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

The end of Ehud Olmert’s prime ministership, if not his political career, is nigh. Today, the gag order was lifted on his bribery case and he told the nation that if indicted, he would resign. It seems almost impossible that Olmert will not be indicted (though it’s still a slim possibility). If so, it would likely mean the end of the career of a politician who had nine lives, if not more.

Haaretz reveals that Long Island Orthodox Jewish fundraiser, Morris Talansky, funneled “hundreds of thousands of dollars” into Olmert’s coffers in the 1990s while he was mayor of Jerusalem and a government minister:

Long Island Jewish American mogul and millionaire financier Morris Talansky, who is suspected of bribing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is described by acquaintances as a man who keeps his business affairs out of the spotlight.

Although he is a known fundraiser for and contributor to Jewish causes in the United States and Israel, nobody seems to know how he made his money. Moreover, though he has participated in dozens of public events, his photograph cannot be found on the Internet.

Olmert appears to claim that the funds were used for political purposes. It appears that the police believe Olmert used the money for himself.

One should add that Ehud Olmert is not the only Israeli politician suspected of corruption. Ariel Sharon’s son Omri, is serving time in an Israeli prison for political corruption. Most of Israel’s recent prime minister’s have been accused of similar activities.

Talansky is an interesting, if shadowy figure. Though he was trained as an Orthodox rabbi, he seems to have turned to non-profit Jewish fundraising. He spent 20 years as executive director of the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center. As the Orthodox hospital is located in Jerusalem, Talansky engaged Olmert numerous times to speak at charity events on its behalf:

Talansky makes some of his money by fundraising and consulting for Israeli and Jewish charity organizations. Among other things, he held a key post in the New Jerusalem Fund’s U.S. office; in the past, he also raised money for the ORT network.

However, Talansky made his name largely due to the funds he raised as executive director of the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center, which solicits overseas donations for the Jerusalem hospital. A Jewish activist in Brooklyn said Talansky was “the main New York activist for Shaare Zedek. In his heyday, he raised millions of dollars for the hospital.”

“He didn’t bother with small contributions, he went for the big ones,” the activist added.

It was during this period that Talansky met Olmert, who, during his 10-year term as mayor of Jerusalem, was frequently featured at Shaare Zedek dinners and other fundraising events sponsored by the medical center.

I too have been a fundraiser for Jewish non-profits. I suspect, without any direct proof, that Talansky may’ve introduced Shaare Zedek’s wealthier donors to Olmert and persuaded them to become donors to his political career. [UPDATE: The Forward seems to confirm this notion.] It is very flattering for a certain class of wealthy American Jew to hobnob with Israeli politicians, as it would be for a wealthy American to hobnob with presidential candidates.

It is also possible that Talansky may’ve had a financial motivation if he took a cut of every donation given to Olmert by a prospect the former referred to the latter. Though it is possible that Talansky had personal wealth of his own in those days to give to Olmert, as a salaried Jewish fundraiser I don’t know where he would’ve found such wherewithal. It seems more likely to me that Talansky would’ve been a conduit rather than the source of funds.

After reading this N.Y. Times story Talansky looks more and more like a character from opera bouffe or a bad Mafia spoof. He meets unsavory characters at Manhattan topless bars and solicits them to beat up on deadbeats who’ve cheated him in business deals. Yup, Rabbi Moshe Talansky frequents topless bars. A fellow Manhattan lawyer calls him the “Lawyer’s Full Employment Act” because he’s so litigious. He even sued for alleged breach of contract a Jewish museum which had hired him as a fundraising consultant and fired him after a few months. My guess is he never showed up and never raised a dime.

Olmert’s top aide listed Talansky in her schedule as “the laundryman.” “Bag man” would’ve been closer to the truth. Given Talansky’s history are we surprised Olmert agreed to resign if indicted? Imagine how many more skeletons might be rattling around in Talansky’s closet.

Ynet claims that Olmert’s former law and business partner is cooperating with authorities against him.  Not a good sign which perhaps explains the doom and gloom emanating from the PM’s office.

A couple of questions are going through my mind. I haven’t heard of any motive for Talansky’s alleged contributions or bribes (except for the scenario I advanced above). Did he get anything in return or was he doing it out of friendship to Olmert? Can there be a bribery conviction if the police can’t point to a benefit Talansky got in return for the funds?

Olmert will claim the funds were meant for political purposes, which still might’ve been illegal but at least not bribery. Does Olmert have to prove that he used them for political purposes? What if neither the police nor Olmert can actually document with certainty what he actually used the funds for?

tags bribery, olmert, political-corruption, shaare zedek hospital, talansky

I’ve hesitated in writing about this story reported yesterday in Haaretz since allowing potentially good news to go to your head is a fatal mistake regarding Middle East politics. Optimism always seems to be repaid with a harsh slap in the face. But the NY Times is also reporting the story today so I figured what the hell–if war breaks out tomorrow then we’ll all have egg on our faces.

