Things you can say, once you’ve resigned:
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on Monday that Israel must withdraw from nearly all the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians and that any occupied land it held onto would have to be exchanged for the same quantity of Israeli territory.
He also dismissed as “megalomania” any thought that Israel would or should attack Iran on its own to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, saying the international community and not Israel alone was charged with handling the issue.
Just try to get an American politician to say the same things.
Just try to get an American politician to say the same things.
it sounds like we need to get them to resign first.
Yeah, just try and get them to do that…
L’shanah tovah tikatevu, havarim!
If only rhetorical bravery and holding office weren’t so mutually exclusive there, here, everywhere..
Well that should shake the old warrior Ariel Sharon out of his coma.
A case of too little too late?
Just try to get an American politician to say the same things.
Jimmy Carter
wrote a whole book about it
even made a movie
Oh, he’s really a nice guy, despite everything.
So how will AIPAC and the rest of the Israelofascist lobby spin Olmert into an anti-semite?
How very convenient! While he was in office he aggressively plundered the lands and the lives of Palestinians, destroyed their infrastructure, and collectively punished them for exercising their rights to vote in their own self-interest instead of choosing the leaders that would most benefit Israel. He used a spiderweb-thin pretext to launch a month-long devastating attack on Lebanon that was clearly designed to cripple its civilian infrastructure, and he carpeted southern Lebanon with cluster bomblets – the gift that keeps on killing, especially children.
And now that he has been forced to resign from office in disgrace, he has shed his hawkish ways and become the dove’s dove. And of course, he knows his successor will be an even more rabid despiser of justice and human rights than he was. He is not only a filthy war criminal and a corrupt crook, he is an uber hypocrite.
But then, what else is new?
Want to thank anyone for Olmert’s late honesty, thank his wife, a member of Women in Black and other peace activist groups, and his children, one of whom, a daughter, is out on the streets frequently protesting the human rights injustices condoned by her father, and two sons, who refused to serve in the Israeli military, i.e., to kill Palestinian children in the occupied territories.
Thanks to Booman or Steven B. for giving this piece front page status.
“the human rights injustices condoned by her father“
Don’t you mean perpetrated by her father, Shergald?
That phrase could apply, I suppose.
What’s amazing is that not only did Olmert fail to advance such proposals while he was in office, but he actively pursued policies that knowingly, deliberately, systematically undermined what little basis remains for a two-state settlement of the kind he now advocates. Under his watch settlement expansion continued (and increased dramatically post-Annapolis), the outposts expanded with the complicity and support of the state, construction of the wall continued along a route that by itself makes any two-state settlement an impossibility, clear opportunities for progress with both Hamas and Fatah were rejected in favour of escalating the violence, divisions and violence within the Palestinian polity were deliberately fostered and encouraged, and so on. This is not ancient history either – Olmert was pursuing these policies right up until the moment he left office.
Either the man is a complete charlatan, or the office of Israeli Prime Minister is an extremely weak one. Certainly, the policies Olmert pursued while in office stand diametrically opposed to the sentiment of the above statement.
His statement does nothing to erase his bad deeds, certainly. And to some extent, they seem hypocritical in retrospect. Still, he could have left office saying nothing.
Perhaps he is a conflicted individual or that when in office he had to play politics to remain in office and that meant continuing the occupation/colonization process.
Not the office necessarily, but my impression is that Olmert was a weak prime minister, who was never capable of filling Sharon’s shoes. And may the latter remain sleeping in peace.
I came late to joining booman, (hat tip to Arthur Gilroy for leading me here) and today I am proud to be in your comapny, boo. Too many censor or abuse this issue.
This blog rocks.