The end of a beautiful friendship
By Dorit Keren Zvi Haaretz Magazine section 16 February 2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/826521.html

Dan Margalit, let's start from the end: Are you disillusioned?

"Everyone examines himself, and I am no exception."

Can we have a yes or no answer?

"Are you speaking in general terms?"

I am talking about Ehud Olmert.

"Fine. Every person examines himself on every subject, and from time to time
advances, changes, moves things."

You are being evasive. Are you disillusioned, yes or no?

"I don't know how to answer that. Ask me again at the end. Start with more
specific things."

After another few minutes of conversation, the answer is clear. No, it's not
Margalit who has become disillusioned - it's Olmert who has changed, in his
eyes. "I see in him things today that were not there in the past," Margalit
explains. "It stems from certain events that occurred or were revealed in
the past half year."

And isn't is possible that you were simply wrong about him all these years?

"There are things that I cannot examine. For example, I don't know what I
could have seen in him in the past in terms of his [future] behavior as
prime minister, because he wasn't prime minister. In other matters, such as
incorruptibility, I didn't see flagrant things like those that are arrayed
against him today. In general, I didn't take an interest in economic affairs
and I didn't deal with his relations with the business world. He always had
stories about Johnny and Johnson and Samuels - people at the height of the
economic world, whom he saw in America. I always listened politely, but in
most cases I don't even remember the names. Here and there he got into
affairs in which I took a greater interest, and I was happy to see that he
got out of all of them safely."

When Margalit says "I was happy," he is using an understatement. In one of
the strong passages in his book "Ra'iti otam" ("I Have Seen Them All," Zmora
Bitan, 1997, in Hebrew), he describes how he sat with Olmert in his home in
Jerusalem in September 1997, the day before announcement of the verdict in
the affair of the fictitious receipts - in 1996 Olmert was indicted on
charges relating to party financing in the 1988 elections, when he was
treasurer of the Likud - both of them tense and overwrought, supporting each
other. That's what friends do in hard times, and Olmert and Margalit were
then the best of friends. As close as friends can be. How close?

"Ehud is a friend of many years," Margalit explains. "A soul mate. It was
the kind of friendship that if I were to say that during those 35 years
there was a total of 100 days on which we didn't speak, I would be
exaggerating."

And now Margalit misses his buddy. Not as a cliche - he sorely misses him.
He misses the man who shared a path, a career, a slice of life with him.
"You have know idea how much," he says. "Ehud is a really terrific guy.
Really. He's funny, he's interesting, he plays music, he's cultured. I'm
telling you, a really great guy. And I miss him so much. There's no way
around it - I just love him. You know, there isn't a day on which I get home
and before putting the key in the lock, I think about the conversation I am
about to have with Ehud. And then I remember. Abruptly, I tell myself: It's
impossible. That's what I miss the most."

Margalit has undergone an astonishing metamorphosis. Just last February, on
the eve of the elections, he gave an interview to the weekly Makor Rishon in
which he praised candidate Olmert to the skies: "He is a wise, intelligent
and practical person, firm of spirit and without illusions," Margalit said
then. "He does not roll holy eyes to the heavens and he is without caprices
of false leadership. He is imbued with the culture of the piano, books and
the theater, and the earthiness of soccer and sunflower seeds, and also has
something of a romantic soul."

Yet just nine months later, in his column in the daily Maariv, in an equally
unequivocal tone, he wrote: "Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz are
the great stumbling block of the government ... This government is the
despair of its citizens ... In a properly run state Olmert and Peretz would
resign and take their place in the Knesset plenum or on the margins of the
government."

Last week, on the Channel 10 news, Margalit leveled the harshest of
criticisms against the appointment of Prof. Daniel Friedmann as minister of
justice: "Ehud Olmert has decided to set fire to the forest. To create a
situation in which this government, these politicians, the owners of
capital, who are benefiting from this government and their spokespersons and
their lawyers and all the rest of them, will celebrate. What Ehud Olmert is
doing is a declaration of war against the rule of law ... The camp of
warriors against corruption is not homogeneous, but it includes [Supreme
Court President] Dorit Beinisch, it includes [the accountant general] Dr.
Yaron Zelekha, it includes [State Comptroller] Micha Lindenstrauss, it
includes [the head of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel] Eliad
Shraga, and it includes many other good people. They are all different, but
this camp ... look who they are and look at those who are on the other side.
Most regrettably, Ehud Olmert is on the other side."

