Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Wednesday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should not resign in the wake of a scathing report that censured the government and the army for their poor management of the home front during last summer's war.
"I don't think the prime minister should resign. The government's duty is to fix the failures," she said during a press conference held in Jerusalem with the EU Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana.
Livni speaking to reporters in Jerusalem (Photo: AFP)
State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss said in the report that the government and army failed to take the necessary steps to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians from the threat of rockets fired by Hizbullah during last summer's war.
"I received the report and still need to finish reading it. The government has already taken a series of measures to improve the home front's readiness and the Ministry of Defense has taken the responsibility to handle the issue," Livni said.
"Our duty is to fix the failures. I believe we need to stand together to implement the recommendations. We need to understand that Israel faces threats of a different nature – in the past the home front and the battlefront were separated and today the gap is narrowing. We need to get used to this new reality," Livni added.
Livni's comments stood in sharp contrast to remarks made two months ago when she called on Olmert to resign over his poor handling of the war in the wake of a report about the war's handling by a government-appointed Winograd commission of inquiry.