Shabbat leaflets: Olmert fans Hizbullah flames
Many Shabbat leaflets distributed in synagogues this past weekend criticize ceasefire deal with Lebanon, claiming Olmert failed in management of war, led to dire outcomes for Israel
The Shabbat leaflets distributed in synagogues across the nation this past weekend criticized Olmert for the ceasefire deal with Lebanon and other outcomes of the recent conflict with Hizbullah.
"Olmert, lacking in political experience and military background, failed in his management of the military, leading to a quick defeat," read one pamphlet by the Judea and Samaria regional council.
"Objectives of the war – disarmament of Hizbullah, an embargo on weapons transfers from Iran and Syria to Lebanon and a return of the kidnapped soldiers – were relinquished by accepting a 'ceasefire' agreement with embarrassing alacrity," the pamphlet elaborated.
"Israel's prime minister, in his weakness and inexperience, ignored the fate of the kidnapped soldiers, implied Israeli concessions of Mount Dov and the Hermon area, improved Hizbullah's political status, and fanned the flames of Nasrallah's spider web theory," it continued.
Failed management - failed objectives
Under the heading 'You must desire victory', the J&S regional council wrote: "This war, which will be investigated and judged by an inquiry committee and by future historians, had the opportunity to be the 'mother of all wars'. We had the opportunity to erase Hizbullah from the map of global terror, to create useful deterrence in the region and to reduce the desire to attack among those who wish to hurt us."
"The failed and problematic management of this war by the political echelon did not allow us to achieve these objectives. Time and blood was wasted on trial and error at the expense of human life."
"Hizbullah outposts and rocket launchers still sit mere miles from the border, Nasrallah is still alive, and government ministers don't stop explaining, with smashing rhetorical claims, why the current situation is a victory," the leaflet continued.
Heads of the regional council criticized Olmert's "hesitant" leadership and declared that: "The limitations of his fictitious morality regarding his military-supporting citizens, the sideways glance to European nations – who click their tongues with each IDF airplane take-off, and the wild disorder of the political echelon's orders to the military all gave the strong impression that Olmert doesn't know that, in a war, you have to 'fight like crazy', not beg every day for people to 'hold you'."
A tired leadership
Chabad's Shabbat leaflet, 'Weekly Conversation', echoed these sentiments. An article entitled 'Misguided approaches that led to failure' discusses the outcomes of the war.
It states that "There has never been a time when the whole world, and in particular the Arab sector, has given Israel the time and opportunity to strike its enemies completely. There has never been a reality in which strong nations in the Muslim world declared that an Israeli war was, actually, part of a global war on terror and threats to world peace. For ages, there has not been such unity among the Israel people regarding a war."
According to the article, "now that the war is over, we can see how many opportunities were missed. The public yelled for an investigation of how this war was handled – from the political decision-making to the military management of the fighting - and rightly so."
"The leadership thought that there was an opportunity to win the war by aerial attacks, as if this were a hi-tech game being played on a computer. Only after we wasted precious weeks and lost our storming effect, they realized that in order to win, we must go in and subdue the enemy in a ground war," it went on.
The article praised the Israeli homefront, in contrast to the leadership. "It is a misguided approach to think that the nation is tired and unwilling to sacrifice. We discovered that the nation is willing to pay a high price, if only its leadership is decisive and acts properly. Reserves soldiers came, of their own accord, to help with the fighting, and residents of the north gave the IDF and the government every opportunity to complete the confrontation."
"The nation is not tired or pampered. This is the same Jewish nation that has unbounded willingness for self-sacrifice. Unfortunately, this nation has a leadership that is tired, as well as a rotten media, and these sources are the ones who evoke bad spirits and weakness and despondency. Perhaps the reckoning that has recently begun will solve the problems at their roots," it concluded.