Margalit relates that their first conversation when it became clear that
something in their relations had snapped, took place in the Prime Minister's
Office last July, 10 days into the Lebanon war. Olmert heard then from
Margalit what he thought of his performance in the war and did not hide his
anger at the person who had been his closest friend until quite recently. In
that conversation, Margalit suddenly realized that his good friend is not
suited to be prime minister.

"I saw that he was blinking incessantly - as a figure of speech, of course -
and you can't manage a war that way. You can decide to take action or you
can decide not to take action, but you can't blink. I understood then that
the war was being managed incorrectly. And even before I wrote about that in
the paper, the people in his closest circle heard me say that in my
estimation he has to go. This is not the job for him. Not everyone is cut
out to be prime minister. I think, not with hatred but the opposite, with
much love, that Ehud Olmert failed in the second Lebanon war."

Margalit did not manage, or maybe did not dare, to say this so bluntly to
Olmert's face. "It took me a little time from the moment I reached that
understanding until I wrote about it," he recalls. "In that conversation in
his office my suspicions were confirmed that he cannot carry the Jewish
people in this story. And then I started to write critically and he was
already not talking to me."

The last conversation between them took place on the phone, a few days after
the meeting in Olmert's office. Since then they haven't spoken. Not in the
office, not by phone, not at all. Thirty-five years of friendship were
channeled into an instrument which communicated harsh words between them.
Neither of them raised his voice, neither of them shouted; there was only
mutual disappointment between a veteran politician and a veteran journalist
who had navigated quite a few bumps in the road together, until they ran
into a obstacle that was too great for their friendship: The politician had
become prime minister, and the journalist thinks he's in over his head.

It's a bit hard to understand the dynamics of a decades-long friendship that
collapses in an instant, and Margalit has no intention of shedding light on
the subject. "There was one morning, one conversation," he says briefly,
"after which he didn't call me anymore and I didn't call him, and that's how
it is to this day. Maybe he'll call yet."

'I believed in Ehud'

For years Ehud Olmert has been carrying around a package of alleged
corruption stories, which began with much fanfare and ended - so far, at
least - with one indictment (the fictitious receipts) concerning a case in
which he was acquitted. And for years the first person who leaped to his
defense was Margalit, a very respectable speaker for the defense, given his
near-iconic status and the good name he has developed in the course of his
lengthy journalistic career. Margalit himself has been the subject of
criticism for years, mainly from professional colleagues, but from others as
well, for his close relations with one of the principal subjects of his
coverage as a journalist. Throughout, Margalit has upheld the principle of
full disclosure and told everyone who wanted to listen that if needed, if
and when the time would come, he would ignore the friendship and go with the
truth.

"I admit that when I said that I didn't think I would have to do it," he
admits. "I hoped I would never have to put it to the test of reality, but I
was wrong."

Over the years, when he occasionally addressed stories of alleged corruption
on the part of his pal, Margalit frequently talked about it with a mutual
friend, Dan Meridor, a former justice minister, who to his chagrin became
one of the flash points of the dispute between Olmert and Margalit.

"I think very highly of Dan, his moral attributes, his integrity," Margalit
says. "We always said that all the stories about Ehud arose because he is a
person who draws fire, a person who likes to live well and whom people like
to get angry at, and we always said that there is not a shred of evidence
that he was behaving improperly. I believed in Ehud and I believed him,
particularly because he was often the subject of gossip, but nothing was
ever substantiated."

Margalit's journalistic dealings with corruption goes a long way back, to
1977, when, as the Washington correspondent of Haaretz, he exposed the
existence of an illegal account held in the United States by Leah Rabin,
wife of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had previously been
ambassador to Washington - one of the greatest scoops in the history of
Israeli journalism, if not the greatest. (Margalit proved the account's
existence by simply going to the bank and making a small deposit in it. In
the wake of the report, Rabin resigned as Labor Party leader and was
replaced by Shimon Peres not long before the elections. Peres was defeated
by Menachem Begin, the Likud leader, ending 29 years of Labor rule.)
Margalit then took a break to focus on political-diplomatic writing and went
back to dealing with governmental ethics in the period of Ariel Sharon. The
goings-on at Sharon's Sycamore Ranch, he wrote almost every week, had
corrupted everything; for Margalit, this was the mother of all sins: "True,
there is also a 'grandmother,' the Likud Party Central Committee, but what
went on at Sycamore Ranch is unbelievable. They appointed army people there,
they appointed police officers there, but never mind. I have already written
all that. What I am sure of, though, is that Ehud was not part of that
story."

