I misunderstood Ehud Olmert

I misunderstood Ehud Olmert.  I thought his unexpected bout of honesty and clarity a month and a half ago regarding the Palestinians also extended to Iran, due to an overly-generous reading of this other comment he made at the time:

"Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself."

And so when I saw this recent statement of his...:

"Iran has not stopped its pursuit of regional hegemony and creating chaos in this tormented region." he continued. "We must unite our forces as part of the international community, led by the United States of America. We must confront Iran's malevolent diligence and thwart it with great force."

...I thought, what a jarring contradiction!  But there's really none at all.  In the first comment, all he meant by "megalomania" was that he felt it was overreaching for Israelis to talk about attacking Iran alone; after all, some long-range refueling support would really make things simpler.  So in the second comment he makes it clear that Israel should let the United States take the lead in combating this nonexistent threat.

Reading the NYT's explanatory text for the original quote (which was much earlier in the article) made his meaning a little clearer, and I did recognize the potential double meaning when I first read it, but I suppose I assumed the thrust of the story was Olmert's startling ascent into sanity—and so I lumped his remark about Iran in with what he was saying about the Occupied Territories.  I apologize for overestimating him; it won't happen again.

And, uh..."malevolent diligence"?  Now there's a left-handed compliment.  I hope it catches on, though, because I'd rather hear about Iran's "nefarious meticulousness" or maybe its "naughty assiduousness" than hysterical (and dangerous) conflation of Ahmadinejad and Hitler.

Comments

[KDelphi]

Gawd...I look at these links...how absurd!

Do you know where I can see/read a copy of Obama's AIPAC speech? Thanks.

I am pretty sick, so I may not check it for a couple of days. Just an old injury re-curring...

[Donald Johnson]

This is an illustration of a political "law" that I'm not clever enough to name, but it goes something like this--beware of mainstream political figures who seem to be saying something sensibly radical. There's usually less there than meets the eye, and if you praise them too much, you'll inevitably find that they are used to marginalize genuinely pro-peace positions because "Even the radical Olmert thinks Iran should be bombed."

Okay, that requires a lot of condensing so it can become one of those pithy one line summaries that stick in people's heads. But you see this over and over again. The NYT is regarded as a leftwing rag, when it helped cheerlead for the Iraq war, along with the leaders of the "liberal" Democratic Party. We ought to get out of Iraq, because we're spending billions a month and they have 70 billion dollars in the bank. I just saw that last in a local paper, citing a pro-peace Democratic Party appartachik (and this is supposed to be a pro-peace attitude, where we appeal to the age-old American suspicion that those dirty foreigners are trying to cheat us after all we've done for them).

[John Caruso]

I just linked to Obama's AIPAC speeches for the past two years, so I have them handy: 2007 and 2008.

Donald: Yeah, praise is best avoided. In looking at my posting from back then I actually took a cheap shot at Olmert over the Iran thing, so now instead of feeling a little shoddy over that I can bask in joy. His statements about the Occupied Territories were still pretty unheard of for a high Israeli official, though.

[Donald Johnson]

Off-topic, but if you haven't seen this, as a Naderite you'll appreciate it--

Link

[KDelphi]

Thanks for the links! Lieberman....

Are his speeches at AIPAC what he meant by "change"??

[John Caruso]

Donald: Naderite? Man, you've got an unerring ability to home in on my election-related peeves.

Anyway, thanks for the link—good to see the natives getting at least a little bit restless. Not that it'll make any difference in future elections, of course. Personally I don't think much of the Lieberman brouhaha...it's just Obama trying to keep a Democratic majority in the Senate, and it's not like Lieberman is that far from most Democrats anyway.

[Donald Johnson]

Not sure why "Naderite" is a bad term--I called myself that when I supported him in 2000. But anyway, if you enjoyed the previous link here's another--

Link

This one is about the apparent center-right leanings of Obama's foreign policy team so far, based on who seems to be in contention. Is this supposed to be a surprise?

[John Caruso]

Yeah, I knew you meant no harm. I usually hear it in disparaging contexts, though, where it's meant to have a connotation like "Moonie" or "Scientologist". I don't like it because it implies that the person just mindlessly backs Nader (in all instances) rather than making a conscious choice—which is exactly backwards, since third-party voters are nearly the only ones who actually do make a choice in presidential elections.

It's at least encouraging that some disillusionment is setting in so early. Apparently it really is a surprise for a lot of people out there to find out that Obama was just glad-handing them. That's why I'm happy the Democrats scored their trifecta, because now there'll be no (reasonable) excuse as to why they didn't govern the way people want them to.