Israel's Quiet Crisis

By Joe Klein/Jerusalem

Nothing much happened here in Israel last week, which was something of a surprise to most Israelis, who were expecting big, dramatic, perhaps cataclysmic developments after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was incapacitated by a massive stroke. Sharon, ever stubborn, lived on, breathing a little, responding reflexively to pokes and proddings from his physicians--and so there was no state funeral, no national emotional catharsis, no clear transfer of power. But more important, there was no political confusion or panic. Leadership was quietly assumed by Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert. "Here we are in the midst of a revolution in Israeli politics," Avi Dichter, former director of Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, told me. "Our great national leader is crippled--and there is no crisis. Power is passed quietly. Our enemies don't stir. Our stock market barely moves. It says a lot for the strength of our democracy."

Olmert's elegant and noiseless assumption of power last week was a singularly un-Israeli sort of act: a dog that didn't bark in a prohibitively raucous canine nation. His public gestures were tasteful. He refused to sit in Sharon's seat at the first Cabinet meeting or use Sharon's office. He gave no interviews, a real departure for a politician who had served as the Prime Minister's talk-radio pit bull. He traded his famously dreadful orange ties for blue and black stripes. He was not seen smoking one of his beloved cigars. He looked very much the leader.

Privately, Olmert, 60, has acted with dispatch to unite Kadima, the centrist party that Sharon created last year. Shimon Peres, the former Labor Prime Minister whose jump to Kadima had given it credibility, made some tiny noises about taking over but soon accepted the reality of his advanced age (he is 82) and anachronistic left-wing politics and fell into line behind Olmert. The other Kadima heavyweights followed. Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni, 47, a rising star with the highest poll ratings of any politician in Israel, immediately announced her support for Olmert, even though the two had been rivals for Sharon's favor. "I called [Olmert] that first night," Livni told me, "and said, 'Listen, we're now going to work together. You have my complete support.' I've spoken with him every day since." Olmert apparently told Livni she would become Foreign Minister, as Sharon had promised her, and Deputy Prime Minister in the new Kadima government. One week after Sharon's incapacitation, Olmert had answered the most important question in Israeli public life: Would Kadima fall apart without his leadership? It held together, for the moment, and Olmert has passed his first major political test. But there will be far more difficult tests to come.

"Kadima has filled a vacuum," said Dan Meridor, a prominent former member of the conservative Likud Party who is now drifting toward the new party. "We had two beautiful visions of the future--one from the left and one from the right--and both collapsed." The left-wing Labor Party's vision, of negotiating a two-state settlement with the Palestinians, was rendered irrelevant by the failure of successive 1990s peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the vision of the old Likudniks--of a Greater Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River--has been rendered just as untenable by the rapid growth of the Arab population in the Palestinian territories, which would eventually make Israel an apartheid state, with a Jewish minority ruling over an Arab majority. Sharon and Olmert accepted that reality before most others on the right did. "We cannot have Israel without a Jewish majority," Olmert said in 2004, explaining the rationale for Sharon's disengagement policy in Gaza, which Olmert clearly hoped would be "the first step," followed by a West Bank withdrawal to the borders marked by the controversial security fence that Israel is now building.

Sharon's policy was arrogant, perversely brilliant. It shattered the old Middle East paradigm, leaping past the old negotiate-or-not logjam. It allowed for a Palestinian state, but absent a reliable negotiating partner, Israel would decide what that state would look like. Suddenly Sharon had positioned himself to the left, and also to the right, of the traditional Israeli parties. "It was a perfect reflection of the country's mood," says David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "After 40 years of occupying the territories, people are sick and tired of it. They don't want to have anything to do with Palestinians. They were going to give Sharon a big victory in the [March 28] elections. If he plays his cards right, Olmert may win a smaller but still significant victory, too, because unilateral disengagement is what the public wants."

But Olmert doesn't hold all the cards. The Palestinians, as ever, have the ability to influence the Israeli election through the use of violence--and through their own elections, scheduled for Jan. 25, which may increase the power of the radical Islamist group Hamas. Likud, led by the unloved but undeterred Benjamin Netanyahu, 56, has been the beneficiary of Palestinian mayhem in the past. In 1996, for example, Netanyahu overtook Shimon Peres in the race for Prime Minister after a series of terrorist acts by Hamas. "Bibi rises and falls with Hamas," Makovsky said.

And Hamas clearly seems to be rising. The conventional wisdom is that Hamas will finish a strong second to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah party in the election. But Fatah seems in complete disarray, unhinged by corruption and incompetence. Its factions appear to be literally at war with one another. "It's Somalia in Gaza," a prominent Palestinian security official told TIME's Jamil Hamad. "There's a different government on every street corner." The official says he sent Abbas a memo last week begging him to call off the elections for fear of violence so severe that "there will be no wounded people this time, only dead people." Palestinian sources also told TIME that Abbas was worried about his fate in the elections and exploded at a meeting of top aides last week, saying, "Where is my campaign? I need a campaign."

Already Likudniks are saying disengagement in Gaza has caused the chaos and will weaken Israel's security. "We hear reports of an al-Qaeda presence in Gaza now and about high-powered explosives being smuggled in through Egypt," a leading Likud security expert told me. "The question is, How would Sharon have reacted to the deteriorating situation? Would he have moved on and disengaged from the West Bank? I think there is a discussion to be had about what Sharon's real legacy should be."

Olmert will have some disadvantages in that discussion. He served in the army, but not prominently. He has never held a major security portfolio. He will be under pressure to reveal Kadima's plans for disengagement on the West Bank. "But he's not going to put out a map during an election campaign," a member of Olmert's Cabinet told me. "That would be crazy, given the uncertainty on the other side." Indeed, Avi Dichter--who will probably be a leading security spokesman for Kadima--sounded very much like a Likudnik when discussing future plans. "Israel is not going to try any experiments in the West Bank to let it become another Gaza," he said. "If the Palestinian Authority doesn't build an adequate counterterrorist capability, we are going to stay in the West Bank for a long time."

There is another, more personal challenge facing Olmert. He and Netanyahu, along with Dan Meridor and Benjamin Begin, were once called the four princes of Likud--and of them, Olmert was regarded as the least likely to succeed, a smart inside operator but a politician, not a statesman. He will have to perform in the spotlight now, and inside players tend to wilt when shoved onto center stage. Netanyahu has become Israel's Richard Nixon--his negatives are stratospheric, but he is a tough competitor, a plausible Prime Minister. Olmert will have another opponent as well: the memory of Ariel Sharon. Olmert won a quiet battle last week, establishing post-Sharon Kadima as a major force in Israeli politics. But Olmert still must prove that he can make his voice heard when all the usual dogs start howling again.