Olmert: ” … Nothing to offer the Country, … Instead Exploit the Popularity of Kadima’s Comatose Founder …”

Tired of Fighting and Winning, by Evelyn Gordon

Excerpts;

Kadima’s campaign spots, by highlighting Ariel Sharon and billing Ehud Olmert merely as his heir, send an unintentionally revealing message: that Olmert himself has nothing to offer the country, so he must instead exploit the popularity of Kadima’s comatose founder. And an analysis of Olmert’s recent statements confirms this conclusion: He indeed has nothing to offer – except lies, empty promises and evasion of responsibility.

…There is the centerpiece of his platform: a massive unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank in exchange for international recognition of Israel’s self-proclaimed borders. Quite aside from the irony of claiming Sharon’s mantle for this idea – a claim that, given Sharon’s repeated pledges to eschew further unilateral withdrawals, implicitly brands Olmert’s mentor and role model as a liar – it is hard to imagine a wilder fantasy than this.

Perhaps the root of Olmert’s delusional policies can be found in his address last June to the Israel Policy Forum in New York, where he declared: “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 to be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies.”

Unfortunately, an entirely different relationship with one’s enemies is possible only if your enemies share that goal – which even Olmert admits that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority does not. Until then, the only choices are fighting back or being destroyed, winning or losing, defeating one’s enemies or being defeated by them. That is precisely why all Israeli governments pre-Sharon, even those that favored “land for peace,” refused to concede land without receiving a peace treaty in exchange: They understood that until the Arabs were ready to make peace, there was no choice but to continue fighting – and that no Arab government would have any incentive to make peace if it could get the land for free.

But Olmert, unfortunately, appears to have meant exactly what he said. He truly is tired of fighting and winning – so tired that he would rather take refuge in fantasies, even if Israel ends up the loser thereby.