One doesn't have to believe him, but he doesn't really care. Margalit is
convinced to this day that Olmert had nothing to do with what went on at the
ranch, that no one there asked Olmert for his opinion about anything, or his
views in connection with any public tender. So convinced was he that before
the last elections that he recommended several times to Olmert to announce
that if he were elected, he would appoint Dan Meridor justice minister.
Olmert didn't care for the repeated recommendations, and this is where the
unpleasant conversations began. "He didn't like what he saw as pressure on
my part to appoint Dan as justice minister. It made him very angry. I was of
the opinion that the rule of Kadima is so corrupt, that the legacy of
Sycamore Ranch is so terrible, that it has to be shaken off by appointing
someone like Dan Meridor."

How could you talk about the ranch and about Kadima, but exclude Olmert, who
was a senior partner to it all?

"No. Not to what went on at Sycamore Ranch. He wasn't there when all the
deals were done and all the unacceptable appointments were made. I am
convinced of that."

But just by being where he was, he lent a hand.

"Everyone lent a hand. I am talking about concrete actions. In that he is
completely outside of the story. In any event, the moment he became a
candidate for prime minister, harsh conversations started between us
regarding Meridor."

When did you grasp that this time it was different, that Olmert was part of
the story?

"When he became prime minister and the stories started to multiply, it was
clear that a criminal investigation was needed. These are not things you can
shrug off; they require a police investigation. I personally am very
nostalgic for the other Ehud Olmert, and many times when I'm driving in my
car I say to myself, 'Look, in the end it will turn out to have been from
hyperactivity, because he can't stand officials advising him, he can't bear
to have anyone tell him what to do, and in the end nothing will come of it.
You'll see that it will all be all right. That here he didn't notice and
there he didn't pay heed, and here he ran roughshod, and he has a thing of
[saying] I will decide, I know, I am the best - but in the end nothing will
come of it.' I fantasize that a lot. To this day. Even while I was on the
way here."

But, Margalit continues, "most of the matters that have become topics of
public discussion due to his behavior, from the [purchase of the] house on
Cremieux Street to [the sale of the controlling interest in] Bank Leumi and
the [alleged corruption in the] Tax Authority - these are issues which in
their essence, as far as I can see, as a journalist who has been dealing
with corruption for many years can evaluate, require a thorough
investigation."

Are you referring to the multiplicity of cases that are under
investigation - because there is nothing new in that.

"Absolutely not. I say that even today there is a lot of nonsense in all
this, but most of the things that are surfacing now require investigation
both at the level of the state comptroller and of the police."

When asked on the eve of the last elections by the financial daily Globes
whether he lets Olmert off easy, Margalit replied: "I am personally certain
and convinced that he is personally not corrupt." Asked now whether he is
still convinced of that, he replies: "When people ask me if Ehud is corrupt,
I say I hope he is not corrupt."

'Sons of darkness'

Dan Margalit is incapable of saying straight out that it's possible that
Olmert has broken the law. What he does say, however, is that there is
something rotten in Olmert's government.

"Let's get something clear about corruption. When a government wants to
remove a person like Zelekha, there is something worrisome about the
government's behavior. The very fact that an attempt was made to frame
Borovsky [Yaakov Borovsky, a former senior police officer, who is the state
comptroller's adviser on corruption] - and it's not important whether there
is a case against him or not - the very fact that the ruling authorities
organize to collect material against a person who is engaged in
investigations against the top levels of government, is very grave and sends
a warning signal to those who are fighting corruption. That is what I say to
all those who tell me that there is nothing to worry about, because there is
nothing in the Bank Leumi case.

