Not delusional

Yesterday's Times of London carried an interesting interview with Prime Minister Olmert. Here Prime Minister Olmert makes several key points that have been lost in the media war against Israel:

Times: [T]here is a sense in the world, and you must be aware of it, of lack of "proportionality". Many people question how after two soldiers kidnapped and eight killed by Hezbollah we are now seeing upwards of 400 dead and rising in Lebanon. How can such an initial incident justify such a huge response from Israel?

Olmert: I think that you are missing a major part. The war started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two but by shooting Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately.

Now we know that for years Hezbollah - assisted by Iran - built an infrastructure of a very significant volume in the south part of Lebanon to be used against Israeli people. The most obvious, simple, way to describe it to the average British person is: can you imagine seven million British citizens sitting for 22 days in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham in Newcastle, in Brighton and in other cities? Twenty two days in shelters because a terrorist organisation was shooting rockets and missiles on their heads? What would have been the British reaction to that? Do you know of a country that would have responded to such a brutal attack on its citizens softer than Israel did? Based on my knowledge of history no country in Europe would have responded in such a restrained manner as Israel did.

I don’t want now to draw comparisons [but] one could ask the question what precisely did the European forces [do] in Kosovo 10 years ago. How many innocent civilians were killed in Kosovo 10 years ago? We can draw on and on these comparisons.

What are we talking about? More than a million Israelis are sitting 22 days in shelters because of the fear of terrorists. In every single case...that we kill an uninvolved civilian in Lebanon, we consider it as a failure for Israel. And you know how many Israelis raise their voices as a result of this? And they don’t have to because we feel that we failed when we killed uninvolved people.

The difference between us and Hezbollah is that when we kill innocent people we consider it a failure, when they kill innocent people they consider it a success.

Tell me, who are they aiming at when they shoot already 2800 rockets on Haifa, Hanariya, Akko, Sefat, Afula and the rest of the places, if not to kill innocent people? So I’m sorry for every individual that was killed that was not involved.

And by the way, how do you really know that 400 innocent civilians were killed? How do you know who is innocent and who is not? Why? This is not an army. They don’t wear uniforms that distinguish them from other civilians. We didn’t attack any of the Christian quarters of Beirut. We didn’t attack any of the Christian residential areas in any part of Lebanon. We attacked only those areas where they had the Katyusha launchers, where they had the missile launchers, where they had the command positions of Hezbollah, where they had the storage houses, the logistic centres and so on and so forth.

So the fact that people were killed there who were not dressed in uniforms doesn’t mean that they were innocent civilians. There were Hezbollah people, they are the terrorists. Did you ever see terrorists dressed with military uniforms like we have in our army? No.

Thanks to reader Michael Yore for bringing this illuminating exchange to our attention.

I agree with Glick that the Israeli Govt. and the US Govt., by way of the State Dept., are playing all the wrong cards: Amateur hour is over

The good news is that Israel has not lost the war. We can win. As the IDF's long awaited ground assault is demonstrating, on a tactical level, the IDF has been able to learn on the go, and learn well.

The bad news is that Israel's national leadership has so far managed to take every political and strategic advantage that Israel has, and turn it into an impediment. Today, assuming Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will let us win, what three weeks ago could have been a rapid victory will now be costly and slow.

[Cont.]

Also from Powerline regarding this article:

Prospects

Last night In "Not delusional" I quoted Prime Minister Olmert during a lucid interval with the Times of London. In her Jerusalem Post column this mornning, Caroline Glick assembles a set of quotes from him that more properly fall under the category of "delusional." I am afraid that Glick's conclusion will serve as a useful guide to the coming days:

As each day passes, Iran's threats and its actions become more and more extreme. Wednesday, the German newspaper Die Welt reported that Iran sent Osama bin Laden's son Sa'ad, who has been living in Iran since November 2001, to the Syrian-Lebanese border to mobilize Palestinian forces in Syria to fight against Israel.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made veiled nuclear threats against Britain, the US and Israel when he said, "Today, the Iranian people is the owner of nuclear technology. Those who want to talk with our people should know what people they are talking to. If some believe they can keep talking to the Iranian people in the language of threats and aggressiveness, they should know that they are making a bitter mistake. If they have not realized this by now, they soon will, but then it will be too late."

This statement was followed Thursday by his address to the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia where he again called for Israel to be annihilated.

THE UNDENIABLE fact is that the nature of the war that Israel is now fighting in Lebanon is not local. It is not about territory. It is about jihad. Hizbullah is not simply a terrorist organization. It is the Iranian army. According to press reports, over the past six years, some 3,000 Hizbullah fighters underwent military training in Iran. Iran and Syria are not simply Hizbullah's patrons. They are active participants in this war against the West in which Israel is a frontline state.

Yet due to Olmert's weak and incompetent leadership and Rice's opportunistic laziness, both the US and Israel are pretending it is possible to see the war as a simple, isolated event. As a result, they are advancing purported solutions, like cease-fires, multinational forces and empty declarations of victory that only increase the dangers.

I think the derogation of Secretary Rice is regrettable; she is executing Bush administration policy for which the president should be credited or criticized. Glick's column -- "Amateur hour is over" -- otherwise seems on the mark to me.

A good interview. Ehud Olmert does know what he is talking about. Israel may have made mistakes in this war but as the Prime Minister pointed out, Israel responded to Hezbollah's rocketing and strafing of her cities. Any other nation would have responded with its full might to such aggression. Israel reacted in an entirely measured way to the assault upon her people. Those who condemn Israel for defending herself are not aware of all the facts. And these do tend to get lost in the fog of war.

(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)

Do you know of a country that would have responded to such a brutal attack on its citizens softer than Israel did? Based on my knowledge of history no country in Europe would have responded in such a restrained manner as Israel did.

Yes, little Ehud, and that is exactly why this has gone on for so long. Had you any testicles and any sense, you'd have sent 50,000 men and 500 tanks over the border 2 or 3 days after this started, and destroyed Hezbollah on the border and in the Bekaa Valley in under a week. Then you'd have gone on to destroy the Syrian armed forces and crippled its economy. The casualties inside of Israel would have been minimal and, more importantly, the Arabs would have re-learned not to F with the Jooooos. Instead, your slow ratcheting up of the heat has shown a singular lack of courage and conviction, has allowed many Hezbollah terrorists to escape and has permitted the terrorists to rain death and destruction down over all of northern Israel. Because of your cowardice and idiocy, more of this is coming in the future. PUTZ!

I sincerely hope and pray that when this thing is over, there's a vote of "no confidence" in you and you government falls, to be replaced by adults who understand and know how to deal with terrorists (like, for instance, Bibi Netanyahu). The day you leave office, I will celebrate the same as I hope to the day that Nazrallah meets his 72 Helen Thomases.

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