Syria and Israel are making all the right noises about being prepared to make peace with each other. The Turkish prime minister carried a message from Ehud Olmert to Bashir Assad that the former was prepared to return all of the Golan in return for peace. A Syrian newspaper reported the story yesterday and today a Syrian minister repeated it. When Olmert’s office refused to deny (or confirm) it, it became big news.

It is ironic Olmert now feels comfortable acknowledging (tacitly) his willingness to compromise with Syria in return for peace. In this blog, I castigated him roundly last year for his tortuous attempts to deny the validity of negotiations conducted by Alon Liel with a Syrian interlocutor, in which they attempted to map out the contours of an agreement. Things now have gotten more serious and Olmert has stopped playing the fool.

There is of course one problem: the two countries are negotiating by press release or third parties instead of face to face. Politicians can say pretty much whatever they want as long as they don’t have to commit to anything. But when you sit down to negotiate in earnest, that’s when you have to get serious.

So what’s stopping them? A weakened Israeli governing coalition, for one. Olmert has a lot of things on his plate including a right-wing Opposition leader breathing down his neck and looking for weakness and opportunities to exploit them. But it is a good sign that Olmert is at least refusing to deny the reports.

And the most significant impediment to negotiations is the ideological rigidity of the Bush Administration. They would rather punish Syria and its ally Iran than do either of them any favors. To Bush-Cheney, peace between Syria and Israel seems too much like a reward that Syria doesn’t deserve. Of course, they neglect how critical peace would be for Israel, our supposed ally. The neocons would rather have a war that bled an ally than a peace that rewarded their foes. It’s called cutting off your friend’s nose to spite his face.

Syria wisely is insisting the the U.S. play a role in expediting whatever talks happen. If the former is to give up it protective alliance with Iran, it expects that it will gain something from the U.S. in return. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt the Bush Administration is willing or able to play such a role. This could doom a peace agreement to being stillborn; at least until a new president takes office. Let’s hope Syria and Israel haven’t gone to war before then…

Finally, there are indications from Hamas that it may be close to accepting Egyptian proposals negotiated with Israel for a temporary Gaza ceasefire. This does not, however, appear to be the longer-term ceasefire many people have long awaited that might lead also to freeing Gilad Shalit and 400 Palestinian prisoners.

I have two new Comment is Free essays published over the past two days. The first, Carter’s Principled Mission, on Jimmy Carter’s mission to Hamas and the second, Massive Attack, on Hillary’s threat to “obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel.

tags bush administration, comment-is-free, golan, israel, neocon, olmert, syria, u.s. middle east policy

Sorry for the black humor but this is the Middle East after all.

Dueling headlines:

Olmert upbeat on Mideast peace talks

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday said he was optimistic that current negotiations would produce a lasting peace with the Palestinians.

–Los Angeles Times

Olmert Pours Cold Water On Peace Process

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that he expected that only a framework of a peace deal could be reached with Palestinians by the end of the year, not an actual agreement.

–Daily Star

Go figure. It’s the Middle East. Your guess is as good as mine which is right and what any of it means.

Here’s some more odd I-P humor:

President Bush has invited Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to the White House in an effort to give a kick to Mideast peace talks, the White House said Thursday.

–Associated Press

Just like Bush to kick a peace process when it’s down!

Shmuel Rosner is always good for a joke (unintentional that is) or an outrage and his current column is no exception. Get a load of the utter delusion both in Rosner’s judgments and in his informant’s:

U.S. President George Bush is finishing his tenure in office precisely as he began it: still determined not to repeat the mistakes of the previous administration, that of Bill Clinton…Bush saw his predecessor buried under the rubble of Camp David and found no reason to retrace that same path.

…The president is still determined not to repeat what the previous president did. Hopefully, he will be sufficiently determined. Well-positioned persons [like whom??] note that Clinton passed down to his successor a dysfunctional peace process. A violent intifada [Clinton's fault of course]. The size of the abyss into which the two sides slid was commensurate to Clinton’s ambition to bring an end to the conflict.

A senior official described it thus: “Clinton drove an expensive race car in order to reach the end of the race, but spun at the curve. What Bush got from him was not a car but a pile of rubble.” The outgoing president - in 10 months - intends to leave his successor the keys to a car in working order.

Let’s leave aside the inapt transformation of a car into a “pile of rubble” (wouldn’t “heap of junk” have sounded better?). All I can say is that’s rich. Bush will leave for the next president the keys to a car that is a rusted hulk and utterly undrivable. When President Obama (let’s hope) puts the keys in the ignition it’s liable to blow up in his face. The car called “Iraq” will, as well, be in about the same state of disrepair when he hands over those keys.

