the event that marks his leaving office. Behind him, on the piano at the prime minister's residence, stood a large vase of white flowers, hiding the large painting of cypress trees painted by his wife, Aliza, hanging on the wall. In the near future the couple will look for a new home for that painting, and the aides who listened in silence to the announcement that their boss was stepping down will begin new careers.

The short tenure of Olmert has left many of them wishing for more - a sense that they missed out on something big.

"We were nearly there," one of the aides said. "On Passover last year we emerged from the Winograd Committee, and with the Lebanon War behind us, and with politics being stable it was possible to move ahead on the peace process. And then came the Talansky affair, and everything crashed on top of us. Too bad, Olmert could have done great things," his aide lamented. Olmert came into office in a storm, with the collapse of Ariel Sharon, and is departing in a storm of police investigations. During the 31 months as prime minister, he failed to meet the main mission he had set for himself: a new border with the Palestinians on the West Bank that would ensure the future of Israel as a Jewish State. The task is now being left to his successors.

Olmert excelled as a political manager and a leader of a coalition, but did not manage to gain public affection. His victory in the March 2006 elections was not decisive, and prevented him from transforming Kadima into the dominant ruling party. Only his exceptional skills in running political systems enabled him to enjoy relative stability in his post, until the collapse of recent weeks.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1007099.html

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1. "we emerged from the Winograd Committee"

The heck is that supposed to mean?

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2. Bad translation perhaps?

The use of English is incompetent throughout, but that is a more or less constant feature of political dialog. Good English tries to make things clear, and that is not what the political classes normally are trying to do.

One can infer that it means (roughly): Olmert and his clique retained power despite the Winograd investigation and report. The image is emerging, from a tunnel or something, into the light of day. So the Winograd Commission is being compared to a tunnel or enclosure, a dark period or place.