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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...
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...
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...
...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...
...splits within the country's ruling élite. He faces pressure to moderate his policies from some conservative rivals who are uncomfortable with his more incendiary statements, such as calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and openly rooting for the death of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But so far, even those critics are having difficulty being heard. Last October some prominent conservatives openly bared their criticism of Ahmadinejad on the news website Baztab, which belongs to Mohsen Rezai, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards. The government promptly took the site down...