On nonsense and ridicule – Ezra Klein talking to Ehud Olmert in NYT:

‘I’ve said that the strategy of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich is not just fighting Hamas in order to try and eradicate the military power as a result of what they accomplished, which was terrible. This is far broader. After 20 months of fighting, after eliminating almost all of their leadership — Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Deif, Muhammad Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh — and all the commanders — high-level and medium-level and low-level commanders — all were eliminated. The launchers were destroyed. The rockets were destroyed. The command positions were destroyed. So to say that Gaza now poses a security for the existence of the state of Israel is nonsense. The only possible interpretation is the one you offer: They want to get rid of all the Gazans, and this is only part of the strategy.’

(…)

‘Hundreds of ballistic missiles with 1,000-kilo warheads were shot at Israel, and 95 percent of them were intercepted, with the assistance of America and Great Britain and France but largely because of us. So to say that there is an imminent danger to the very existence of Israel from a few thousand terrorists is ridiculous.’

(…)

‘I believe the majority is on my side — on the side of those who understand that we have to compromise because there is no alternative for compromise but endless war and endless fighting and endless bloodshed and endless killing and endless losing of our children and no horizon for the future. This is the deeper confrontation we have now in our society. And this is, in a way, as I called it — it is a war on the soul of Israel.’

(…)

‘I have a partner from the Palestinian side, a former foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, Dr. Nasser al-Qudwa, U.N. ambassador and the nephew of Arafat. We are campaigning together. We issued a joint statement about two states and so on. And we met many of the leaders of Europe, almost all of the foreign ministers in Europe. And President Macron has been a traditional friend of Israel. The French Army took part in the defense of the state of Israel just a few months ago when the Iranians were attacking us with ballistic missiles. So are the British. To say that they are antisemites or that they are now collaborating with terror is obnoxious. It’s outrageous.’

(…)

‘So yes, look, it’s very hard for the Israelis to overcome, in generations, the obsession of being the victims of hatred. We so much fell in love with the status of being the underdog, the victim of hatred, of antisemitism, of discrimination, of segregation, of whatever — that we fall into this in every possible occasion that we have. And it’s so easy for so many among us to say: OK, what do they want from us? Don’t we have a right to defend ourselves after what they did on the 7th of October? So now we are defending ourselves. But when we defend ourselves, they hate us. and they attack us, and they riot against us and whatnot.’

(…)

‘I’ll tell you what: I think the opposite. I believe that a Palestinian state will be the best partner to the state of Israel, out of all the Arab countries. They are smart, they are capable, they are dynamic, and they are ambitious. We know them, and they know us. They know us better than the Egyptians, better than Jordanians, better than the Emiratis or the Saudis. They know us because they live with us.
But of course, it will become possible only if the agreement will be an expression of an open mind and open heart and good will on both sides, rather than something that comes with force and with violence and with humiliation and with deprivation of rights.
When I started to negotiate with Abu Mazen 18 years ago, at the beginning I made every possible effort to make him feel that we are equals. I always thought that building a personal human, emotional rapport is enormously important if you want to negotiate with someone and you want to win him, and if you want to convince him that you mean well, you have to mean well.’

Read the article here.

‘We so much fell in love with the status of being the underdog, the victim of hatred.’

Yes, absolutely.

There are many other people who fell in love with this. But that’s not an excuse.

Eva Illouz, calls this the poison of victim culture.

Fait enough that the time Olmert spent in prison has not been mentioned.

No mentioning also of Israel attacking Iran. Is the attack upcoming or not? An Iran-Israel war will push Gaza to the side with all dire consequences for the Palestinians living there.