Distant signals from Olmert's conscience?
Might Israeli Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert have a conscience after all? There was a small indication that the answer to that question might be "yes" in yesterday's special Knesset session (convened on the demand of some forty MK's) to discuss the Winograd Committee Report: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the Knesset Monday, in his first speech since the Winograd Committee released its harsh findings on his handling of the Second Lebanon War. It was not his words, however, that shook the Knesset, but rather the painful pause when relatives of soldiers killed in the campaign interrupted his words with tearful accusations.Is it real? Or like Hillary Clinton's tears, is it an act? I believe it's an act. When he really finds a conscience, Olmert will beg the country for forgiveness and resign in the disgrace. But in the meantime - unfortunately - he's just another crooked lawyer with no morals and no values. Come to think of it, that's a lot like the Clintons too.
Olmert had just told the plenum that the decisions made during the war were "inevitable and realistic," when Eliphaz Baeloha, whose 21-year-old son Nadav was killed on July 20, 2006, stood up and yelled, "You are not my prime minister! I renounce my citizenship."
"As a resident of Carmiel and a father who lost his son during the war, I am sickened with this country and its leadership," Baeloha told The Jerusalem Post. "How could Olmert dare to stand and say what he did? What right does he have to lead us?"
Baeloha's words led the other bereaved family members in attendance to rise from their seats and address the prime minister as well. Mirta Szajbrum, whose son Yaniv, 24, was killed during the final week of the war, was heard yelling above all the rest, "My son died during the war! Where were your sons?"
Baeloha was removed by security guards, and the rest of the bereaved families left their seats in the upper gallery.
MKs Arye Eldad and Uri Ariel, both of the National Union-National Religious Party, also left the plenum; they all joined a protest in the nearby Wohl Rose Garden led by reserve soldiers and members of the Bereaved Families Forum.
In the plenum, Olmert took several moments to recover and appeared visibly shaken.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:54 AM
2 Comments:
Olmert, you can do exactly one positive thing for Israel, for which you will be remembered.
You can go.
Now.
Without delay.
Leave.
Carl - Ehud Olmert is two things: a very skillful politician and a crooked lawyer. But he doesn't have the ability to summon the country as a leader and he's forgotten the reason for being in office isn't to just mark time snd that's no way to be remembered.
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