Eye on the Enemy: Livni opposes Olmert’s agreement with the Palestinians

With a white shirt and tie, maybe to let us know that not everything is black, Yair Lapid came to Eilat for his first political speech. A speech that can be compared to Ehud Barak's "The Old Man in the lobby" speech during the elections of 1999 ("Try to go with your grandmother to the emergency room"), Lapid said. It was important for Lapid to let everyone know that he has opinions and he is not afraid of expressing them.

The audience in the hall applauded three times for the sayings of Lapid who said, "Big businesses shouldn't sleep at night if they have debts, exactly like small businesses."
Lapid's statements largely targeted the haredis, "we have been strangled by various publics that live on our account," adding that "this year crossed the red line: 50% of first grade students were haredi or Arab. If we wait 12 years, the Zionist state will crumble. The Palestinians don't have to fight us, it's enough for them to light up a cigarette and sip a cup of coffee - and the state will crumble by itself.
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Eight questions to Rambo

Haaretz - Yoel Marcus

The magnificent duo, Bibi and Barak, operate like Sylvester Stallone when he played the role of Rambo. Two real men who win in all their movies. Rambo who fought against his powerful enemies, sweats, gets a black eye or two, bleeds, but in the end he wins, to the appropriate background music. Rambo's weakness, at least in his early films, is that he doesn't seem to think ahead, even when he's bleeding after what happened to him. The viewers know that the blood is paint and in the end he'll be victorious.

Unlike a film, where the director decides on the script and happy end, we're living with lots of question marks. While the team that's called a government makes threats as Rambo does, it's not clear if it knows how the Iranian adventure will end. We're not the ones who can stop Iran's nuclear project; all we can do is delay it, at the price of turning "Israel" into a target of Iranian revenge for generations to come.

Iran is endangering world peace, and by the very fact we think we have the power and option to take action against it, we're annoying the world. According to spokespeople for the U.S. administration, we're even endangering the world with our trigger-happy approach, as in a Wild Western movies.
That's why when I read the passionate articles and politicians' battle cries calling to strike Iran, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. With all due respect to our exaggerated self-confidence, we're out of our league here. And it's no coincidence that the former Mossad chief and senior defense officials are warning our leaders against attacking Iran. Some of them are revealing that Iran has 200,000 long-range missiles, not to mention Syria's large arsenal of chemical weapons, which could fall into the hands of Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas.

When we read those figures, it's clear that "Israel" must think twice before taking suicidal steps against Iran. "Israel" is showing a great degree of arrogance; even America couldn't stop the manufacture of nuclear weapons in North Korea, India and Pakistan, regions that are combustible to the whole neighborhood. And America is walking on tiptoe when it comes to Iran, whose lethal influence in the regions of oil and extremist Islam is liable to undermine world peace.

Before Netanyahu and Barak lead us to an irreversible military operation, the cabinet must ask questions that receive plain answers before each member votes.

1. Are we capable of stopping Iran's nuclear program entirely, as we did in Iraq by bombing the nuclear reactor before it was completed? And can we do it even though Iran learned its lesson from that operation and has dispersed its facilities deep inside rocky ground all over the country, and even the Pentagon has announced that none of its bombs penetrate so deep?

2. Is it possible that the attack will only delay the development of the bomb and lead us into a long war with Iran?

3. Are we prepared to have Jewish organizations and "Israeli" embassies all over the world become revenge targets (as in Argentina)?

4. Do we understand the significance of having dozens of missiles launched daily on Tel Aviv by Iran and its allies, which will empty the city, end tourism and spark a flight from the country?

5. Is the government aware of the global worldwide economic damage that would be caused by a unilateral "Israeli" operation and the reaction by an insane Iran?

6. What price is "Israel" ready to pay in its relations with the United States after an attack without U.S. consent or coordination?

7. How are we going to deal with the U.S. accusations, for dragging it in a war with Iran and damaged Obama's economic recovery plan?

8. Until the final screw is turned in the Iranian bomb, not only "Israel" but the entire free world is in danger. If we want to be part of the sane and free world, we must strive to reach an agreement as soon as possible with the Palestinians, in coordination with the United States and Europe.

An attack on insane Iran is out of our league and could prove a tragedy for generations to come.

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Livni opposes Olmert's agreement with the Palestinians

Haaretz

"Israeli" Opposition Leader, Tzipi Livni said she opposed former prime minister's proposal, Ehud Olmert, for an "Israeli"-Palestinian agreement, as she criticized PM Netanyahu for halting negotiations with Palestinians.

In an interview with Haaretz, Livni said, "I was opposed to two things in Olmert's proposal: that the decision on the future of Jerusalem would be referred to a committee composed of three Arabs, one "Israeli" and one American, and of course the return of refugees." "I'm very firm on the issue of the refugees. As far as I'm concerned, refugees don't enter the State of "Israel". Not even one.

The agreement to bring back a certain number of refugees was a historic mistake that Ehud Barak began and Olmert continued," she added. Livni, who was the foreign minister during Olmert's term and headed the "Israeli" delegation to conduct talk with her Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurei, stated that "I convinced the world that the refugees would not enter "Israel" in this way: I told them that just as "Israel" as a Jewish state absorbed refugees after the Holocaust, in the same way the Palestinian state is the national solution for the entire Palestinian people, including the refugees. That's how I in effect convinced the world, not only Condi [Rice] and [U.S. President George W.] Bush, but also [French President Nicholas] Sarkozy, [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel and the Italians."

Livni stressed that Abbas is "a partner" and he wants to reach an agreement regarding the conflict, adding that "Israel" has failed in recent years during Netanyahu's term to reach an accord with the Palestinians, " I am sure that an agreement is possible, if not, then we have at least tried to do it in a peaceful way."