RAMIFICATIONS OF WINOGRAD FINAL REPORT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 000239

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/28/2018
TAGS: PGOV PINR MOPS LE IS
SUBJECT: RAMIFICATIONS OF WINOGRAD FINAL REPORT

REF: A. 07 TEL AVIV 803


B. 07 TEL AVIV 1257

Classified By: Political Counselor Marc J. Sievers. Reason 1.4 (B/D).


1. (C) Summary: Anticipation of the January 30 rollout of
the final report of the Winograd Committee has generated
renewed calls for Olmert's resignation from predictable
quarters (the opposition, the extreme left and the extreme
right),and from some bereaved families and reservists. PM
Ehud Olmert has signaled he has no intention of resigning,
and at this point he faces no serious rebellion within the
Kadima Party. His public relations strategy in the ramp up
to the report's release has been to stress that: Israel's
deterrent capability has improved, Israel achieved diplomatic
gains in UNSCR 1701 by embarking on a final offensive, Israel
today is more secure and prosperous due to his sound
decisions since the war, and negotiations with the
Palestinians will go forward under his leadership. DefMin
Ehud Barak, for his part, must now decide whether to uphold
his campaign pledge to call for early elections or stay with
Olmert. Barak can try to force Olmert's hand by threatening
to leave the coalition if Olmert does not resign, but Olmert
will not acquiesce to a coalition deal that would allow
another Kadima leader, such as Tzipi Livni, to become prime
minister. Under these high stakes, Barak risks alienating
his own party, whose electorate and ministers do not want to
leave the coalition and do not want the Labor Party's
defection to cause the Annapolis process to stop. Fear of
providing an opportunity for Opposition Leader Netanyahu to
return to power in early elections remains the strongest glue
holding Olmert's coalition together, and, in our view, will
likely prevent the Winograd report from becoming the
proximate cause of the coalition's collapse. Communications
between U.S. and Israeli leaders and diplomats during the war
will likely come under close examination in the Winograd
report, particularly the UN ceasefire negotiations in New
York that coincided with the launching of a major ground
offensive in the final days of the Second Lebanon War. End
Summary.

THE REPORT - REDUX


2. (C) The five-member Winograd Committee formed to look
into the conduct of the Second Lebanon War of 2006 will
release the final part of its report at 1800L on Wednesday,
January 30, at a special press conference at the Jerusalem
International Convention Center -- even if snow falls on
Jerusalem, as is expected. The Prime Minister and Defense
Minister will receive copies of the report an hour
beforehand, including a classified annex. Judge Eliahu
Winograd is expected to present an executive summary of the
main, unclassified findings at the conference. No
conclusions or recommendations focused on individuals are
anticipated, as the Committee did not send "cautionary
letters" to individuals in advance, as is the Israeli norm.
Rather, the report is expected to include only systemic
conclusions and recommendations, to the consternation of
NGO's such as the Movement of Quality and Government, which
had demanded the names of individuals the Committee believed
responsible for failures, and protest organizations calling
for PM Olmert "to go home."


3. (C) In particular, the final Winograd report is expected
to focus on the period leading up to the August 12 ceasefire
agreement, and may also survey the period since Israel's 2000
withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Last spring, the Committee
publicly stated that the final report would address the
following issues: all aspects of the fighting (including IDF
preparedness); the political leadership's decisions during
the campaign (including those related to the conditions for a
cease-fire and heavy fighting that occurred for two days
following the adoption of UNSCR 1701); the relationship
between the political and military leaderships regarding the
use of force; the general ethos of Israeli society; and,
finally, the handling of the home front (see reftels).
Influential Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea wrote on January
25 in Yediot Ahronot an in-depth analysis of the issue that
has generated the most ardent protest: the final ground
offensive. After reviewing Winograd Committee notes,
diplomatic correspondence, and other written accounts of the
UN cease-fire negotiations, Barnea concluded that "the fact
is that these parties (Lebanon and France) displayed a
flexibility on Friday (August 11 -- the day that a ceasefire
was agreed and a ground offensive launched) that they had not
displayed a day earlier. (Former USUN Ambassador) Bolton
today says that in the course of Friday nothing major
changed. Anyone looking for historical irony will find it
here: according to the minutes, the things that Bolton told
Gillerman on Friday in New York had enormous influence on the
decision-makers in Israel, headed by Olmert. Bolton had
cooked up a ground operation for Israel, and now he refuses

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to eat it."

PREPARING FOR THE FALLOUT AT HERZLIYA


4. (C) At the annual Herzliya Conference, PM Olmert argued
that the Second Lebanon War improved Israel's security by
strengthening the state's deterrence: "The unarguable fact
is that the Hizbullah is not deployed along Israel's border
in the North; its fighters do not come into contact with our
soldiers, and not one Hizbullah missile or rocket has been
fired towards Israel for a year-and-a-half." He acknowledged
mistakes, but made no apologies and indicated that he had "no
intention of letting go" in response to the "insatiable
political lust" of unnamed opponents. In an apparent effort
to project "business as usual," PM Olmert plans to convene
his security cabinet January 30 to discuss the security
concept paper of former Minister Dan Meridor, who criticized
Olmert's leadership and decision-making at the Herzliya
conference. The coalition also plans to introduce
legislation this week to bolster the National Security
Council, in conformity with a recommendation in the interim
Winograd report. He has also empowered the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in national security decision-making, and
given the MFA's INR equivalent access to raw intelligence.
On the political front, Olmert is busy bucking up his faction
allies in the Knesset, and warning others that he will not
accede to calls from the opposition or within his coalition
(i.e., Labor) for early elections.


