Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Bernard Avishai has written a compelling blog post in which he practically beseeches the heavens to deny Bibi Netanyahu the next prime ministership should Ehud Olmert resign. The latter has been questioned by police about a new bribery allegation that many in the press claim is more serious than the previous corruption charges levelled against Olmert (at least three that I recall). Though Olmert has more political lives than a cat, even cats have to die sometime. And many journalists believe this might be Olmert’s last life and hurrah.

Which is good and bad as Avishai notes:

FIRST, THE BAD…Waiting in the wings…is the worst government imaginable, a Bibi Netanyahu coalition of Likud’s hardest-liners, back-to-the-Land-of-Israel cultists, ultraOrthodox claustrophiles, Russian reactionaries and oligarchs, and General-opportunists. Resignation could bring the demise of the Kadima Party, as former Likud people scurry back to the fold.

…THE GOOD NEWS, however, is that there is an obvious replacement for Olmert, who has always stood a much better chance of holding Kadima together by the force of her popularity. I mean, of course, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, a straight-talking, very bright, and evolving politician (profiled here by the New York Times’ Roger Cohen).

Livni, unlike Olmert, was not tarnished by the 2006 Lebanon fiasco. As Akiva Eldar implies, she might well revive Kadima and draw new, younger forces to it. She is also more likely to advance the peace negotiations (which she nominally runs), or at least bring them to the national agenda. She provides Labor’s doves a leader to rally to while their own leader, Ehud Barak, continues to posture as the new Ariel Sharon, the IDF’s real commander, the scourge of terrorists. She could add the leftist Meretz Party, which said it would never join a government led by Olmert after Lebanon.

Indeed, the best scenario is not unlikely…It is that Livni and Barak will govern together for a year or so, and reconstitute the Israeli center, while putting the taint of corruption behind them. Only this will deny Netanyahu his second act. Something must.

I’m not sure I’d still characterize Barak as a politician of the “Israeli center.” He seems closer to the Likud or right-wing of Kadima than to the center. Of course, all this could be posturing on Barak’s part, biding his time until he can return to power and display what his true principles (if any) are. If so, then it’s impossible to know what he believes, if anything.

Car that held three of four executed Palestinian militants (Suha Zeid)

Haaretz reports a bombshell finding by human rights group B’Tselem that the murder of four Palestinian militants a few weeks ago in Bethlehem was not as it was reported by the IDF. The latter had allowed the media and public to believe that the victims died in a gun battle or resisting arrest.

B’Tselem reports the shocking finding that they were killed while sitting in a car, execution style. Not only that, the driver was wounded in the initial attack and subsequently, while lying on the ground, was shot at close range. After the other three had been shot inside the vehicle an IDF executioner fired another round into each to ensure they were dead. Are these people hit men or soldiers of a democratic nation engaged in defense of its territory–a rhetorical question I assure you?

When you add to this the fact that several of the victims had applied for amnesty–under a joint PA-Israeli program under which a militant agrees to renounce violence and involvement in militant activities–and been refused; then something even more sinister rears its ugly head.

B’Tselem is rightly demanding a criminal investigation of the executions. This stinks to high heaven. If an IDF officer can be severely reprimanded for shooting and wounding an innocent Palestinian in cold blood as happened recently, al achat kama v’kama this incident deserves even more severe examination and justice. And if the IDF cannot investigate this matter and adjudicate it properly, then either the Israeli Supreme Court or, failing that, the International Court of Justice should take the matter up. If the perpetrators of this brutal murder don’t face Israeli justice then they should face some justice.

It is interesting that no Israeli newspaper originated the reporting of this incident. Instead, this was done by an NGO like B’Tselem. This is certainly different than what would happen in the U.S. where investigative journalism turns up such massacres and reports the hell out of them. I’m not sure whether the reason Haaretz did not do original reporting is due to military censorship or a lack of coverage of the West Bank. At any rate, it is sad that Israeli journalism was not capable of originating this story.

And this fact reinforces the immense significance of the presence of human rights groups like B’Tselem. Without them we would have the Shin Bet and IDF literally getting away with murder.

For the benefit of my opponents let me say that I’m not making a judgment on the alleged crimes of the victims. They may indeed have been guilty of terror actions against Israeli civilians. My point is that liquidating them was not the way to achieve justice. This was the law of the jungle. And in case Defense Minister Ehud Barak, no doubt the evil author of this action should remember that two can and will play at that game.

So the next time someone calls out the Palestinians militants for their “subhuman” behavior in attacking defenseless Israelis, just remember that these crimes do not happen in a vacuum.

This extrajudicial assassination looms large not just because of the heinousness of it. In the aftermath of the killing of 130 Gazans during an IDF action there, this alleged anti-terror action further inflamed Palestinian opinion. The result has been a total rejection among Palestinians of further negotiations with Israel and a concomitant rise in popularity of Hamas. Perhaps this is what Barak, the author of the Bethlehem murders wanted all along. He wants war to burnish his hawkish credentials in preparation for future elections. He judges the road to power lies through the gun and not the negotiating table. Ironic that the Labor pol takes this path while the erstwhile rightist prime minister seems to be taking a different approach–though indecisively and ineffectively so.

It’s all just sad as hell.