The End of Invincibility

By Tim McGirk/ Jerusalem

Ehud Olmert has some new neighbors. In a rose garden across from the Israeli Prime Minister's Jerusalem office, a squad of angry army reservists and their families have pitched a cluster of igloo tents, and it looks as if they will be staying for a while. They've connected a refrigerator and a TV set to the electricity main, and, says an infantry reservist, they will camp out in Olmert's rose garden until "this loser, the Prime Minister, goes home."

In Israel nobody likes a loser. And however much Olmert's media advisers try to spin it, Israel's war in Lebanon was bungled: the Israelis failed to destroy Hizballah's leadership or even halt its barrage of rockets, and 159 Israelis died in the conflict. As a result, the presence of the reservists on Olmert's doorstep is more than an eyesore. Protests by army reservists--practically every Israeli home has one--tend to gather momentum. And this movement is being joined by families of soldiers killed in the brawl with Hizballah. All that has sent Olmert's political stock plummeting. At the start of the Lebanon campaign, he was seen as tough and decisive, a lanky Churchill puffing a cigar. Today 63% of Israelis want Olmert to resign, according to a poll reported last week in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Israel is hardly the only country whose citizens blame their leaders for military failure. But this isn't just politics as usual. The war in Lebanon has induced a new sense of national vulnerability, heightening Israelis' anxiety about the dangerous neighborhood they live in. In the past, Israelis believed that their military was mighty enough to scare away Arab attackers. No longer. During the war, as many as a million Israelis were forced to flee the north or hide in bomb shelters from Hizballah's rockets. Not since Israel's war of independence in 1947 had so many civilians been put at risk. Says Galia Golan, a political science professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya: "There's a loss of confidence in the ability of the Israel Defense Forces to deal a knockout punch to the enemy."

What's perhaps surprising is that so few of Olmert's detractors have criticized his decision to launch the war after Hizballah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on July 12. Nor has the bloody draw with Hizballah occasioned any doubt over the long-standing doctrine that Israel must meet force from its enemies with an overwhelming force of its own. What riles Israelis is that Olmert and his generals didn't hit harder and with more deadly effect. Says Golan: "There's a sense that if the army had been allowed to pulverize Hizballah, we could've won."

Instead, Israelis are left with the uneasy feeling of unfinished business. A new poll by the Israeli Policy Center found that 73% of Israelis believe Olmert's foray into Lebanon increased the chances of another conflict. Sharon Reuven, one of the reservists camping out in front of the Prime Minister's office, believes that another war with Hizballah and its allies Syria and Iran is inevitable. "We want Olmert to resign immediately because tomorrow will be dangerous, and we'll need a strong leader to defend Israel," she says. But Israel's adversaries believe its leaders still haven't got the central point. The Lebanon war, says a Palestinian minister who prefers not to be identified, exposes "Israel's incapacity to absorb the fact that Arabs are no longer just donkey riders." He adds, "Arabs are changing, but Israelis aren't," meaning that Israel must recognize Arabs as equals and seek political solutions rather than military ones.

In fact, the Lebanon war will probably make Israel even less open to compromise. Olmert, according to his aides, confided to his Cabinet that he intends to shelve his promise to remove some Israeli settlers from the West Bank as part of a disengagement from the Palestinians. The reversal is a sign of a new reality: after the Lebanon fiasco, Olmert doesn't have enough popular support for any plan that would give back land without something in return. If Olmert decides to make a scapegoat of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the Labor Party may leave the coalition government. To remain in power, Olmert would then have to bring a right-wing party into the government, but the right opposes any concession to the Palestinians. That's a dilemma for Olmert, who has promised the Bush Administration he would pull out some of the settlers.

Olmert may yet survive. Says Avi Dichter, Minister for Internal Security, who is sometimes mentioned as a replacement for Peretz: "Emotions are running high right now. In Israel we have one chief of staff and 1 million unofficial chiefs of staff. Everyone has an opinion." Once Israelis see that the United Nations peacekeeping force can halt the rocket fire from southern Lebanon, says Dichter, tempers will cool. In the rose garden, however, more reservists join the protests every day. They swear they won't leave until Olmert does.

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/ Ramallah, Aaron J. Klein/ Tel Aviv