Yes, I know I said something nice about PM Olmert yesterday. But now I need to make up for it. Here is what he told the Israeli Newspaper Yediot Aharonot yesterday:
Israel won last summer’s war with Hizbullah despite a hailstorm of criticism by the Israeli public of the army’s poor performance, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Ynet in a special Passover interview.
“I say we had positive results in Lebanon, we had big achievements, we won this war and we were also exposed to some weaknesses,” the prime minister said. “I think that eventually this will be the historical judgment, and I will get credit for that.” — Ehud Olmert (YNet)
But he should know better:
Mossad Chief Meir Dagan and Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin arrived at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem shortly after the war…[and told him that] the war was a national catastrophe and Israel suffered a critical blow.” — YNet
Olmert actually said in another interview that not only did Israel win, but everything went exactly as he had planned:
So, from the outset, the ambition was not to take over a territory or to cross the area. The strategy was to establish pressure that would create the involvement of international forces to force the army of Lebanon to take over the South. That was the purpose of the war. Look at the statement I made on the 17th of July, and the cabinet announcement of the 19th of July. From the beginning, we were not interested in the typical knock-out kind of victory which doesn’t exist when you fight against terrorists. [The aim] was the arrangement that had to be approved by the Lebanese government, and to be drafted and phrased properly by the United States and the members of the Security Council. And that’s what we did. — Jerusalem Post
Right.
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