Posted on 08/24/2006 4:23:37 AM PDT by unionblue83
“We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies. We want them to be our friends, our partners, our good neighbors, and I believe that this is not impossible.”
* * *
“The best defense is a good offense, not a fence. The best way to deal with terrorists is to arrest them or kill them in their beds. . . . what we are doing is leaving a legacy for the next generation that will [have to] deal with Palestinians who believe that terrorism pays, that Israel cuts and runs under pressure. . . . we must stop getting used to these constant missile attacks as if they are rain. . . . I do not see any prospect for peace and reconciliation on the Palestinian side. I needed no sophisticated intelligence to reach this conclusion; I only had to look at their textbooks, posters and so on.”
The first quotation is, of course, from a speech by Ehud Olmert, now Israeli prime minister, to New York’s Israel Policy Forum on June 9, 2005. The second quotation is from a speech by former IDF chief of staff Moshe Yaalon to Manhattan’s Lincoln Square Synagogue on May 8, 2006.
Although Olmert did not behave as a pacifist in the Second Lebanon War, he did show either an aversion to winning or a bungling inability to reach that result. Instead, the outcome of a month of hostilities that took the lives of 150 Israelis is that Hezbollah is already retrenching itself in southern Lebanon under constant resupply from its patrons while the UN fiddles, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
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Olmert says he's tired of fighting, winning, and defeating his enemies. Being a soldier in the trenches - covered in mud, coughing from the dust, fighting off the enemy as they shoot at you - can be very unpleasant indeed.
Being herded into the gas chambers is a whole lot more unpleasant.
"To that acute description Yaalon added the insight that 'Our enemies draw encouragement from Israeli self-doubt. The greatest challenge facing the State of Israel, therefore, is to restore to Israeli society its faith in the righteousness of its path.'"
I pray that America does the same. The core of our own self-doubt is caused by the same kind of intellectually vapid hand-wringers who have managed to lead Israel to this sorry state of affairs.
there is talk in Israel of a Netanyahu/PM, Yaalon/Defense Minister duo.
Really? Odd, since you didn't win and you didn't defeat anyone. The only thing you did was wimp out to the UN. Quitting while you were ahead did nothing but hand over the future of Israel to the now more powerful Hezbollah.
It is astonishing that Israel is the last (latest, anyway) to make the shift. One would think that she would have been the first, considering her proximity to empires of hate.
Now that is a 1-2 punch combination.
I have to say that I'm not too surprised. Saddened yes, but not surprised. The government of Israel (with a few notable exceptions) has been pretty solidly leftist. Let's hope and pray that they make a solid turn to the right this time around.
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( No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
Olmert needs to resign and retire to a kibbuz/moshav where the only thing he'll have to concern himself with is tomato hornworms on the tomato crop.
A Netanyahu/Ya'alon combo or Ya'alon P.M. would do wonders.
That quote was taken from an Olmert speech last year, before he became PM, so it probably was little noted at the time. Nonetheless, the opposition should have used it against Olmert during the last election campaign - if they knew about it.
I agree that he wimped out to the UN and hope that he pays the political price ASAP.
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