Yid With Lid » Jerusalem Post

Is Olmert Losing Control of His Govt?

Steven Foley — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:59:00 +0000

Remember when Ronald Regan ran for President of the US. He won the country over when, during a debate, he looked straight into the camera and asked “are you better off than you were four years ago ?” Many pundants truly believe it was that honest question that elected him President.

When Echud Olmert took over as Prime Minister last year many Israelis were very hopeful, that he would be able to make their lives better. Israel’s standing in the world was riding a wave of good feeling. The economy especially the tech sector was booming. And by electing a middle of the road candidate the country was hopeful of good times ahead. Unfortunately the result has been quite the opposite.

This past summer he lead Israel into a war that he did not have the guts to finish. Both he and his defense minister have no military experience but they refuse to listen to their military men. Olmert’s lack of leadership and indecisiveness has given the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah the renewed confidence in Israel’s vulnerability. Hezbollah continues to rearm right under his nose; Hamas is sending rockets into the Negev with reckless abandon. The world sees a leaderless Israel and is doing its best to push the nation into a one-sided “peace” deal.

Now it seems that things are getting even worse, Olmert is loosing control of his government. They are acting without authority and fighting amongst each other.

His Foreign Minister decided to publicly undercut the UN Ambassador in public, his crime? Telling the truth about France.

On Shabbos his newest cabinet minister, Avigdor Lieberman, decides that he is foreign minister by announcing that Israel should ignore Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, wipe out the Hamas leadership and walk away from the U.S.-backed ‘roadmap’ peace plan

Yesterday his Defense Minister Mr. Peretz, decided to stop being the country’ s number one advocate AGAINST tzedaka and also try on the Foreign Ministry portfolio. He picked up the phone to shoot the breeze with Palestinian President Abbas.

The JPost reported today that:

Members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee called on Monday for the resignation of Defense Minster Amir Peretz. The demand followed Sunday’s telephone conversation between Peretz and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in which the defense minister urged Abbas to exercise his authority and do everything possible to stop Kassam rocket attacks against Israel.
Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin said that Peretz’s “flame had died,” and that he never tried any new tactics.
Beilin also called for the government to disband. “On Saturday, one of [Olmert's] ministers says that we must eliminate the Hamas leadership and that Abbas is no longer relevant, and on Monday a different minister says that he spoke to the PA chairman and requested a cease-fire. There is no policy and no methodology.”
MK Danny Naveh (Likud) reacted cynically to the Peretz-Abbas conversation, saying that the meeting should be cut short since “any minute, Peretz will get a phone call from Abbas.” He added that Israel’s security was disintegrating and that Hamas and Hizbullah were getting stronger.
Naveh’s fellow Likud MK, Yuval Steinitz, said that Peretz should have resigned long ago with the rest of the government. “Instead of proposing solutions he is pleading with Abbas,” he said. Steinitz called on the IDF to embark on an operation similar to Operation Defensive Shield.
MK Effi Eitam (NU-NRP) turned to Peretz during the meeting and exclaimed: “You and the chief of staff must resign immediately! You are both preventing the IDF from renewing itself.” He went on say that the IDF soldiers had lost their faith in the two “because of the Second Lebanon War and your lack of ability in dealing with Kassam rocket attacks.”

To be honest, I think that the Knesset members got it wrong. They should be calling on PM Olmert to resign and end his ineffectual leadership that has put Israel in so much danger. I bet if he resigns we can arrange for him and his family a free trip to Eilat.

Updated : Will this Shabbos Be Extra "Gut" ?

Steven Foley — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:37:00 +0000

According the Jerusalem Post, Mahmoud Abbas might be preparing a little Shabbos present for Hamas—a coup (see Is Mahmoud Abbas planning a coup on Saturday?) The two factions have been battling for power ever since Hamas won the last election. The real question is what will be the result of the impending civil war ? In other words,”is it good for the Jews”?

Let me suggest that whatever the outcome, it will not be good for Israel. If Hamas is victorious, Europe will go back to its traditional path of supporting Palestinian Terrorist leaders. Russia has already announced that Hamas should not be ignored. Look for Europe to once again demonstrate its lack of backbone and eopen the floodgates of aid. Of course this will be done without the quid pro quo of renouncing terror or recognizing Israel. They did it with Arafat; they will do it with Hamas.

A Fatah victory may be even worse. Abbas has been able to cloak himself in the guise of a moderate despite not making one move toward ending terrorism. Stewart Ain of the Jewish Week conducted an interviewv with Yuval Steinitz, former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In the interview Steinitz told Ain that he does not understand why the West is treating Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas differently than the way it treated his predecessor, Yasir Arafat.

Actually, there is not much difference between the two, Both of them could speak here and there against terrorism and in favor of a diplomatic settlement, but both were totally reluctant to fight terrorism on the ground or to make even a minimal effort to fight it.