Headlines thanks to American Task Force for Palestine’s Editor’s Picks.

tags american task force on palestine, bush mideast peace process, olmert, shmuel rosner bias

Malcolm Hoenlein must have Tzipi-Condi envy because he arranged for the Conference of Presidents to plot Jerusalem policy on Israel’s behalf this week. Don’t you just love it when busybodies like Hoenlein and his minions decide they’re sufficiently wonkish that they can plot foreign policy on Israel’s behalf?

The Conference passed one of those utterly meaningless resolutions declaring the city the eternal, undivided capital of Israel. In this, it took a swat at Ehud Olmert who, as we speak, is negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas and Condi Rice over the parameters for a peace settlement. Everyone knows that the final settlement will call for a sharing of Jerusalem between the two sides for which it will become a dual capital. Israelis, according to opinion polls, have come to accept this outcome. American Jews, unfortunately according to the latest AJC survey have not, declaring opposition to such an outcome by 58 to 36 percent. It’s important to note that the group (Israelis) which will bear the brunt of this decision is decidedly more pragmatic and realistic than the one that won’t (American Jews).

The Conference, along with other right-wing groups like ZOA and the Orthodox community have been organizing a rump caucus to foil any attempt to “negotiate away” Jerusalem. They’re fighting more of a rear guard action I think as they appear to realize that if there ever is a settlement it won’t be going their way. My hope is that their opposition will amount to little more than did the extremist settler opposition to during the Gaza withdrawal.

Dovish members of the Conference like Seymour Reich and Eric Yoffie railed against the decision. But what can they do? They’re always outnumbered, always outgunned. I’m not really certain why the liberal groups continue to participate in the Conference. Does it really bring them any benefits? It certainly brings them headaches–like this.

tags conference-of-presidents-of-jewish-organizations, israeli-palestinian-peace-settlement, malcolm-hoelein, olmert, sharing-dividing-jerusalem

Yesterday, 24 Israeli boys were offered up on the altar of political expediency. As of this time today, another five boys are dead fighting in south Lebanon:

Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed in south Lebanon on Sunday, as troops and Hezbollah guerrillas engaged in heavy fighting, hours before a UN cease-fire resolution was expected to go into effect.

Two of the slain soldiers were captains, the IDF said.

As far as I can see, the only reason they died is so Ehud Olmert will have cover on his right flank from the attacks of Likud and other gung ho militarists. They are assaulting him mercilessly since he supposedly refused to fully unleash the IDF in its efforts to destroy Hezbollah. They wanted to invade and obliterate whatever was left of Lebanon that hadn’t already been destroyed in four previous weeks of war.

To give some background, Olmert recently announced he was upping troop deployments from 10,000 to 30,000 and sending the boys to the Litani River. But as Billmon has pointed out, this “offensive” seemed more of a fig leaf to protect Olmert so he could say he made a strong push to dislodge Hezbollah, but without really having to make the long term commitment it would’ve required to actually do so. Olmert can say to those who want his head, see–I made the commitment, the boys are there, they gained Lebanese territory we hadn’t previously held. I made the muscular response you required of me. But if there is a ceasefire that holds on Monday (unlikely in my opinion) Olmert will have gotten off cheap since the fighting will end and no more additional IDF lives need be lost.

It’s an utterly cynical ploy on Olmert’s part. But it goes hand in hand with the cynical and amoral military campaign already being waged in Lebanon.

There are already signs of trouble on the Lebanon side of the ceasefire equation. Haaretz says that the Lebanese cabinet has canceled indefinitely a meeting at which it was supposed to approve deployment of the Lebanese army in south Lebanon:

A critical Lebanese Cabinet meeting set for Sunday to discuss implementation of the cease-fire was postponed earlier in the day, a move that was likely to delay the dispatch of the Lebanese army to the south and an end of the fighting.

Siniora said the meeting had been indefinitely postponed but would give no reason. Pushlished reports said the Cabinet, which approved the cease-fire unanimously Saturday night, had been sharply divided over demands in the cease-fire agreement that Hezbollah surrender its weapons in south Lebanon.

That disagreement was believed to have caused the postponement of the Sunday meeting that was to have taken up the dispatch of some 15,000 troops to the south.

Without such deployment the ceasefire would appear dead in the water.

Also, Syria has made known its views of what will be required of Hezbollah after the ceasefire takes effect. Syria’s interpretation contradicts the wording of the resolution, but is to be expected given the one-sided nature of the requirement that Hezbollah cease all attacks and the IDF being required to only cease offensive operations:

Syria said on Sunday it supported Lebanon’s acceptance of a UN resolution to end fighting there, but added that Hezbollah had the right to resist Israeli forces until they withdrew from south Lebanon.