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"When I saw that the [independent investigative journalist] Yoav Yitzhak
coming up with details and not having it all crash down when he presents it
to the state comptroller; when I see that nothing that Motti Gilat [an
investigative journalist for the mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth]
writes brings about a libel suit in its wake; when I see that one of the
complainants [in the Bank Leumi case, in which Olmert, as finance minister,
allegedly favored a friend of his in the bank's sell-off] is the accountant
general of the State of Israel, not some guy on the street - then what I see
is exactly where the line lies that separates the sons of light from the
sons of darkness."

This is not an easy interview for Margalit. Before it started, he asked that
we be careful, that we be meticulous in editing. "This is the most sensitive
interview of my life," he explains. Whenever the Olmert-corruption equation
arises he has difficulty continuing. His naturally melancholy eyes narrow,
he takes a deep breath, he fidgets uncomfortably. At one point he found it
so difficult to go on that he just had to stop. "Ehud knows many of my most
intimate secrets, and vice versa," he says. "The Ehud Olmert that I formed a
bond with was the one who got up in the Knesset and fiercely attacked the
police for not investigating bribery suspicions against housing minister
Avraham Ofer [who committed suicide during the subsequent police inquiry, in
1977], who did battle against organized crime, who with all his strength
took on 'Gandhi' [nickname of Rehavam Ze'evi, who was at one time suspected
of having ties with underworld kingpins]."

What happened to him?

"He grew older, leads a different way of life, stopped doing battle against
corruption. He changed, certainly he changed."

Many cases have been opened and closed by the police since that period in
the mid-1970s, when the young Knesset member Ehud Olmert and the diplomatic
correspondent Dan Margalit lived on the same street in Jerusalem - Habanai
Street, in the upscale Beit Hakerem neighborhood. They experienced many
milestones in life, both personal and professional, together. The families,
too. They celebrated various occasions together, went out together, shared
meals, visited each other. And there were also moments that were not so
good.

The Olmert family was always surrounded by friends, but above all they were
part of a group that included Ettie and (media executive) Yitzhak Livni,
Shula and Yosef Lapid, Miri and Amnon Dankner and others. Occasionally the
Margalits would join the group for a meal or some other activity. "Once in a
while I tagged along with them," Margalit smiles, "though I never went on
trips abroad with them. When they got together here in Israel I would
sometimes come for a meal, sometimes go to a cafe."

I understand that when Olmert became prime minister there were fewer
gatherings, mainly because of security problems, and if they did take place
they were in his home. Is it wrong to assume that lately you are no longer
part of this group?

"I was removed from the group even before that, by Ehud, and justifiably, I
think. Look, a tense person holding a terribly difficult position - when he
finally gets to socialize, why does he need his best friend there to remind
him constantly of what he did wrong all week? Really, if I were in his
place, I would have kicked me out right away, too."

With how many of the group did you have ties with independently of Olmert?

"Dana [Margalit's wife] and I still have ties with some of them."

Are they critical of you for what you write against Olmert?

"Of course, but that seems to me perfectly natural. We are divided on this,
but [Amnon] Dankner, for example, doesn't try to interfere with my writing
in Maariv, and I believe that's because of our great friendship and because
he believes that my considerations are substantive. Not that I know exactly,
but I'm sure he is under great pressure - to cut a little, to slash a
little, you know. And the fact is that this doesn't happen."

Last Friday, a week after Margalit urged the Winograd Committee, which is
investigating the Lebanon war of 2006, to draw "personal conclusions"
against Olmert, Peretz and Halutz, Dankner, editor-in-chief of Maariv, wrote
an article of rebuttal in the paper's weekly political supplement, where
Margalit's column also appears. "Dan Margalit deserves respect because the
moment he reached his own conclusions about the prime minister he spoke his
truth and preferred it to a close friendship spanning several decades, and
out of a belief that it is proper to prefer the nation and the state over
the longtime friendship, he became one of Olmert's sharpest critics,"
Dankner wrote.

"I, too, have ties of friendship with Olmert ... The fact that we are
divided in this matter, as in others, does not reflect a different attitude
toward friendship on our part, but a change of opinion based on good faith;
but good faith, like justice, must also be seen. And it seems to me that
Margalit was swept by inordinate and unwarranted fervor into putting forward
a denigrating picture of the man he esteemed and loved so much."

