Herbert Zweibon

Facing greater challenges than at any time in its modern history, Israel is without leaders.

Nothing illustrates the vacuum better than the way in which failed leaders are rewarded, recycled and propped up. Take the election of Shimon Peres as President of Israel. In “Rewarding Failure is Becoming the Prevailing Norm in Israel,” Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University Martin Sherman notes the bizarre symbolism in his election on the exact day Hamas was completing its takeover of Gaza. As Sherman observes, it is difficult to think of any individual who bears greater responsibility for the transformation of Gaza into “Hamastan,” yet “on the very day that the utter failure of his alleged ‘statesmanship’ was so starkly and irrevocably exposed to all, on that very day, somehow Peres, through the torturous, convoluted machinations of the Israeli system, found himself elected to represent the State of Israel.”

While the Presidency is largely symbolic it is important for that very reason, signifying that this individual represents the best of Israel. The Knesset could have chosen Natan Sharansky, whose years of defiance in Soviet prisons made him an international symbol of courage and who has since become a political leader and an articulate champion of democracy worldwide. Instead it chose Israel’s Prince of Folly, whose babble shames the state. (AFSI has published several selections of his most idiotic remarks under the title Shimon Says.) And open his mouth Peres will in this bully pulpit. Moreover the President has the power of pardon, which Peres is likely to bestow on convicted terror chieftain Marwin Barghouti.

Then there is the return to public life after six years of Ehud Barak, newly elected head of the Labor Party and now Defense Minister in Olmert’s government. In any sane polity Barak’s earlier abysmal failure both as Prime Minister and Defense Minister would have consigned him permanently to the political dust-heap. As Sherman notes “The major security problems that Barak will be called on to contend with…are all the result of his mishandling when he served as Defense Minister in the government headed by – Ehud Barak. His flaccidity in facing the Palestinian gangs and his flight from the Lebanese militia constitute the ‘original sin’ that eventually led to the takeover of the radicals in the south and the enhancement of their prowess in the north.”

Meanwhile the failed government of Ehud Olmert is propped up by a coalition with a comfortable Knesset majority even though polls have shown Olmert’s public support as low as 5%. The ill assorted coalition members cling to their ministerial chairs as life rafts, terrified of being cast away in new elections.

Alas, the opposition also features failed retreads. Benjamin Netanyahu, whose bitterly disappointing performance as Prime Minister resulted in Barak’s victory in 2000, is all but certain to lead the Likud. His performance since then offers fair warning to those who dream of a “new” Netanyahu. Rather than taking the leadership of those opposing the strategically and morally insane destruction of Jewish communities in Gaza, Netanyahu clung to his position in the Sharon cabinet until the very eve of the pullout when his resignation was too late to have any impact.

Israel desperately needs a Prime Minister with bedrock conviction in Israel’s legitimate rights, with sufficient iron in his soul to stand up to pressures to falsify the realities Israel faces, someone who will encourage and energize Jews in Israel and abroad looking for direction and hope. To be sure, needing such a leader does not guarantee his emergence. But Israelis must seek him out. If Israel persists in rewarding failure, in clinging to hallucinations of Fatah-as-peace-partner, the chances for such a leader coming to the fore dwindle to the vanishing point.