Olmert wants (though he didn’t have the chutzpah to ask for it on this trip) some additional $10 billion in aid to cover the costs of carrying out the withdrawals.
But Israelis need to remember that America is spending more than a billion per week in Iraq. And despite the entreaties of some of our Arab and European “allies,” Bush has refused to ditch Israel in return for more support on Iraq. But he is highly unlikely to do anything that will rile up even more anger in the Arab world than America has already suffered. Which is to say those members of Olmert’s Kadima Party who actually think that the United States – let alone Europe – will endorse unilaterally drawn borders ought not to be holding their breath waiting for such a statement.
Second, one of the main audiences where Abbas’s overtures are playing well happens to be American Jews. Ironically, unlike the hard-core supporters of Israel in both the Republican and Democratic caucuses in Congress, who not only cheered for Olmert last week but passed a bill calling for heavy restrictions on aid to the Palestinians that the White House thought was too tough, many American Jews are more interested in giving Hamas a chance.
The vocal opposition by some left-wing Jewish groups, including the Israel Policy Forum (to whom Olmert floated his withdrawal plans at a dinner last year) to the legislation calling for an aid cutoff to a Hamas-led PA should be a wake-up call that he cannot count on wall-to-wall Jewish support for unilateralism. The welcome given the prisoners’ “peace plan” in the press ought to reinforce that danger.
But rather than answer the challenge from the Left here, Olmert and his people are still far more interested in quashing the lingering carping they still hear from those who oppose any withdrawals. That’s understandable given the bitter battle Olmert fought with the Right, first within the Likud and then in the general election he won this year as head of Kadima.
But there is no getting around the fact that no matter how much more territory Olmert’s government is prepared to give up, there will still be a powerful chorus in this country and Europe wanting more. Given that reality, the thing he ought to be most worried about here is the slippage in Jewish support for Israel, even an Israel that is committed to massive withdrawals.
Rather than wasting his time trying to get international support for unilateralism that will never come, maybe Olmert should concentrate more of his efforts on stopping the bleeding in the pro-Israel community. Red carpets in London and Paris are no substitute for the ground lost to Abbas and Hamas here.
