Exclusive: Ehud Olmert tells The Independent that the ‘arrogance’ of his successor led to catastrophic security failures that allowed the bloody Hamas attack and that continuing an untenable military mission while hostages are still being held would be ‘absolutely unforgivable’

A former prime minister of Israel has accused Benjamin Netanyahu of needlessly prolonging the Gaza offensive and blocking the path to peace while kidnapped hostages are left to die.

In a scathing condemnation, Ehud Olmert charged that Mr Netanyahu’s “arrogance” and “manipulation” had led to catastrophic security failures, allowing the Hamas attack which triggered the current conflict.

He also warned that right-wing “messianics and extremists” brought into Israel’s governing coalition by the prime minister, are blocking the vital need for a settlement and have plans to cleanse Palestinians from their vision of a “Greater Israel”.

Mr Olmert’s strident criticism came as Mr Netanyahu snubbed the latest international attempt at a ceasefire, declaring that the war will continue until complete victory. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, left his fifth visit to the Middle East in the last four months with relations between the Israeli government and Washington reportedly at their worst since the conflict began.

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  • Hyperreality
    25•8 months ago
    1. I like that you included an archive link and media bias fact check link OP. Obviously, the latter isn’t without controversy, but it’s better than nothing.
    2. It’s important that criticism is coming from a former Israeli PM and Biden. I know there are a lot of the people who are very critical of both or likely don’t think they’re going far enough, but because the former is Israeli and the latter has been vocal in his support of Israel, it’s far harder for Israel’s far right government and their supporters to discount that criticism. This is far more damaging than any protest march could be, especially if those participating in that martch have always been critical of Israel or can be painted as making excuses for Hamas or Iran.
    • TWeaKEnglish
      3•8 months ago

      The archive link was to archive.today, though, which while they’re generally better than archive.org at circumventing paywalls they’re quite dodgy and poison DNS from Cloudfire and Quad9.