Olmert is continuing his running series of "let me say something stupider." His first entry: "Israel is glad the US is occupying Iraq and bringing stability" was hard to beat. His second entry: "Iran can't be allowed to become a nuclear power like Israel" was also a classic.
His newest entry: "If the Palestinians do not accept a two state solution, they will win a struggle like that against South Africa"
"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.
I think the series must be over. There is nothing stupider a sitting Israeli prime minister can say than this.
All three statements were true. The problem is that all three statements are things that critics of Zionism should say, that supporters of Zionism should be able to challenge their opponents to prove without an admission from Israel's elected Prime Minister.
This is nothing like the thousand plus Lebanese civilians and hundreds of Israeli soldiers who died for no Israeli strategic advantage, or the hundreds killed or maimed by cluster bombs Israel rained on Lebanon to Israel's strategic disadvantage (every explosion makes Hezbollah more powerful in Lebanon). But these statements are bad enough that anyone thinking of a career in politics should know to avoid these mistakes.
Olmert is a very bad Israeli prime minister. I can't explain how a person with his lack of talent came to power because he is not a relative of a previous prime minister. Sometimes even countries with competitive political systems get bad leaders.
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