5. (C) Opposition leader Netanyahu is taking advantage of
the upcoming Winograd report and the renewed calls for
Olmert's resignation to stress the need for early elections,
which polling suggests Netanyahu and the Likud Party would
win. At the Herzliya Conference, he made a statement
outlining his vision for leading Israel again -- making just
one oblique comment on the Winograd issue by critiquing
Barak's handling of Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon
in 2000 (rather than Olmert's handling of the 2006 war, which
Netanyahu publicly supported at the time). Likud MK Yuval
Steinitz told poloff January 28 that the Likud Party
anticipates that the coalition will fall as a result of
Winograd, but it will take one-two months: "What's in the
Winograd report is already known; it's the tone that will
create the impact." Meanwhile, Likud faction chair MK Gideon
Sa'ar called for a Knesset debate on the Winograd report;
this will likely occur the week of February 3.

THE PROTEST: RENEWED CALLS FOR OLMERT'S RESIGNATION


6. (C) Olmert's most vocal opponents are clustered primarily
on the far left and far right. The Meretz faction whip, MK
Zehava Gal-On, who succeeded in requiring the public release
of Winograd testimonies (but the Committee has only partially
complied with High Court directives in this regard),drafted
an alternative report calling for Olmert's resignation, while
MK Arieh Eldad of the National Union/National Religious Party
faction presented Olmert with another report on the war's
alleged mismanagement prepared by some of the bereaved
families of soldiers who died in the war. In that report,
the families blame Olmert for the deaths of their sons and
fault him for conducting a "spin event" rather than a
comprehensive ground operation against Hizballah.


7. (C) Pundits remain riveted by the letter signed by 50
reservists who fought in Lebanon calling for the PM to
resign. FM Livni felt compelled to meet with both the
bereaved parents and the aggrieved reservists, but made a
point of excluding Major General (res.) Uzi Dayan, who has
been accused of mobilizing and manipulating these cohorts for
the benefit of his political party, Tafnit. Livni's advisor,
Tal Becker, who attended these meetings, told PolCouns that
he had been shaken by the intensity of these mainstream
Israelis' hostility to Olmert. In response to the jolt
created by the reservists' political stance, another group of
85 reservists responded by writing to Olmert and Barak urging
them to keep the IDF out of the political arena. Dayan is
planning a protest in Tel Aviv on February 2, but political
observers doubt that public anger will be on par with the
mass demonstrations in Tel Aviv last spring following the
release of the Winograd Committee's interim report.

THE MILITARY: PREPARED, BUT HAVE LESSONS BEEN LEARNED?


8. (C) Pundits predict that the final report will deal
another blow to the reputation of the former Chief of Staff,
Dan Halutz, for his role in prosecuting the war with an
excessive dependence on air power. The IDF and MOD are
gearing up to react to the report, and will emphasize how
much the IDF has been reformed in the aftermath of the war
under the leadership of IDF Chief of General Staff Gaby
Ashkenazi and MOD Ehud Barak. On the 30-31st of January, the
IDF general staff will be conducting a lessons-learned

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conference, and the MOD has groomed a coterie of retired
general officers to brief the press on how prepared the IDF
now is to face new threats. While the IDF and the political
echelon basked in the apparent strategic success of a secret
strike against purported nuclear facilities in Syria in
September, they (and Barak, particularly) are now roundly
criticized in the press for taking actions (closing border
crossings) that have given Hamas an opportunity to break
through Gaza's border with Egypt.

THE RAMIFICATIONS


9. (C) Olmert's popularity has climbed gradually since its
nadir following the interim Winograd report in April 2007,
and he has demonstrated his skills at political survival
through cabinet reshuffles to satisfy his political allies
and rivals, on the one hand, and deciding to embark on the
Annapolis negotiations with the Palestinians on the other.
Olmert's political future, however, is now in the hands of
his Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, who nine months ago made a
campaign pledge to seek Olmert's resignation or call for
early elections once the Winograd report was released.
Protest movement representatives and some Labor Party members
have demanded that Barak fulfill his promise, but Barak has
only committed to respond in a measured way to the upcoming
report: "I will decide what to do according to what is best
for the State of Israel." At the Herzliya conference, Barak
made warm remarks about his regard for Olmert, which led many
pundits to speculate that he will not reiterate his call on
Olmert to step down.


10. (C) All the Labor ministers in Olmert's government are
urging Barak not to pull Labor out of the coalition, with
only a handful of politicians, such as MK Ofir Pines-Paz,
demanding immediate departure. A Meretz MK who is close to
Barak told poloff on January 29 that it would be "political
suicide" for Barak to call for early elections now, as it
would undoubtedly lead to Netanyahu's election. Many believe
the country can ill afford what Labor MK Efraim Sneh
described to poloff on January 28 as continued
"self-flagellation." The Labor Party must continue to be an
active partner for peace with the Palestinians, in the view
of Sneh. MK Nadia Hilou told the Ambassador that this was
particularly important now that Yisrael Beiteinu has quit the
coalition. Finally, the Labor Party is deeply in the red
(some 150 million NIS) and cannot afford early elections
unless and until Labor has better prospects to increase seats
in the Knesset.

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