Is that you, Mr. Olmert?

Is that you, Mr. Olmert?

Op-ed: The former PM who led Israel into disastrous war has nerve to say he doesn’t trust Netanyahu


Hanoch Daum

We see a man who was disgracefully dismissed from the post of Israel’s prime minister, because he was deeply embroiled in corruption and bribery affairs. Notwithstanding a miracle, this man will be the first prime minister in Israel’s history who will find himself behind bars.

Yet this man stands up and starts to preach.

Indeed, the audience is booing him, and others are surprised to see a former prime minister speaking out against his own state while abroad, but this does not bother this man. I don’t trust Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make the right decision on the issue of a war with Iran, he says.

And we are standing there, shocked and wide-mouthed, and wonder: Is that you, Mr. Olmert? Is that you, the same man from the Wynograd Report? The man who according to the Report embarked on war with an ill-prepared army, without an exit strategy, without any strategy in fact? The same man who failed to manage this war in a sane manner?

Is that you, Mr. Olmert, the man who took the puzzling and tragic decision (which merited a special chapter in the Report) to order a large ground force deep into Lebanon after a date for a ceasefire was already agreed on – a decision that brought many more Israeli families into the circle of bereavement?

Do you, the prime minister who led Israel into the most disasterous war that we have known in the past 100 years, have the right to explain to us who you trust and who you don’t?

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4227542,00.html