In a sense, [Abbas] is even worse than Arafat because he enabled Hamas to participate in parliamentary elections and to join the government, which is a clear violation of the Oslo accords, he said. Arafat never invited Hamas to share power in the government (read the whole article here).

Should Fatah end up victorious, Not only will the dollars start flowing back into the terrorist weapons caches, but the world community will go back to pressuring Israel to make greater concessions, without even a hint of peacemaking from the other side. If you think this week’s visit from Mr Solina of the EU was bad, You Aint seen nothing Yet!

So will it be an EXTRA” Gut Shabbos”? I am not really sure; a Palestinian civil war is bound to happen, if not this Shabbos, maybe next, or the one after that. Either way, the parties will engage each other on the battlefield very soon. Unfortunately, it is the way they do business.

It was reported this week that Israeli and Diaspora Jews are beginning to feel like separate communities. That has to end now. The only way we can ensure that a war between two Palestinian terrorists groups will be “good for the Jews” is to remain united as a people in our support for our homeland. Especially in the face of what will be ever mounting pressure for her to make unreasonable concessions. And as a community all branches of our faith must unite and pray for G-d to protect and preserve his gift to us, Eretz Yisroel. And maybe while HaShem is at it, he can give the “western world” a little backbone to stand up to those who would harm innocents in Israel, Gaza and the entire world. Only then will it be an EXTRA “Gut Shabbos”

Quote of the Day

To lighten things up a litte, I had planned to post my favorite Parsha Noach Midrash today (the one written by Reb Bill Cosby). But as I was wandering through the blogisphere, I noticed that many of my friends who write Jewish blogs already posted the famous routine. So rather than be redundant, I decided to post a line from the musical soundtrack of the musical 1776, which I was listening to as I drove in to work this morning.

These words were spoken by the fictionalized John Adams, our second president, but they could have been spoken by any American today, almost 250 years later:

I have become confinced that one useless man is a Shame, Two useless men a Law Firm, Three or more—A Congress
I do believe you’ve laid a curse on North America
A curse that we now here rehearse in Philadelphia
A second flood, a simple famine
Plagues of locusts everywhere
Or a cataclysmic earthquake
I’d accept with some despair
But, no, you sent us Congress.
Good G-d, sir, was that fair?

John Adams From the Play 1776

Do You Remember Where We Parked the Tank?

Steven Foley — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:19:00 +0000

This is scary !!! According the Jerusalem Post one of its reporters were able to climb into a fully stocked IDF Armored vehicle left in the middle of a deserted field near the Gaza border. And it was the second time this week that a reporter found an abandoned armed vehicle. Granted reporters are supposed to be good at sneaking into places, but so are terrorists. Hey Olmert, how bout remembering where you parked the tank !

IDF armored vehicles left unguarded on Gaza border
Anshel Pfeffer, THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 20, 2006
Full story at Http://www.jpost.com

A Jerusalem Post reporter was able to climb into one of 17 armored fighting vehicles left unguarded barely half a kilometer from a Gaza suburb and half that distance from the border fence – with ammunition and various other military equipment inside – start the engine and move it a few meters without being interrupted on Thursday.

……This is the second such case reported by the media this week. On Monday, Channel 10 showed two AFVs that were left untended near Tel Faher, on the road leading up to the Golan Heights.

This case, however, is much more serious, due to the large number of vehicles abandoned so close to Gaza at a time the IDF units is operating there.

Egyptian police: 200 crates of weapons intercepted en route to Gaza

Three Bedouin were arrested early Friday trying to smuggle nearly 200 crates of automatic weapons and ammunition from Egypt into Gaza, police said Egyptian police seized the weapons on a truck in the village of Ballouza, some 100 kilometers (65 miles) east of the Egypt-Gaza border. (AP)

I Know where they can find a tank to store those weapons in.

CNN complains that Israel Makes it hard for Arab Americans to Visit Territories

From Ynet News (http://www.ynetnews.com )

CNN reports senior US officials claim State Department has complained to Israeli government about its ‘discriminatory treatment of Arab-Americans traveling to the Palestinian territories’; ‘They basically treat them as second-class citizens,’ one official says

CNN reported that senior US officials said Thursday that the State Department has complained to the Israeli government about its ‘discriminatory treatment of Arab-Americans traveling to the Palestinian territories.’ CNN quoted the officials as saying that despite a longstanding policy of issuing visas to Americans traveling to the West Bank and Gaza,

the Israeli government has recently denied Palestinian-Americans and certain other Americans entry. According to the report, the officials said that during her recent trip to Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, adding that US diplomats have also recently complained to the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

“They are being treated as Arabs and not Americans,” one senior official was quoted by CNN as saying. “They basically treat them as second-class citizens.”

I don’t know what they are complaining about…They won’t let Jews up to the Temple Mount to pray.