Flowers Blooming in Spring

Americans who love Israel, and who return there again and again as I have, always notice something each time back. There is always change, and usually things look that much more like us, ugly Americans. I've never been to Israel this time of year, but I'm told that it's the season when the flowers bloom in Jerusalem. Another kind of flower bloomed this week in Jerusalem, one called the “Winograd Commission Report.” But given the season, it might as well have been a cherry blossom, so much does it remind one of the home front, USA. Forget the ubiquitous cell phones, the ipods, the fashion statements. With the publication of the WCR, the circle has closed. The Israelis couldn’t look more like us, no matter how hard they try. An empty suit at the first table in the Knesset. Even worse in the White House. Both rushed into wars without a plan, fueled by self-delusion and arrogance. I suspect that Bush was more the believer than Olmert, which probably cuts both ways.

We can only hope that the Israelis learn a lot from the WCR. But the report also bears a lesson for American Zionists. Few Americans, and fewer American Jews, were willing to question the invasion of Lebanon last summer, and that’s understandable. From the start, it made no sense to me, yet I must admit that I felt very finky any time I said it out loud. When kids on your side are dying, it’s uncomfortable to criticize too much. And, yet, looking back, I have to wonder whether it was even more finky to stay silent. My country right or wrong.! Its always stinks. Once and for all, it should be clear that the blanket endorsement so many American Jews give any policy or action pursured by the Israeli government does Israel more harm than good.

It’s a mark of Israel’s vibrant democracy that the Winograd Commission could even happen. Yet, it’s hard for me to feel very optimistic. The word on the Israeli street seems to be that the one thing holding Olmert up at this point is the absence of an alternative. The authentic Israeli leadership seems to be a thing of the past. Who’s available? The truly repugnant Netanyahu, an octogenarian Peres – still notable after all these years for his opportunism, Tzipi the Great? All of them either uninspiring or worse (far worse). It looks like there is still a lot of rot to clean out.