Olmert unbound

IN A RECENT interview with the Israeli daily Yedioth Aronoth, Israel's departing prime minister, Ehud Olmert, broached some impolitic truths about Israel's need to reach a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians. Critics have chastized Olmert for speaking out too late, for belatedly grasping realities that others understood long ago, or for having failed to act on his insights when he still had the power to do so.

Each of these complaints has some justification. An exit interview by a disgraced politician under investigation for petty corruption cannot substitute for a legacy of real-world achievements. Nevertheless, Olmert's remarks are worth heeding.

Olmert said Israelis need to make crucial decisions but are "not willing to tell ourselves, yes, this is what we have to do." He went on to spell out, in territorial terms, what Israel must accept. "To reach an agreement with the Palestinians," he said, Israel will have to "withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories." He added that in return for any small percentage of the West Bank that is retained by Israel, "we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the state of Israel at a ratio that is more or less 1:1."

Olmert's discarding of deep-seated illusions completes his passage from expansionist hard-liner to partisan of a negotiated peace with the Palestinians. This is a trajectory traced by other prominent figures, such as former prime minister Ariel Sharon and the would-be successor to Olmert, Tzipi Livni. This pattern of erstwhile right-wing politicians abandoning unrealizable fantasies is encouraging. It may not be sufficient to produce the political will needed for a historic compromise with the Palestinians, but it does mark a necessary step in the right direction.

Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, shattered another taboo when he warned that the two-state peace agreement Israel needs will not be possible unless Israelis are willing to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. "Whoever wants to hold on to all of the city's territory will have to bring 270,000 Arabs inside the fences of sovereign Israel," he said. "It won't work." Olmert called the unavoidable decision to divide Jerusalem "difficult and terrible," a decision that "contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years."

Olmert was speaking about realities Isrealis need to confront. What Israelis need most of all, however, is a leader who can act on those truths.