Ehud Olmert: A political time line
From Knesset member to Jerusalem mayor to prime minister, Ehud Olmert\’s political life
From Knesset member to Jerusalem mayor to prime minister, Ehud Olmert\’s political life
Despite renewed international pressure on Israel and Syria to restart peace talks, people are not very excited by the prospects.
Little noticed among the vast media coverage of the latest Middle East crisis were a couple of dispatches by journalists highlighting the actions of an admittedly few women in Israel.
There may be no greater test of the United Nations\’ vaunted neutrality than to be a Palestinian staffer of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip or West Bank.
You have to judge politicians, especially those running for prime minister, without sentiment. And if they\’ve changed direction, you have to give more weight to what they\’ve done lately than what they did before. Unless the candidate is a truly malevolent character, you have to judge him or her on two things: leadership ability and political direction. And on that basis, I think Olmert is better suited to be prime minister than anybody else around.
Olmert was one of the chief architects of Sharon\’s main foreign policy achievement — last summer\’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank. When Sharon broke away last November from his ruling Likud Party to form a new centrist party, Kadima, Olmert was one of the first to follow him.
With Palestinian terror groups generally committed to a lull in the fighting with Israel and Arab countries debating normalizing ties with the Jewish state, some in Israel see signs that the 57-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict finally may be winding down.
I thought about the implications: I take this tie, and my hands are tied. I\’d forever have to remember that one night a Palestinian gave me an expensive tie, and that he was nice to me. I\’d have to question all my stereotypes and generalizations, and recognize that there are good, normal, generous Palestinians who just want peace, who just want to be my friend, who just want some fun.
I have tried explaining it to friends outside Los Angeles. But the Los Angles Times of Sunday, Aug. 3, cannot be explained in words alone. One must have held the paper in hand to appreciate what appeared that day.
\”Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life\” (Miramax, 2003), the autobiography of Noor Al Hussein, Queen of Jordan, has been on The New York Times Best-Seller List for six weeks now.