Mazel Tov but.. has Ehud Olmert learnt from the mistakes of 2006?
Reader comment on item: Have Israelis Finally Learned the Strategic Value of Territory?

Submitted by Shishir (United Arab Emirates), Jan 5, 2009 at 13:50

I think it is now common knowledge among most Middle East observers that a fear of possibly anti Semitic(or at least vastly less pro Israel than even Bush 41) Obama administration may have played a role in the timing of the attacks on Gaza. Obama has not made any comment yet which makes us wonder really what exactly does he stand for. My feeling is Obama is a lot like Bill Clinton.As one Arkansas journalist described the latter "he has no set of core principles that he would die for"

Hopefully Ehud would be a much more decisive and effective military leader than he was in 2006, there are some promising signs of this

1)The ground invasion.In the Lebanon war he dilly dallied needlessly and followed the advice of some boneheaded generals after which ended up bombing civilian areas and this cost him dearly the initial ,if clandestine support, the world community had for Israel. A once in a lifetime oppurtunity missed!!The ground invasion of Gaza is crucial and Arabs should be given of taste of the pre Oslo Israel which hopefully the hitherto lame duck Olmert seems to be steering his country towards

2) Egypt.Just yesterday , the nutjobs in the Iranian regime placed a bounty on Hosni Mubarak's head.This is also a wonderful opportunity for Israel and America to ruthlessly exploit the rifts between the Muslim world ,be they sectarian (Shia,Sunni) or ethnic (Arab,non Arab/Iranian)

It was said by the eloquent Abba Eban that Palestians never "miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity". We have also heard the odd claim that Palestinians are the Middle East's Jews.With regard to Abba Eban's comment and the situation presented above let us hope that Israelis are not the Palestinians of the 21st century!!

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