Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday that he had no intention of providing maximal protection to all residents of Gaza periphery communities. "A country cannot protect itself ad infinitum, because there would be no end to it."Olmert makes Abbas look strong.
Olmert was addressing the Caesarea Conference.
The prime minister added that stepping up protection would be "just as [ineffective] as the demand to solve Sderot's Kassam problem by wiping Beit Hanun and other towns in Gaza off the face of the earth.
The prime minister appealed to the residents of the Gaza periphery: "In the short term we cannot supply you with all of the personal security that we would like to provide, because such protection would draw from expensive resources that are needed for other critical security needs."
Olmert also addressed the media, asking that they "not encourage, even mutely, demands of citizens that no normal government could accept." He added that "life in Israel entails a certain security risk, and anyone who chooses to live in the Jewish state is accepting this risk." And yet, "the risk in Israel is lower than the risk threatening Jews in other parts of the world."
His straw man argument that since perfect security is impossible, the current level of security must be OK is not worthy of a high school debating team.
His apparent concern of the safety of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza sworn to destroy the Jewish state to be equivalent or superior to his concern about the residents of Israel itself is nothing short of obscene coming from any citizen, let alone the supposed leader of the country.
And his request that the media not take the side of citizens who, because of Olmert's failed policy of disengagement, are now in daily peril is more reminiscent of a Syria than an Israel.