I regret to say that this is what happens when nations like the U.S. and France attempt to impose their will on other smaller and less powerful nations which don’t wish to go along. Unilateralism didn’t work in Iraq for us. It won’t work in Lebanon either. Bush and Rice have made a fatal blunder in leaving both Hezbollah and Syria out of the ceasefire negotiation process.

And finally, political disagreements within the Olmert cabinet over war strategy seem to be heating up. Tzipi Livni, child of right-wing nationalist zealots, seems to be staking out political ground to Olmert’s left in the upcoming battle over ‘who lost Lebanon.’ Haaretz quotes her today as saying:

Livni said she supports the UN resolution, adding that Israel should scrutinize its actions in order to identify the errors that led to the current conflict.

According to Livni, Israel should ask itself where it erred in light of the fact that Resolution 1559 was not put into place for several years and the Lebanese army did not deploy in the south of the country and that arms delivery to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran had not been embargoed.

Livni said counting on a military solution alone was unrealistic. “No army in the world would have succeeded in disarming Hezbollah with military means alone,” she was quoted as telling the Cabinet. “A parallel diplomatic effort was required.”

Previous reports here and in Haaretz have noted Olmert’s anger at Livni’s new found dovishness. There seems to be a potential split brewing in Olmert’s increasingly shaky governing coalition. Livni’s position is all the more remarkable considering her political lineage and previous hawkishness on security matters.

tags idf-deaths-in-south-lebanon, israeli-offensive-to-litani, israeli-political-disagreements-about-war-strategy, olmert, tzipi-livni, un-lebanon-ceasefire

There are so many things wrong with Israel's current policy toward Lebanon and Hezbollah. It's about as bad as it gets in terms of the miscalculation and foolhardy assumptions. But it can get worse and it just might if some Israeli ex-generals and the Likud hardline opposition have their way. Those generals fought and lost the last Lebanon war started by Ariel Sharon in 1982. In 2000, Ehud Barak unilaterally withdrew the IDF from southern Lebanon after the country's misadventure there ended in abject failure. Now, they want to do it again. As Robert Rosenberg writes: There is talk -- but still only talk -- of Israel launching a massive ground operation into Lebanon, ...

3 year-old Natan Mor calling out for his father, who sustained serious injuries during the Katyusha rocket assault on northern Israel (photo: Rina Castelnuovo/NYT) Latest news: Haaretz reports that an Israeli grandmother and her five-year old grandson were killed and four others injured by Hezbollah rockets which landed in Moshav Meron on Friday evening. Ha-makom yinachem etchem--May God comfort their families. I have a five year old son and my heart grieves for their loss. Israel's chief of staff is now warning that Hezbollah has rockets that can penetrate 70km into Israel, far deeper than the 18 mile distance to Haifa, which was rocketed yesterday. Two ...

The news from northern Israel is even grimmer than when I wrote my last post ten hours ago or so. Instead of just two kidnapped Israeli soldiers there, according to Ariga now we have seven [Update: now eight] dead soldiers. Apparently, after two soldiers were killed across the border in southern Lebanon four others were killed in an operation to retrieve the bodies. It's an utter sad savage mess for which Hezbollah certainly deserves denunciation. One would hope (fruitlessly at it turns out) that Olmert might've learned something from the so far abject failure of the Gaza operation that nuance instead of a sledgehammer is necessary to free hostages or defuse a standoff. ...

Zeev Sternhell writes very cogently in Haaretz about the impoverishment of the Olmert government's response to the Qassam shelling and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. As a result of the escalating brutality of the IDF response: The border between what is permissible and what is forbidden in civilized society, even when that society is compelled to deal with terror, will be completely erased. Already now, in Gaza, the line separating legitimate combat from actions meant to break the civilian population, is disappearing, as is the distinction between fighting that serves a real national interest and the desire to compensate the battered ego of the army, and the distinction between the supreme responsibility for the life of every ...

My title is of course a reference to those ringing words of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes): Hevel havalim amar Kohelet ("Folly of follies says Kohelet"). After reading today's stinging Haaretz editorial about what we'll soon be calling the Gaza debacle, I thought the title appropriate for today's post. The newspaper begins by noting the contradiction between Israel laying blame at the feet of Khaled Meshal and Syria; while also blaming those local Hamas political leaders who not even Israel claims knew about or condoned the kidnapping: On the face of it, Israel wishes to exert increasing pressure both on Hamas' political leadership and on the Palestinian public, in order to induce it to pressure its [military wing] leadership to release the soldier. ...