Resignation

I just walked in the door and booted up the machine. Perhaps I need to go to the Negev more often.

After two years of stalling and stonewalling, Olmert finally resigned. True to the end, Olmert displayed a fundamental lack of any connection to Israeli culture or mindset. As one of the Ashkenazi elite, neither he nor his children have spent any time in the most important part of mainstream society--national service.

Olmert's tenure is marked by a general disdainful version of noblesse oblige characteristic of all Bandits, Roving or Stationary. As I have mentioned before, Israeli culture is dominated by military culture and the cross lines of affliation between service and civilian roles and personna. In the service, every (good) officer learns that loyal men will follow orders but will grumble in proportion to degree of outrageousness associated with bad ones.

Israelis have become "a nation of grumblers" who complain about almost everything, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Wednesday, during round-table discussions in the Knesset between representatives of the government and the social and business sectors.

"It's possible to identify the fraction lines - when we changed from a positive people to a nation of grumblers who complain in almost every situation," he said.

Maybe if Olmert had stopped pilfering the PX and listened to his "troops" more (as in, "Sarge, how are the men taking it?"), the country would not be in its current situation. US citizens might want to look more carefully at the way privileged characters, without basic service experience, look at how leaders respond to democratic citizenry "grumbles".