What do you think of Dankner's article?

"I was flattered by the friendship Amnon feels for me, and we will resolve
our differences in legitimate arguments ... But I'll tell you something,
because in the end I could come out looking stupid: Ehud Olmert is
tremendously angry at me, he is terribly disappointed in me and thinks I
have gone mad. I'm sure of it. But I'm also sure that even if he thinks I am
despicable - and he thinks that I am despicable - he doesn't think I have
ulterior motives. He knows what both of us lost in this friendship, so there
is no way I can have ulterior motives. I haven't seen him for a long time,
and I really miss him, and would be unwilling to lose all this if I didn't
believe in what I am writing."

Don't you ever get the urge to call the prime minister's wife, Aliza Olmert,
and explain things to her, to try to soften things?

"I don't know, I find that hard."

Do you think this quarrel is reversible?

"I don't want to think about it."

The response to this article from the prime minister's media adviser, Yaakov
Galanti: "Our expectations from Dan Margalit, as from any other journalist -
irrespective of his private opinions and his feelings - is to work according
to journalistic standards and in accordance with the rules of ethics, which
means, among other points, getting the full factual picture and getting
reactions to information he publishes about the prime minister. Beyond this,
we do not intend to comment."

'Ehud's not surprised'

At this point Margalit stopped for a minute, and it was clear that a sharp
shift to a less sensitive subject was in order.

Don't you find it problematic to have dinner with a person that you will
write about in the paper the following day?

"In my opinion there is too much preoccupation with this subject. It's more
important to write about the connection between judges and lawyers, between
doctors and patients - those are the areas in which the connections need to
be probed."

Yes, but who will probe it if not journalists, who are sometimes friends of
the politician whose ties with big capital they are supposed to write about?

"There is a great deal of exaggeration here ... Do you know many journalists
who abandoned a story they knew about just because of personal relations? I
don't. Listen for a minute to what I have to say. In my opinion - and maybe
I am too much of a romantic - deep down in his heart Ehud is not surprised
at my behavior. He knew that if, heaven forbid, this day would come - and,
regrettably, it has come - each of us would position himself on his own
turf."

Margalit says he will never accept the "etrog" concept. [The reference is to
the delicate citron fruit used during Sukkot, and the metaphor first used by
Channel 2 commentator Amnon Abramovich in connection with the media's
attitude toward Ariel Sharon when he was prime minister; Abramovich felt
that because the media supported the disengagement, it ignored the
corruption scandals in which Sharon was allegedly involved.] This
declaration sits well with Margalit's war on corruption, one of the two
major campaigns (the other was in favor of the separation fence) that he has
conducted in recent years. For the same reason he has no regrets at all
about his attempt in his Maariv column to persuade Olmert to appoint Dan
Meridor justice minister, to the point where Olmert, who originally favored
the idea, lashed out at him. "I know all those who are talking about the
fact that I recommend Dan the way I did. And if I hadn't written it as a
direct appeal to Ehud, but rather that 'it would be fitting to appoint a
person like Dan Meridor as justice minister' - would that have been all
right? Would I not have been addressing the prime minister that way, too?
It's a matter of style, you know, of formulation."

Or maybe it's a matter of ego? Maybe you were so entranced with the Dan
Meridor campaign that when Olmert didn't accept your recommendation, you
lashed back at him?

"So how do you explain the fact that we remained super-friends even long
after he didn't appoint Dan? Where are we living? Forget it, it's
ridiculous. So they didn't accept the opinion of a publicist. Fine, they
didn't accept it. It's true that there was anger, but it's all nonsense."

Margalit does not think Olmert is alone when it comes to failure. "I was
friends with [former chief of staff] Dan Halutz, too, and I think he had to
go as well. And also [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz. In Israel's present
situation, a country that is perforce under security tensions and has to
make extremely difficult security decisions, they failed. They lost the
public's confidence. And even if they lost the public's confidence unjustly,
and let's say that history will view them favorably, the very fact that they
lost the public's confidence means that they cannot remain in office. And if
they hold Israel dear, they have to go."

Maybe, in spite of everything, everything is personal here?

