Amos Elon’s article (“What Does Olmert Want?”) in the June 22 issue of The New York Review of Books describes the continuing effort to find an acceptable euphemism for Olmert’s planned retreat from terror:
“Withdrawal” is still a dirty word in
. Olmert carefully avoids it. He prefers the sanitized terms “disengagement,” “convergence,” or, more often lately, hitkansut, a Hebrew word that defies translation, implying a closing of the ranks within the warm bosom of the family. Israel
Why is “withdrawal” — itself a sanitized term for the unilateral destruction of Jewish communities and retreat from disputed territories, under fire, in return for nothing — a word that Olmert “carefully avoids”?
Elon’s article also includes this tidbit, about “the often-concealed character of Israeli party politics”:
At the swearing-in [of Olmert’s cabinet] . . . it was officially announced that [Shimon] Peres has, in his lawyer’s safe, a signed agreement with Olmert whose contents remain secret.
What Olmert wants may depend on what Peres wanted, and got.