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Olmert: Palestinians didn't have courage for peace
Outgoing prime minister concludes his government's term, stressing its work in fields of education, welfare and security, and slamming moderate Palestinian leadership
Roni Sofer
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
opened Sunday's cabinet meeting, which may be his government's last, by elaborating on what he views as its successful operations. In a relatively rare remark, he strongly attacked the moderate Palestinian leadership.
"The fact that we have failed to reach a peace agreement so far is only because of the Palestinian leadership's weakness and lack of courage to reach an agreement," he said.
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| Olmert: No peace without dividing Jerusalem / Roni Sofer |
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Significant part of Jerusalem must be turned over to Palestinians, be used as their future capital, Olmert says Friday; prime minister praises Rabin's, Barak's peace efforts, says concessions are inevitable |
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Olmert said at the start of the meeting, "This government made three main issues its banner: Education, welfare and security. In the education field we adopted the New Horizon reform, which allows both teachers and students to enjoy many more school hours, personal attention, encouragement of excellence and help to slower pupils. Alongside the reform, the government also began to physically improve the education system.
"In the welfare field we made many efforts so as not to harm the needy populations and ensured that the required cuts would not affect them. In many cases we even increased the governmental aid and granted it to many people who were not entitled to it up to now, like the Holocaust survivors
and elderly people living under the poverty, as well as children in risk," the prime minister added.
Olmert said he would "not elaborate" on the security issue, but went on to state that "there were two military moves of common knowledge. The one in the north ended with an unprecedented achievement: A state of calm in the north, no firing, people living comfortably, the north flourishing.
"We exerted a successful and important effort in the south but it has yet to be completed. I hope it will be completed. It has yet to reach the full maturity of the accomplishments we expected, but we have reach extremely significant achievements and returned the IDF's strength and the State of Israel's power of deterrence to international awareness."
Olmert more than hinted to what is considered his greatest security-related achievements – the bombing
of the nuclear facility in Syria:
"There were numerous great, important and critical activities for the sake of the State of Israel in the security area. I have no plans to elaborate, provide details or extend the information beyond what is published now and then by the local press and mainly by the foreign press."
He also mentioned the "precedent decision" on the defense establishment's perennial budget, following the Brodet Committee’s recommendations. "For the first time in years, the defense establishment will operate in a planned manner in terms of its budget years ahead."
The prime minister went on to eulogize Jewish American donor William Davidson, who died Saturday.
He concluded by saying, "Looking at the government's basic guidelines, what we managed to do to implement them and the variety of issues this government dealt with and the far-reaching changes it made, I believe we are allowed to feel somewhat proud and satisfied."
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