Sharansky Assails Fumbling Olmert

Jerry Gordon at Israpundit:

Today, I heard from one of the few in Israel’s Knesset with any moral clarity, renown international human rights icon and former Likud cabinet member, Natan Sharansky.

The occasion was a conference call convened by One Jerusalem and host Allen Roth with several bloggers, among them ‘Atlas Shrugs, ‘Boker Tov, Boulder,’ ‘Right Wing News,’ and me representing ‘Israpundit.’

We were granted an unprecedented opportunity to ask questions and hear a response from M.K. Sharansky. Who despite his leave taking from the incapacitated Sharon’s cabinet in 2005 over last August’s Gaza unilateral disengagement is nevertheless a member of Knesset security committees. So, he is privy to much of the IDF war plans and security cabinet debates and decisions and what lies behind them. Because of his book ‘The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror,’ cowritten with Ron Dermer and laudatory comments from President Bush and his visits in Washington, he also presumably has the ear of key decisionmakers in the Bush Administration and the Congress.

Sharansky repeatedly described the Olmert government as ‘hesitant, tentative, unsure’ in its decision-making when as he graphically pointed ‘two million live in bomb shelters’ every night. The impression that Sharansky lent during the call is that virtually all of the population want this war prosecuted and fast and is behind the IDF to do it.