Is Olmert doing “bad” to do “good”? Time will tell.

Is it evidence of the “arabization” of Israeli politics? Perhaps. But corruption and accomplishments as strange political bedfellows certainly isn’t restricted to the Middle East. It may, as Robert Penn Warren pondered, just go with the territory of being a politician who must acquire influence in order to accomplish change.

What you wrote here is a good example of what we might call “the Arabization” of Israeli political culture. Ever since the creation of Israel 60 years ago, Arab rulers have excused their failures to reform, democratize and end corruption by claiming that doing those things would allow the “nefarious Zionist entity” to infiltrate and subvert their societies by manipulating the democratic process for their own evil purposes. Israel’s leaders, both Right and Left are doing something similar…. justifying their claim that their supporters should overlook their corrupt and anti-democratic behavior because there are “bigger issues” at stake. As you yourself state, it is more important for you that Olmert knock down settlements than be honest and efficient (even though no Leftist government has ever knocked down a single settlement, only the “pro-settlement, Right-wing Likud” has ever done that.). Right-wing leaders did the same (particularly Sharon in his earlier “Right-wing” incarnation) telling his supporters to ignore his corrupt practices (which went way back) because he was building settlements.
This shows why, when we look at the bottom line, that it is NOT in the particularist interests of the ruling cliques in both Israel AND the Arab countries to end the Israeli-Arab conflict. They are all making a lot out of it. It is a wonderful to distract their people. If it ever were to end, their populations might decide to take a closer look at what their leaders are really doing and they will see how their leaders have been robbing them for years and then demand real changes at the top.

(1) To bring about the removal of a politician in office- a good example was the removal of Rabin as Prime Minister and head of the Labor Party in 1977. Someone else wanted the job. Another was the removal of Ezer Weizman as President in 2000. Someone else wanted his job as well.

(2) To keep the politician on a short leash. The best example was Ariel Sharon. A couple of days after it was announced that he was being investigated, he announced he would destroy Gush Katif, in direct contradiction to his election promises. TV political commentator Amnon Abramovitch then made his famous comment that said “as long as Sharon is doing what we want (i.e. destroying Gush Katif), he must be protected like an etrog”. And sure enough, Attorney General Mazuz dropped the charges against him.
I suspect that the investigations against Olmert are of the same type, and they are working out well for people who agree with your political views. See how he suddenly announced he is willing to give up the Golan, how he is willing to give up national security in the prisoner exchange deals, see how he is willing to have Palestinian police rearmed after we saw in the past how these arms were turned against us. Olmert has gotten the message and is accelerating the concessions he is willing to make.
As you yourself said, you are quite willing to tolerate corruption in a politician as long as he does what you want. As long as most Israeli think like this, corruption will continue. Sure, the things that have been exposed in Olmert’s case will be avoided by politicians in the future, but they will always find new ways to get around the law.