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Moving towards war?
Photo: AFP

Will you shut up already?

Israel’s babbling government ministers pushing region to brink of war

When the Netanyahu government was formed – the most overly inflated government in Israel’s history – we heard much criticism about its outrageous number of ministers. Most charges had to do with the wasting of public funds, setting a bad example, indifference, and the stench of political corruption.

 

Yet now it turns out that a much graver danger was lurking in the shadows. All these ministers and deputy ministers simply cannot shut up for a moment. They sit there in a government devoid of vision or momentum - some of them hold ridiculous posts, while others don’t hold any post at all – and in the absence of an objective or work, they try to justify their existences via endless chatter.

 

So we see Yossi Peled being interviewed during a cultural event in Beersheba and predicting another round of fighting in the north this year. Meanwhile, Daniel Hershkowitz boasts of the Mossad’s fine performance during a government session. Ehud Barak tells senior officers that diplomatic impasse will prompt war with Syria. Benjamin Netanyahu boasts at the Caesarea Conference that talks with the Palestinians are expected to renew within weeks, and at the same time also slams Damascus. Finally, Avigdor Lieberman warns Assad that Israel will be toppling his regime.

 

Reckless abandon 

Within the space of one week, this government of chatterboxes, who do too little and talk too much, managed to bring the Mideast to the boiling point. We’ve never seen anything like that before; this is reckless abandon, pure and simple.

 

As far as I know, there is no other government in the world where each member feels free to make statements on diplomatic and security issues. Only in Israel, every deputy minister of nothing is a potential strategic expert. It’s as though an arrogant bunch took its place at the heart of the world’s most volatile region, and now its members are competing with each other on who would dare to hold a burning match as close as possible to the powder keg’s fuse.

 

They deal with the most sensitive issues of life and death, war and peace, yet show no sense of responsibility or sound judgment. They’re only good at talking. Had our neighbors realized how empty of all substance these words are, perhaps they would have refused to get overly excited. Regrettably, they insist on taking seriously the statements of the people who make pretenses of talking on behalf of Israel’s government.

 

It appears there is no point in quoting the timeless advice of Theodore Roosevelt to these glory hounds: “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.05.10, 14:42
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