Israel’s Former Chief Of Staff Wants Olmert, Peretz To Resign

Jerusalem – Israel’s former chief of staff, Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Yaalon, recently provided his evaluation of the Lebanon War.

“The IDF’s failures during the Lebanon War are not a basic, system-wide problem in the IDF but rather leadership failures that will be solved by a change in personnel,” Yaalon said in a speech at the annual Herzliya Conference of the Interdisciplinary Institute’s Center for Policy and Strategy that was held this week in Israel.

Yaalon used his rare public appearance in order to distance himself from the accusations against him, which hold him partially responsible for the failure of the Lebanon War.

“Military and political conduct during the war were failures,” he said.

In an interview that he gave to Channel Two later on, Yaalon repeated the statements, this time more explicitly. “Olmert and Peretz should resign. They should not wait for the results of the Winograd Committee.”

In his speech, the former chief of staff made fairly pessimistic statements regarding the future of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

“It is obvious to everyone that Hamas is interested in a Palestinian state from the sea to the Jordan River, and according to its beliefs there is no justification for a Jewish state in the region.”

He also had less than encouraging things to say about the tension with Iran. “The war of civilizations between the West and Islam is World War III. If the West wants to live, it has no alternative but conflict with the Iranian regime.”

Israel Defense Minister Amir Peretz also spoke Monday at the Herzliya Conference of the Interdisciplinary Institute’s Center for Policy and Strategy. Peretz promised that, very soon, Israel would choose a technological solution to deal with the threat of Kassam rockets.

“The size of the demonstrations in Sderot will not determine the size of the military operations in the Gaza Strip,” the defense minister said. “We are fighting terrorism, not the Palestinian people.”

Another speaker was Minister Tzipi Livni, who called for the drafting of a “new credo for the State of Israel in the wake of recent events.” Livni commented on political-security matters and social problems and also about the rising corruption, saying, “It is better to fix the system entirely than to close our eyes. We need to write a constitution that will present a supreme goal for the existence of the State of Israel.”

On the diplomatic plane, Livni said, “We must act for the solution of two states for two peoples, yet do so alongside our concern for national security.” Foreign Ministry Director General Aharon Abramowitz added, “Today, there is a clear struggle between the radical axis, of which Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are members, and the moderate axis, which contains the moderate Arab states and Israel. If the international community wants to establish stability and peace, it must stand firmly on the side of Israel and the moderates.”

Iraqis Make Special Trip To Israel Holocaust Museum

Members of an Iraqi organization that intends to memorialize the victims of Saddam Hussein in three museums of the “Iraqi Holocaust” paid secret visits to the Holocaust Museum in Washington and to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

For more than a year, a special team of Iraqi exiles has been recording testimony of citizens who were saved from Saddam’s atrocities. Among the hundreds of accounts that were recorded for the Iraqi memorial museum is the story of Avraham Moshli of Baghdad, an elderly businessman who was arrested and tortured but managed to escape from prison and flee to Europe.

Thirty members of the Iraqi memorial organization met with Jewish film director Steven Spielberg, who documents the stories of Holocaust survivors.

During their visit to Israel a year ago, one of the members of the staff establishing the Iraqi memorial museum even met with families of Iraqis living in Israel.

The director of the Iraqi memorial organization, Dr. Kanan Makiya, is a lecturer at Harvard University and lives alternately in Baghdad and in the United States.

“It is difficult for me to make a comparison between the story of the Iraqi victims and the mass murder Jews in Europe,” Makiya, who came to Israel with two others, told the Israeli media. “But there are many fundamental similarities. Saddam behaved toward some parts of his people as Hitler did toward the Jews. Both cases are tragedies, and there were innocent victims in both cases.”

©The Bulletin 2007