Where There Are No Men

by: Paula R. Stern
January, 2008

Where There Are No Men

The great scholar, Hillel, was quoted in Pirkei Avot, as saying, “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” Ehud Barak had an opportunity to be a man this week. He could have stood up to his promise that he would collapse the government if the Winograd Report confirmed what we have all known from the beginning. There were gross errors in the handling of the Second Lebanon War and these errors cost the lives of our beloved sons.

Barak had a simple choice this week: be a man and stand up for those who can no longer tell of the mistakes and bungled leadership that led to many of their deaths, to the endless bombardment of the north and the abandonment of the citizens who were forced to flee on their own because our government couldn’t adequately protect them and couldn’t even effectively coordinate their evacuation.

Barak could have come away clean, instead he chose to come away with power. Blood was not on his hands from the Second Lebanon War and most believed that had he been in charge of the army and not the Comedy Clown with the big mustache, Amir Peretz, the outcome might well have been different. Olmert, Peretz, Halutz – these were the ones who failed the nation and the army.

Barak would have realized that you can’t throw men into battle without supplies; that you can’t stretch the supply lines. Barak would have realized that you can’t rush into battle without intelligence reports, without understanding what your enemies had been busy doing in the six years since last you tread on their turf.

Olmert was doomed to come out of the Winograd report smelling like last week’s rotten fish and it is no surprise that he lacks even the slightest amount of dignity; that his vast ego has long since surpassed whatever interest he had in doing what is right and honorable. That Dan Halutz and Amir Peretz are no longer in the government is to their credit. They managed, perhaps too little and too late, but at least in some measure, to put their country above their own careers and interests.

No one expected Olmert to resign; the man lacks the integrity and leadership that making such a decision would require. But the Israeli public did expect Ehud Barak to stick to his promise. Winograd has come back. Olmert has been proven a failure. After all the spinning is done, the bottom line, as Winograd confirmed, is that we lost the war that we started. We failed to bring Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev home. We failed to protect our citizens of the north. The report is in. Barak swore to bring down the government.

In a place where there are no men, Hillel said, be a man.

The very next line in Pirkei Avot, says, “Moreover he saw a skull floating on the surface of the water and he said unto it: Because you drowned others they drowned you.” Olmert drowned soldiers in Lebanon and so he and his government will fall. Ehud Barak has failed this week to be the one man in Olmert’s government, the one last hope for dignity and the quest to do what is right for the bereaved families and those who suffered from their lack of planning.

Instead of drowning the man responsible for the failure, Barak has just attempted to drown the souls of those who died in the Second Lebanon War. He would be wise to heed the words of Pirkei Avot, for in the end, it will be his political career and selfish ambitions that will be drowned.