Olmert. A failed leader
Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO
Olmert’s shameful choice
Instead of opting to go on vacation in Sderot area, PM takes easy route
Ehud Olmert
is a busy man, and certainly deserves a break from the harsh realities of being a prime minister in Israel. Unlike US President Bush, no one can accuse our PM of spending too much of his time on holiday.
This Passover holiday, Olmert chose to head north for his annual vacation and will spend several days on the Golan Heights with his wife and close friends, like hundreds of thousands of other Israelis.
However, Olmert is no regular Israeli, and the prime minister's vacation entails an outrageous message that should not be ignored: He could have opted for a vacation in the rocket-battered western Negev, a region that has been facing a daily security threat and a struggling economy for the last seven years– but chose not to do it.
By prompting his family and friends to opt for a retreat in the vicinity of Sderot, the prime minister could have sent a strong, loud and clear message of support for the area and its residents, and boost its vanishing tourism industry.
By heading south, instead of north, Olmert could have at least attempted to alleviate the difficult feeling among western Negev residents who sense that decision-makers have forgotten all about them, that the government has abandoned them, and that those who have the region's fate in their hands simply don’t care.
Cowardly and hypocritical
Olmert could have also used the opportunity to convey a message to those firing the Qassams from Gaza, showing them that Israelis will stand their ground and that the rocket terror will not deter them from carrying on with life despite the security challenges.Instead, our prime minister chose the easier, certainly less intimidating path of going north.
Olmert may say that the security services' instructions prevented him from visiting the area, where tens of thousands of ordinary Israelis go through their daily routine, attend school, work, and raise their families. However, in the absence of a government decision to declare the Negev a war zone or grant its residents the required protection this definition entails, such argument would be both cowardly and hypocritical.
Indeed, since he took office in 2006, Israel’s prime minister has rarely visited a region in his own country that has suffered tremendously and that is in dire need of moral as well as financial support.
By failing to serve as an example and a role model and make a symbolic, and at the same time concrete, gesture of support for Sderot and its neighboring communities, Olmert has once again proven that he is unfit to lead the people of this country.
