A different Perspective

On what Olmert did.

Most Israelis now believe, rightly, that without partition Israel's future existence is dubious. Hezbollah and Hamas attacked Israel's ability to extract itself from the occupation. And, for the time being, they have succeeded.

Many were outraged by Ehud Olmert's declaration, in the middle of the war, that this war was about his convergence plan. It may not have been pragmatic to say so, but it was nevertheless true. Had Israel won, had it been able to subdue the threat of missiles, we would have been on the way to implementing the unilateral withdrawal called "convergence."

Israelis aren't used to thinking about their enemies in this way, but this time around radical Muslims were not fighting against the occupation, they were fighting to perpetuate it. Remember the sequence: Israel signed the Oslo Accord in September of 1993 because most Israelis came to believe that the occupation endangers the country's future. Arafat blew the deal of partition.