23 thoughts on “Olmert: Bibi Squirreled Away $2.75-Billion for Iran Adventure – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. While in office, politicians would be subject (I should think) to agreements with other politicians, such as do-not-disclose agreements. Not laws, mind, merely agreements. Good as long as one remains in office or in joint government. Military officers — in many countries — are subject to “orders” from their superiors including the political leadership. An order not to disclose is an order.

    After you leave office or leave the military, orders are canceled, though secrecy laws likely continue their malign embrace. Or so I should imagine.

  2. I don’t buy Peres’s worrying about trade sanctions, nation-state-level BDS. Although exactly that is my fondest hope, I don’t expect it, and I doubt Peres worries about it. He is flashing it, in any case, to suggest that he-and-his are the statesmen, the realists, and that the others are the fools, the adventurers. I wish him good luck on it, especially if he can persuade “the nations” to confirm his worst fears with BDS-like action.

    However, a dose of realism here: as Ben Gurion is said to have said, roughly, “it doesn’t matter what the gentiles say, it matters only what the Jews do” (implying that it might matter what the gentiles do). And, so far, in 64 years, the gentiles have been content to speak without taking action.

  3. “I do not think there are many people in the world who can say they managed to…create a nuclear option in a small country…”

    Peres must take great pride from sharing this exclusive status with Kim Jong-Il.

  4. If the attack led to an ongoing conflict with Iran, $3bn would barely last a week.

    It’s been a while since anyone fired an Exocet at a large container ship, for example, but the last time this happened (when the Atlantic Conveyor was sunk) the equivalent of Bibi’s war chest was spent all at once.

    $3bn is not enough to fight a war with Iran. It would suffice, however, to start a war which countries other than Israel might have to finish, at murderous cost.

  5. A few points:

    (a) It was no other than Bibi to let out the then secret of having bombed Syria’s nascent nuclear facilty. It had been disclosed to him – by Olmert – in his, Bibi’s, official capacity as head of the opposition. Keeping the op secret was considered of importance, to keep Assad from losing face and thus, maybe, forced into retaliation.

    (b) Peres – as defence minister in Rabin’s first government (’74 to ’77) – was, in practice, one of the sponsors of the religio-nationalist settler movement. He did it by omission. It was under him that the standard of procrastination in removing unapproved – let alone illegal – settlements, allowing them time to gain permanence. Peres, of course, wasn’t doing it for ideology but as a means to undermine his nemesis within the Labour party, prime-minister Rabin.

    (c) Peres, “the nonagenarian”, hasn’t yet turned 90 and by no means is he “verging on political irrelevance”. In Israel, it’s the president’s discretion to choose which member of the house would attempt assembling a cabinet. In Israel’s increasingly fragmented, ever-fluid party system and with Peres’ history of political trickery, I wouldn’t call him “politically irrelevant” before he’s 6 foot under.

    (d) “It is a pleasure to spend time with this man.” As much as I dislike the guy and his character, I must note that I’ve heard similar comments before.

    1. I read that the first major Israeli demonstration on behalf of building settlements was spearheaded by Peres. Either that or he acquiesced to the demands of the settlers & became a political patron of the nascent settler movement before it became imbued with far right nationalist chauvinism.

      1. That is my understanding as well. Peres has always been a fighter for Greater Israel, and has done everything in his power to achieve it, and still does. The charm is his greatest tool.

  6. I HAD to laugh when you rounded off $2.75 Billion to $3-Billion. It reminds me of Sen. Everett Dirksen’s classic retort;
    “a $billion here, a $billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money”

  7. Were Peres in power, what would he actually do toward solving the Palestinian problem, given his history? What solution would he present, what concessions?

    1. Given peres’ history of being the most damaging Israeli political figure in the history of whole damn state – he would give no concession. None. Zilch. Zero. Null.

      He would, of course, wrap that none in a packet of putrid and meandering verbiage as is his wont.

      Damn that man.

      1. I share your loathing of the man. A teenager at the time, I had the privilege of being detained, back in ’74, in one of the earliest demonstrations – the first within the Old City walls – against his pro-settlements policies, him being defence minister at the time.

        Having said that, some credit should be given where credit’s due.

        The early ’90s Oslo based secret negotiations, leading to the Oslo agreements – the nearest Israelis and Palestinians ever got to mutual reconciliation – took place on his personal behalf, him being foreign minister at the time.

        1. Yes, well, ask yourself the actual intent of the Oslo Accords, stalling or agreement? Peres has always played the long game.

          1. Yankel, how about Sharon… where did he take it? I used to think the Israeli side of the Oslo Accords was, at least at one point, sincere; but now I really have my doubts. Yes, Rabin paid the price: but how is it that no subsequent government honoured the accords?

          2. The immediately subsequent government was Bibi’s (thanks, at least partly, to a wave of deadly attacks in Tel-Aviv). Bibi is on record taking great pride of having managed to stop the Oslo process. When Barak came, the peace process was in tatters and his commitment to the cause was far lesser than Peres’s and the late Rabin’s. Then Barak and Arafat brought about a second intifada, Bibi returned and the rest is history.

            When signed, the Oslo Accords culminated honest efforts to bring about a mutually acceptable solution.

  8. Israel has been in chaos ever since Bibi was stopped cold on Iran – and now with the daisies being planted over it with the Hagel nomination

    Israel is just making mistake after mistake now – they are ‘all in’ for Apartheid now, committed to it, with the mask of the looming Iran war having been torn off

    Israel is fixed in place and Apartheid is becoming ripe for the plucking

    Hagel ‘ON’ = Iran ‘OFF’ = Israeli Apartheid ‘OFF’=Israeli Lobby ‘OFF’

  9. Not to mention how much $$$ he made with his oil securities while implementing false brinkmanship to manipulate prices. He should pay for the amount of damage he did to America, Iran, and the rest.

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