"With respect to whatever is connected to me, I am convinced that nothing is
personal. The great American columnists James Reston and George Will are
friends of politicians. What's the matter with that? I repeat: I always knew
that if I would have to make a choice between my truth and between personal
relationships, I would choose the truth. Why don't people look into the
connections between judges and lawyers? Because the supposition is that
judges can rise above the personal connection. If judges can do that, why
can't journalists? Furthermore, regarding the specific matter of Prof.
Friedmann, you should know that I actually respect him very much ... But
after he made his opinion known about the Supreme Court, his appointment
became an act of defiance - and that was what I objected to. Even though
there is personal involvement here, it's not mine."

1,000 calories a day

At the age of 69, Dan Margalit is not only one of the busiest media figures
in the country - he is a one-man multimedia show. He was born in 1938 in Tel
Aviv. His mother was a psychologist and his father a physician, and he never
wanted to be anything other than a journalist. He started out on the
muckraking magazine Haolam Hazeh (now defunct?) and in 1964 moved to
Haaretz, where he spent most of his career. In 1969 he became the paper's
diplomatic correspondent and five years later was given the Washington beat.
It was from there that he filed his biggest scoop, about Leah Rabin's dollar
account, in the wake of which Yitzhak Rabin resigned. When he returned he
became the paper's political correspondent and later a columnist.

In 1991 he moved to Maariv and edited the op-ed page. About a year later he
was appointed the paper's editor, but eight months was enough for him to
understand that the intervention of the publisher, Ofer Nimrodi, was too
much for his taste, and he left. He returned to Haaretz, but in 2001 went
back to Maariv. Since then he has written the column of commentary that
opens the paper's weekly political magazine.

At the same time he has been the anchor of Educational Television's "New
Evening" current events program since its inception in 1982. In 1993, he
became the anchor of the legendary Channel 1 current events program,
"Popolitika." Three years ago he moved to Channel 10, where he is a
political commentator and also host of the current-events program "Council
of Sages." Margalit has been roundly criticized for co-opting former Shas
leader and interior minister Aryeh Deri - who served time in prison on
corruption charges - to the regular panel of his old "Popolitika" buddies
Yosef Lapid and Amnon Dankner, on the "Council of Sages."

"One day, Amnon, Tommy [Lapid] and [producer] Araleh Goldfinger suggested
that we add Deri to the panel. Journalistically I thought that was a good
idea, so I went to [former Supreme Court justice] Dalia Dorner, president of
the Press Council, and asked her what she thought. She said there was no
ethical problem."

Do you need Dalia Dorner to make it kosher? How can you, the great warrior
against corruption, sit next to a convicted criminal?

"I have a triple answer. First, I consulted on the subject in good faith,
and if Dorner says there is no problem with it and the man paid his debt to
society, I can't block him. Second, I also don't want to block him, because
personally I have reservations and am uncomfortable about his conviction.
And third, having said all that, I definitely understand the criticism
against me in this matter and I have to pay [a price] for his being on the
program."

All his professional commitments did not stop Margalit from making a
substantial change in his life, one that does not include Ehud Olmert. About
a year and a half ago, concerned about his health, he took up sports -
"became addicted to sports" would be a more accurate description. For years
he had tried to keep his weight down, and a few years ago, not feeling well,
he went to see Dr. Shlomo Segev, even before Segev gained fame as Ariel
Sharon's physician. It took time until Margalit internalized Segev's
message.

"He didn't nag, but he also didn't let up," Margalit says. "I understood
that I had to lose weight and that sports would help me with that. The
problem is that it's apparently like drugs. You get addicted. So now I do
sports and six times a week I go to the Garage."

Excuse me?

"Ah, that's the name of the gym where I work out."

Someone who works out there, who's about half your age, told me that
sometimes he finds it unpleasant to run with you. After all, a person
pushing 70 who runs and runs. And he won't allow himself to stop before you
do.

"Yes, I am really serious about it, but I didn't get there in one fell
swoop."

Still, most of your life went by without physical activity.

"What can I tell you? I hope that most of my life will be with sports, even
though I think that's not going to happen. I reached a stage where I burn
1,000 calories a day, and sometimes on Shabbat - you know, you have to rest
one day - I want to get on the machine. But I'm also crazy about other
things. I read a lot and I'm a chess freak, too."